What statement from the story suggest that the old man is about to give up on life? Provide quotes.
During the Spanish Civil War, the first person narrator of Hemingway's short story "Old Man at the Bridge" comes across an old man sitting by the road near where both Republican army and refugees, fleeing the advance of the Fascists, clamor across a bridge to supposed safety. The narrator, from the Spanish Republican army, has come back to mark the advance of the Fascists. In the first paragraph, Hemingway declares that the old man "was too tired to go any further." While it could be that the man would eventually get up and move on, the discussion with the Republican tends to suggest the old man could really go no further and would simply perish on the spot.
He is seventy-six years old and seems dazed and confused, going on about how he had been taking care of the animals when he was told to leave because of incoming artillery. He laments leaving them to die, although he suggests the cat may be able to take care of himself. The Republican tries to reassure him, and he finally gets him to stand up, but the old man "swayed from side to side and then sat down backwards in the dust." Moreover, the old man continues talking to no one in particular, leading the reader to believe he has lost touch with reality. Not able to stay, the Republican leaves the old man, commenting, "the fact that cats know how to look after themselves was all the good luck that old man would ever have."
Hemingway, of course, was the master of leaving out important details and even denying the reader a proper resolution to many of his stories. Thus, we never know what actually happened to the old man but the evidence certainly leans to the fact that he was just another of the more than a half million war-related deaths during the Spanish Civil War.
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