Wu Ting
How would you interpret this sentence? How would you interpret this sentence ‘I sent for them to Mestre’ in the second to last passage? I think the phrase ‘send for’ means order here, right? What makes me confused is the latter part of the sentence ‘to Mestre’. According to the Wikipedia, it’s a city in Italy. So I guess the man had ordered those papers from Mestre. What do you think? Thanks. It’s from A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (Chapter 11).the context: "I brought you a few little things," he said. He picked up the packages. "This is mosquito netting. This is a bottle of vermouth. You like vermouth? These are English papers." "Please open them." He was pleased and undid them. I held the mosquito netting in my hands. The vermouth he held up for me to see and then put it on the floor beside the bed. I held up one of the sheaf of English papers. I could read the headlines by turning it so the half-light from the window was on it. It was The News of the World. "The others are illustrated," he said. "It will be a great happiness to read them. Where did you get them?" "I sent for them to Mestre. I will have more." "You were very good to come, father. Will you drink a glass of vermouth?"
May 17, 2016 8:37 AM
Answers · 4
Yes, Mestre is a town near Venice, not too far from where the action takes place. The priest arranged for them to be sent from this town.
May 17, 2016
Yes, send for, in this case, means he asked for/ordered them (he 'sent' a message to ask for them), so like you said, he requested them from Mestre. The use of 'to' in the sentence is strange though, if I were writing that sentence, I would write 'I sent for them, from Mesre'. But it does make sense.
May 17, 2016
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