plik

List of contends

IS YOUTH

.......................................................................................................................... 3

His childhood .................................................................................................................. 3
First job and military service........................................................................................... 3
A farewell to arms:.......................................................................................................... 4

ARIS

.................................................................................................................................. 4

Living in Paris................................................................................................................. 4
Friends and supporters.................................................................................................... 5
The sun also rises:........................................................................................................... 6
Death in the afternoon: ................................................................................................... 7

EST

.......................................................................................................................... 7

Whitehead Street 907....................................................................................................... 7
The old man and the sea:................................................................................................. 7
In the holidays................................................................................................................. 8
The green hills of Africa:................................................................................................. 8
The snows of Kilimanjaro................................................................................................ 8
The short and happy life of Francis Macomber................................................................ 9
Ships ............................................................................................................................... 9
To have and have not: ..................................................................................................... 9
Martha Gellhorn ............................................................................................................. 9
The Spanish civil war .................................................................................................... 10
For whom the bell tolls.................................................................................................. 10
Before the war............................................................................................................... 10

PAIN

.................................................................................................................................. 9

ORLD WAR

II .................................................................................................................... 9

The war in China........................................................................................................... 11
World war II.................................................................................................................. 11

UBA

, V

ENICE AND HIS LAST DAYS

.................................................................................... 11

Mary Welsh ................................................................................................................... 11
Venice ........................................................................................................................... 12
Across the river and into the trees ................................................................................. 12
The Nobel price ............................................................................................................. 12
Ketchum ........................................................................................................................ 12

OURCES

His youth

His childhood

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21

, 1899 in Oak Park. Oak Park is a very

wealthy suburb in the west of Chicago. He is the second out of six children, his older sister’s
name is Marcelline and his younger sister’s names are Ursula, Madelaine and Carol. His
youngest brother was called Leicster. His mother Grace Hemingway, born as Grace Hall, was
feministic and talented in music, so she organised a chorus and her husband cooked. His name
is Eduard Hemingway and he worked as a doctor. He showed his son the beauty of free nature
and taught him how to fish and hunt. In the short story “Fathers and Sons” Hemingway
describes the relation to his father: Hunting this country for quail as his father had taught
him, Nicholas Adams started thinking about his father. When he first thought about him it was
always the eyes. The big frame, the quick movements, the wide shoulders, the hooked hawk
nose, the beard that covered the weak chin, you never thought about – it was always the eyes.
They were protected in his head by the formation of the brows; set deep as though a special
protection had been devised for some very valuable instrument. They saw much farther and
much quicker than the human eye sees and they were the great gift his father had.
And later: Nick was very grateful to him for two things; fishing and shooting. His father was
as sound on those two things as he was unsound on sex, for instance, and Nick was glad that
it had been that way; for some one has to give you your first gun or the opportunity to get it
and use it(...) he loved to fish and to shoot exactly as much as when he first had gone with his
father. It was a passion that had never slackened and he was very grateful to his father for
bringing him to know it.
Ernest Miller Hemingway attented high-school in the Oak Park High, where he graduated as
the best of 150 scholars. In his final exam he had As in all subjects, in History, Chemistry,
English and Latin. As a consequence he got the nickname “Hemingstein”, that he didn’t loose
till he died. In school he wrote for the newspaper and participated in the football, in the cross
country and in the swimming teams, later he took boxing lessons. Furthermore he was
member of the discussion group “ The Burke Club” and he belonged to the rifle association
and to the school orchestra. There he played the cello. He was so impressed by a story by
Richard Harding Davis that as a consequence he decided to become a journalist against the
will of his father and his grandfather. They wanted him to join a university as they and his
sisters did to hold the academic tradition.
After finishing high school he was planning to start work as a journalist at the “Kansas City
Star” after the summer break. His family spent their holidays at Wallon Lake as they did
every summer for Ernest’s whole life.

