The main character of the story, an American soldier who has been injured, stays in the hospital in Padua and falls in love with his nurse, Luz. The soldier and Luz sit on the roof together at night, and as their love grows, they decide to get married. Because they cannot wed in Italy, they decide to marry in America once he gets a job. After the war ends, he returns home to find it. But Luz is still in Italy. She sends him a letter, in which she says that she is never going to the US, because she is getting married with a corporal, and that their love affair was just a childish thing.

  The story is very short and is written in short sentences. It should reflect the Nick’s state after the events, his attitude to what happened. He’s shocked, he has no words, that’s why the narration is so fast. It makes the reader deep into every sad thing. Certainly it was a great growth for Nick’s personality. Life taught him a very good lesson using tortures of this kind. It seems that thereafter Nick commences to understand that love is a very hurting thing, and maybe it can be even more "wounding” than the most dreadful war on Earth.

   (by 8davids8)

In "A Very Short Story” Ernest Hemingway paints a very vivid picture of the love affair of an ordinary soldier ”he” and an Italian nurse "Luz” during a war; and how they disintegrate after the war, how their relationship ends. "A Very Short Story” is really short in terms of length, it contains a richness as to related events and conflicts. It begins with a stable situation; there is an introduction and this action’s elements are some casually related events; then comes the climax; after this, the action begins to fall.

I think that the story is written with dramatic point of view. The author lets us see Luz and the soldier as we would in real life. the beginning of the story is enough optimistic, 2 persons fell in love, they wanted to get married but then the atmosphere become very dark and hopeless, because it is the story of disintegration. A war affects people terribly, and its losses are not only deaths.

(by Ayayulia)