The Complete Short Stories of Emest Hemingway The Finca Vigia Edition Scribner Paperback Fiction Published by Simon @ SchusterSCRIBNER PAPERBACK FICTION Simon @ Schuster Ine, Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and inci- dents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 1987 by Simon @ Schuster Inc, All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. First Scribner Paperback Fiction edition 1998 SCRIBNER PAPERBACK FICTION and design are trademarks of Simon @ Schuster Inc, Manufactured in the United States of America 35379108642 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961, [Short stories} The complete short stories of Ernest Hemingway/ Ernest Hemingway, —Finca Vigta ed. Pp. om. I Title. PS3515E37A15 1991 813'.52-—de20_ 90-2624] cIP ISBN 0-684-84332-3CHAPTER I > syerybody was drunk. The whole battery was drunk going along the road in the We were going to the Champagne. The lieutenant kept riding his horse out the fields and saying to him, ‘I’m drunk, I tell you, mon vieux. Oh, I am used.'’ We went along the road all night in the dark and the adjutant kept up alongside my kitchen and saying, ‘'You must put it out. It is dangerous, will be observed.’’ We were fifty kilometers from the front but the adjutant d about the fire in my kitchen. It was funny going along that road. That when I was a kitchen corporal,Indian Camp AT THE LAKE SHORE THERE WAS AN- T fowboat drawn up. The two Indians stood waiting. ck and his father got in the stern of the boat and the Indians shoved. f and one of them got in to row. Uncle George sat in the stern of the rowboat. The young Indian shoved the camp boat off and got in to ‘choppy strokes. Nick lay back with his father’s arm around him. It yd on the water. The Indian who was rowing them was working ry hard, but the other boat moved further ahead in the mist all the time. ‘Where are we going, Dad?” Nick asked. ver to the Indian camp. There is an Indian lady very sick.”” Ih,” said Nick, cross the bay they found the other boat beached. Uncle George was king a cigar in the dark. The young Indian pulled the boat way up on beach. Uncle George gave both the Indians cigars. . ‘They walked up from the beach through a meadow that was soaking t' with dew, following the young Indian who carried a lantern. Then they went into the woods and followed a trail that led to the logging road ‘that ran back into the hills. It was much lighter on the logging road as the er was cut away on both sides. The young Indian stopped and blew his lantern and they all walked on along the road. They came around a bend and a dog came out barking. Ahead were the lights of the shanties where the Indian bark-pcelers lived. More dogs rushed it-at them. The two Indians sent them back to the shanties. In the shanty ‘arest the road there was a light in the window. An old woman stood the doorway holding a lamp. Inside on a wooden bunk lay a young Indian woman. She had been 67Nick’s father ordered some water to be put on the stove, and while it was heating he spoke to Nick. . “This lady is going to have a baby, Nick,” he said, “I know,” said Nick, “You don’t know,” said his father. “Listen to me. What she is going ” through is called being in labor. The baby wants to be bom and she wants it to be born. All her muscles are trying to get the baby born. That is what is happening when she screams.” “T see,” Nick said. Just then the woman cried out. “Oh, Daddy, can’t you give her something to make her stop screaming?” asked Nick. . “No. I haven’t any anesthetic,” his father said, “But her screams are not important. I don’t hear them because they are not important.” The husband in the upper bunk rolled over against the wall, The woman in the kitchen motioned to the doctor that the water was hot. Nick’s father went into the kitchen and poured about half of the water out of the big kettle into a basin, Into the water left in the kettle he put several things he unwrapped from a handkerchief, : “Those must boil,” he said, and began to scrub his hands in the basin of hot water with a cake of soap he had brought from the camp. Nick watched his father’s hands scrubbing each other with the soap. While his father washed his hands very carefully and thoroughly, he talked, “You see, Nick, babies are supposed to be born head first but sometimes they‘re not. When they’re not they make a lot of trouble for everybody, Maybe I'll have to Operate on this lady. We'll know in a little while.” ~ When he was satisfied with his hands he went in and went to work. “Pull back that quilt, will you, George?” he said. “T’d rather not touch in” Later when he started to operate Uncle George and three Indian men held the woman still. She bit Uncle George on the arm and Uncle George said, “Damn squaw bitch!” and the