the fall of Florence

The fall of Florence is a recurring event in Catch-22 that functions less as a military milestone than as a trigger for Major -- de Coverley's ritualistic apartment-hunting expeditions and as the backdrop for a bizarre injury that links the squadron's most revered figure to the novel's most cynical voice.

Background and Pattern

Each time the fall of a city like Naples, Rome, or Florence seemed imminent, Major -- de Coverley would pack his musette bag, commandeer an airplane and a pilot, and have himself flown away—accomplishing all this without uttering a word, by the sheer force of his solemn, domineering visage and the peremptory gestures of his wrinkled finger. A day or two after the city fell, he would be back with leases on two large and luxurious apartments there, one for the officers and one for the enlisted men, both already staffed with competent, jolly cooks and maids. The fall of Florence follows this established pattern: Major -- de Coverley, under the impression that Florence too had been captured by the Allies, packed his musette bag, commandeered an airplane, and had himself flown to that city to rent two apartments for the officers and the enlisted men in the squadron to use on rest leaves. He had still not returned by the time Yossarian jumped back outside Major Major's office and wondered whom to appeal to next for help.

The Wound and Its Agent

Despite the multiple perils to which Major -- de Coverley exposed himself each time he rented apartments, his only injury occurred, ironically enough, while he was leading the triumphal procession into the open city of Rome, where he was wounded in the eye by a flower fired at him from close range by a seedy, cackling, intoxicated old man, who, like Satan himself, had then bounded up on Major -- de Coverley's car with malicious glee, seized him roughly and contemptuously by his venerable white head and kissed him mockingly on each cheek with a mouth reeking with sour fumes of wine, cheese, and garlic, before dropping back into the joyous celebrating throngs with a hollow, dry, excoriating laugh. Major -- de Coverley, a Spartan in adversity, did not flinch once throughout the whole hideous ordeal. Not until he had returned to Pianosa, his business in Rome completed, did he seek medical attention for his wound. He resolved to remain binocular and specified to Doc Daneeka that his eye patch be transparent so that he could continue pitching horseshoes, kidnaping Italian laborers, and renting apartments with unimpaired vision.

Revelation and Significance

The identity of the assailant is revealed much later, during Nately's debate with the old man in the Roman brothel. When Nately gasps and cries out "Major -- de Coverley!" upon hearing the description, the fiendish old man is unperturbed and admits the act with pride: "I got him in the eye with an American Beauty rose. I thought that was most appropriate." Nately is appalled and bewildered by the abominable old man's inability to perceive the enormity of his offense, shouting at him reproachfully that Major -- de Coverley is a noble and wonderful person and that everyone admires him. The old man dismisses the major as "a silly old fool who really has no right acting like a silly young fool" and asks where he is today, to which Nately answers softly with somber awe that nobody knows—he seems to have disappeared. This exchange crystallizes the thematic opposition between Nately's naive patriotism and the old man's cynical survivalism, and it retroactively charges the fall of Florence with a personal, ironic significance: the city's capture, which should have been a moment of Allied triumph, became the occasion for the wounding of the squadron's most august figure by a man who openly mocks the very ideals for which the war is supposedly fought.