young Indian who had rowed Uncle George over laughed at him, Nick held the basin for his father. It all took a long time. His father Picked the baby up and slapped it to make it breathe and handed it to the old woman. . “See, it’s a boy, Nick,” he said. Nick said, “All right.” father was doing. “How do you like being an interne?” He was looking away.so as not to see what his 68 INDIAN CAMY. basin. “There. That gets it,” said his father and put something into the bas: ‘o oe a eo in “there's some stitches to put in. You can watch ‘Now,” his r ike. 1 i the incision I made.” i like. I'm going to sew up T vk did Nie teh, als curiosity had been gone for a long an ven a See anished and stood up. Uncle George and the three ns wn A otis am ae young Indian smiled reminiscently. ade Gen ee on that George,” the doctor said. He bent over [ ide on th ent Over Se eat i and her eyes were closed. i she was quiet now ct Ee She ‘tid not know what had become of the baby or : i ing,” the doctor said, standing up. “The nurse Soe ican St Ignace by noon and she'll bring everything we Ou! ” H was feeling exalted and talkative as football players are in the dressing le we l c. we 4 “Doi arian Oe a veone for the medical Journal George, ae onde Casar ia jack-kni sewing it up -foot, ta tt pe wes standing against the war looking at his arm. a ’ eat man, all right,” he said. . st vo in shave a look at the proud father. They’re usually the fore in these little affairs,” the doctor said. “I must say he ferers ed Gock the blanket from the Indian’s head. His hand came ay he mounted on the edge of ne ower bunk with he a P ane ‘ in. The Indian lay wit Hs ‘ee ara eee ct. from ear to ear, The blood had flowed Co he ony here his body sagged the bunk. His head rested on his . en in the blankets. r lay, edge up, in the . a Mra ik ota ‘hat SE eng fn the dooe of the kitchen, f that. Nick, 1 . ‘hada good view athe upper bunk when his father, the lamp in one han ti jan’ back. Fee eang ‘eo be daylight when they walked along the logging wi : back toward the lake. era texioty sorry I brought you along, 7 ost-operative exhilaration gone. “It was an a TO ese P “Do ladies always have such a hard time ving “No, that was very, ve ao “ did he kill himself, Da y , ” meat know, Nick. He couldn’t stand things, T gues: “Do many men kill themselves, Daddy? “Not very many, Ni I 7 ~“Do many women?’ “Hardly ever.” Nickie,” said his father, all his mess to put you through.” ”" Nick asked. 69THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY “Don’t they ever?” “Oh, yes. They do sometimes.” “Daddy?” “Yes.” “Where did Uncle George go?” “He'll turn up all right.” “Is dying hard, Daddy?” “No, I think it’s pretty easy, Nick. It all depends.” They were seated in, the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water, It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning. In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die. 70ills Like White Elephants THE HILLS ACROSS THE VALLEY OF THE ere long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against e of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a , made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into ., to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table » shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from yna.would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two -and went on. to Madrid. Vhat should we drink?” the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and m the table. pretty hot,” the man said. s drink beer.” 9s cervezas,"’ the man said into the curtain. ones?” a woman asked from the doorway. es. Two big ones.” oman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the ‘pads and the beer glasses on the table and looked at the man and the The. girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the \d the country was brown and dry. ey. look like white elephants,” she said. never seen one,” the man drank his beer. ‘ou. wouldn’t have.”” ht have,” the man said. “Just because you say I wouldn’t have prove anything.” . looked at the bead curtain. ‘They've painted something on it,” ‘What does it say?” le] Toro. It’s a drink,” tld we try it?’ 211THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY The man called “Listen” through the curtain. The woman came out fron,” thé bar. “Four reales.” “We want two Anis del Toro.” “With water?” “Do you want it with water?’ “I don’t know,” the girl said. “Is it good with water?” “t's all right.” “You want them with water?” asked the woman. “Yes, with water.” “It tastes like licorice,” the girl said and put the glass down. “That's the way with everything.” “Yes,” said the girl. ‘Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things . you've waited so long for, like absinthe.” “Oh, cut it out.” “You started it,” the girl said. “I was being amused. I was having a fine time.” “Well, let’s try and have a fine time.” “All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn't that bright?” “That was bright.” “I wanted to try this new drink: That's all we do, isn’t it—look at things and try new drinks?” “T guess so.” The girl looked across at the hills, “They're lovely hills,” she said. “They don’t really look like white ele- phants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees.” “Should we have another drink?” “All right.” The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table. “The beer’s nice and cool,” the man said. “It’s lovely,” the girl said. “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s not really an operation at all.” : The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on. “] know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in.” The girl did not say anything. “Yi go with you and I'll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.” “Then what will we do afterward?” “We'll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.” “What makes you think so?” “That's the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.” 212 HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of 'o of the strings of beads. . “and you think then we'll be all right and be happy. “{ know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people i have done it.” . te have I,” said the girl. “And afterward they were all so happy. “well,” the man said, “if you don’t want to you don’t have to. Iwouldn’t ve you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple.” “And you really want to?” ; “y think it’s the Best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you -don’t really want to.” ; ; “And if I do it you'll be happy and things will be like they were and you'll love me?” “J Jove you now. You know I love you.” _ , , “J know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like ite elephants, and you'll like it?” ; “P11 love it. I love it now but I just can’t think about it. You know how get when I worry.” “af T.do it you won't ever worry?” . “| won't worry about that because it’s perfectly simple.’ “Then I'll do it. Because I don’t care about me.” “What do you mean?” don’t care about me.” “Well, I care about you.”” , “Qh, yes. But I don’t care about me. And I'll do it and then everything “{ don’t want you to do it if you feel that way.” ‘he girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the er side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Hbro. Far ay, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved ‘oss the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees. ; “And we could have all this,” she said. “And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.” “What did you say?” “] said we could have everything.” “We can have everything.” “No, we can’t.” “We cam have the whole world.” “No, we can't.” ‘We can go everywhere.” {"No, we can’t. It isn’t ours any more.” “It’s ours.” . “No, it isn’t. And once they take it away, you never get it back. “But they haven’t taken it away.” “We'll wait and see.” 213THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY “Come on back in the shade,” he said. ‘You mustn’t feel that way,” “T don’t feel any way,” the girl said. “I just know things.” “I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to do-——” “Nor that isn’t good for me,” she said. “I know. Could we have another beer?” “All right. But you've got to realize-——" “7 realize,” the girl said. “Can’t we maybe stop talking?” They sat down at the table and the girl looked. across at the hills on the dry side. of the valley and the man looked at her and at the table. “You've got to realize,” he said, “that I don’t want you to do it if-you don’t want to. I’m perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to you.” “Doesn't it mean anything to you? We could get along.” “Of course it does. But I don’t want anybody but you. I don’t want any one else. And I know it’s perfectly simple.’” “Yes, you know it’s perfectly simple.” “It's all right for you to say that, but I do know it.” “Would you do something. for me now?” “I'd do anything for you.” “Would you please please please please please please please stop talk- ing?” He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights. “But I don’t want you to,” he said, “I don’t care anything about it.” “Tl scream,” the girl said. The woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put them down on the damp felt pads. “The train comes in five minutes,” she said. “What did she say?” asked the girl. “That the train is coming in five minutes.” The girl smiled brightly at the woman, to thank her. “Td better take the bags over to the other side of the station,” the man said. She smiled at him. “All right. Then come back and we'll finish the beer.” He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He looked up the tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the barroom, where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him. “Deo you feel better?” he asked. ‘1 feel fine,” she said. “‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.” 214A Canary for One THE TRAIN PASSED VERY QUICKLY A LONG, red stone house with a garden and four thick palm-trees with tables under them in the shade. On the other side was the sea. Then there was a cutting through red stone and clay, and the sea was only occasionally and far below against rocks. “I bought him in Palermo,” the American lady said. ‘‘We only had an hour ashore and it was Sunday morning. The man wanted to be paid in dollars and I gave him a dollar and a half. He really sings very beautifully.” It was very hot in the train and it was very hot in the /it salon com- partment. There was no breeze came through the open window. The Amer- ican lady pulled the window-blind down and there was no more sea, even occasionally. On the other side there was glass, then the corridor, then an open window, and outside the window were dusty trees and an oiled road and flat fields of grapes, with gray-stone hills behind them. There was smoke from many tall chimneys--coming into Marseilles, and the train slowed down and followed one track through many others into the station. The train stayed. twenty-five minutes. in the station at Marseilles and the American lady bought a copy of The Daily Mail and a half-bottle of Evian water. She walked a little way along the station plat- form, but she stayed near the steps of the car because at Cannes, where it stopped for twelve minutes, the train had left with no-signal of departure and she had gotten on only just in time. The American lady was a little deaf and she was afraid that perhaps signals of departure were given and that she did not hear them. The train left the station in Marseilles and there was not only the switch- yards and the factory smoke but, looking back, the town of Marseilles and the harbor with stone hills behind it and the last of the sun on the water. As it was getting dark the train passed a farmhouse burning in a field. Motor-cars were stopped along the road and bedding and things from 258 A CANARY FOR ONE he farmhouse were spread in the field. Many people were watching se burn. After it was dark the train was in Avignon. People got on ‘At the news-stand Frenchmen, returning to Paris, bought that nch papers. On the station platform were negro soldiers. They own uniforms and were tall and their faces shone, close under the i nt, Their faces were very black and they were too tall to stare. left Avignon station with the negroes standing there. A short tt was with them. ee ht salon compartment the porter had pulled down, the three from. inside the wall and prepared them for sleeping. In the night the n lady lay without sleeping because the train was a rapide ani ery fast and she was afraid of the speed in the night. The American d was the one next to the window. The canary from Palermo, a read over his cage, was out of the draft in the corridor that went the compartment wash-room. There was a blue light outside the artment, and all night the train went very fast and the American lady é ited for a wreck. ; ae the train was near Paris, and after the American lady me out from the wash-room, looking very wholesome and middle- ‘and American in spite of not having slept, and had taken the cloth fe birdcage and hung the cage in the sun, she went back to the ant-car for breakfast. When she came pack to the fit salon com- t again, the beds had been pushed back into the wall and made seats, the canary was shaking his feathers in the sunlight that came gh the open window, and the train was much nearer Paris. st fe loves the sun,” the American lady said. “He'll sing now in a little le” is feathers and pecked into them. “T’ve always loved Ee can lady said. "rim taking him home to my little. girl. ’s singing now.” SE canay chirped and the feathers on his throats stood out, then fe ped his bill and pecked into his feathers again. The train crosse ‘ and passed through a very carefully tended forest. The ‘wain passe rough many outside of Paris towns. There were tram-cars in the towns id big advertisements for the Belle Jardiniére and Dubonnet and remo on the walls toward the train, Al! that the train passed through. looked as ough it were before breakfast. For several minutes I had not listened to the, American lady, who was talking to my wife. “Is your husband American too?” asked the lady. “Yes,"’ said my wife. “We're both Americans. “7 thought you were English.” opechage T said. I had started to say “Perhaps that was because I wore braces,” I said. I ha natch suspenders and changed it to braces in the mouth, to keep my ‘e he character. The American lady did not hear. She was really quite deal, s! 259THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY read lips, and Thad not looked toward her. had looked out of the windg She went on talking to my wife. ‘“7'm so glad you're Americans, American men make the best husbands," the American lady was saying. “That was why we left the Continent, you know. My daughter fell in love with a man in Vevey.” She stopped. “Th, were simply madly in love.” She stopped again. “I took her away, of course.” “Did she get over it?” asked my wife. : “I don’t think so,” said the American lady. “She wouldn’t eat anything” and she wouldn't sleep at all. I’ve tried so very hard, but she doesn’t seem, to take an interest in anything. She doesn’t care about things. I couldn't have her marrying a foreigner.’’ She paused. ‘Some one, a very good friend, told me once, ‘No foreigner can make an American girl a good husband,’ ” “No,” said my wife, “I suppose not.” The American lady admired my wife’s travelling-coat, and it turned out that the American lady had bought her own clothes for twenty years now from the same maison de couture in the Rue Saint Honoré. They had her measurements, and a vendeuse who knew her and her tastes picked the dresses out for her and they were sent to America. They came to the post- office near where she lived up-town in New York, and the duty was never exorbitant because they opened the dresses there in the post-office to appraise them and they were always very simple-looking and with no gold lace nor ornaments that would make the dresses look expensive. Before the present vertdeuse, named Thérése, there had been another vendeuse, named Amélie. Altogether there had only been these two in the twenty years. It had always been the same couturier. Prices, however, had gone up. The exchange, though, equalized that. They had her daughter’s meas- ‘urements now too. She was grown up and there was not much chance of their changing now. : The train was now coming into Paris. The fortifications were levelled but grass had not grown. There were many cars standing on tracks—brown wooden restaurant-cars and brown wooden sleeping-cars that would go to Italy at five o’clock that night, if that train still left at five; the cars were marked Paris-Rome, and cars, with seats on the roofs, that went back and forth to the suburbs with, at certain hours, people in all the seats and on the roofs, if that were the way it were-still done, and passing were the white walls and many windows of houses. Nothing had eaten any break- fast. “Americans make the best husbands,” the American lady said to my wife. I was getting down the bags. “American men are the only men in the world to marry.” “How long ago did you leave Vevey?” asked my wife. “Two years ago this fall. It’s her, you know, that I’m taking the canary to.” “Was the man your daughter was in love with a Swiss?” 260 A CANARY FOR ONE ican “ d family in the American lady. “fle was from a very g00 es going to be an engineer. ‘They met there in Vevey. They walks together.” . 0 vey.” said my wife. “We were there on our honeymoon. you really? That must have been lovely. I had no idea, of course, 4 fall in love with him.” 4 ‘ : lovely place,” said my wile. ; Sid the american lady. “Isn’t it lovely? Where did you stop he Trois C wife stayed at the Trois Couronnes, said my . ; ch a fine old hotel,” said the American lady. * said my wife. “We had avery fine room and in the fall the country ely.” ve e you there in the fall? ere passing three cars that had been in a wreck. They were splin- en and the roofs sagged in. “ k,’" 1 said. “There's been a wre ; ‘American Jady looked and saw the last car. “T was afraid of just that t,”” she'said. “I have terrific presentiments about things sometimes. ver travel on a rapide again at night. There must be other comfortable that don’t go so fast.” fs the train ‘vas in the dark of the Gare de Lyons, and then stopped to the windows. I handed bags through the windows, ‘we were out on the dim longness of the platform, and the American put herself in charge of one of three men from Cook's who said: “Just ment, madame, and I'll look for your name:” orter brought a truck and piled on the baggage, and my wife said y and I said good-by to the American lady, whose name had been tind by the man from Cook's on a typewritten page in a sheaf of type- ‘written pages which he replaced in his pocket. We followed the porter with the truck down the Jong cement platform beside the train. At the end was a gate and a man took the tickets. ‘We were returning to Paris to set up separate residences. 261