First job and military service

When he started to work for the Kansas City Star in 1917, his subjects were the police, the
hospital and the station and these topics would influence his whole poetry. Another journalist
there had just returned from France, so Hemingway wanted to get there too, but he wasn’t
taken for the military service because of bad eyes. So he joined the ambulance. On April 30

1918 he left the newspaper after only seven months. The atmosphere there was captured in
the stories “A pursue” and “In our time”.

In May he was sent to Europe. He arrived in Bordeaux and passing Paris he was sent to
Mailand. There they had to help Italy after its defeat in Caporetto. He worked in Schio in the
East of Lake Locarno and after three weeks he chose to help in a kitchen close to the frontline.
He described his work in Italy later in the book “A Farewell to Arms”: In the late summer of
that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the
mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun,
and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the
house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks
of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops, arching
along the road and the dust rising and afterward the road bare and white except for the
leaves............
On July 8

, 1918 he was seriously wounded by a grenade. Although his leg was hurt, he was

able to carry another injured person to the ambulance, later he was awarded two medals, the
“Croce di Guerra” and the “Medaglia d’Argento al Valore”, which was one of the highest
possible medals. But first he had to cure his leg in hospital in Mailand. Later on he will tell
somebody that there had been 227 metall splinters in his leg. In Mailand he fell in love with
the nurse Agnes von Kurowsky, who was seven years older than him. In autumn she was
transferred to Treviso, but they went on writing letters. He returned to the United States in
1919 and they agreed that he should find work and then she would follow him and they would
get married. But before he had found a suitable job, she wrote that she had fallen in love with
an Italian and that she wanted to marry this other man. Hemingway wrote about her in “A
very short story” and in the “A farewell to arms”.

A farewell to arms

Ten years after he had left the frontline and Italy, he treated the war theme in this book. The
main character is Fredric Henry, a young American who works for the ambulance voluntarily.
After being wounded he returns to the front exactly when the Austrians had won the battle at
Caporetto. He is accused of desertion and is to be shot, but he was can flee to Switzerland. In
a hospital he gets to know the English nurse Catherine Barkley and they fall in love. After
fleeing together they enjoy only a short time together. She dies in child-birth. Fredric Henry
has become a symbol for a real man who is defeated several times, in the war and in his love,
but who still goes on and doesn’t give up. Many people of that generation recognised
themselves in the main character. The first edition in 1929 was sold more than 90.000 times.

Paris

Living in Paris

After Ernest Miller Hemingway returned to the United States in February1919, he was
celebrated as a hero. But after receiving the divorce-letter from Agnes von Kurowsky, he got
deeply depressed. He started to quarrel with his mother. He moved to friends in Toronto and
worked for the “Toronto Star” and then for the “Cooperative Commonwealth” in Chicago.
Meanwhile he started to write his short stories.
In Chicago he fell in love with Hadley Richardson. She was eight years older than he and she
was a passionate piano player.
After a couple of months they got married on September 3

, 1921 in a small church in Horton

Bay in Michigan. He was 22 years and she 30 years old. Two months later they moved to
France, hoping that the cultural climate would be more open minded there. The author
Sherwood Andersoon had persuaded them to leave the U.S. and had given them letters of
recommendation to Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Sylvia Beach.

They arrived in Paris on December 21

, 1921, three months after their wedding. They lived in

a small flat, during the days he sat in a small cafe to work or to discuss news. He was an
employee for European news of the Toronto Star. They had enough money to spend their
holidays at the Riviera.  They spend some winters in Vorarlberg to go skiing until 1924,
because it was so cheap. They lived in Hotel Taube in Schruns, drank beer, went skiing and
Ernest wrote the most difficult parts of his books.
In August 1923 the couple lived in Toronto for a short time to have their child “Bumby” be
born there, but they returned after four months to Paris. The full name of this child was John
Hadley Nicanor Hemingway. One of his godparents was Gertrude Stein.
Back in Paris they moved into a better quarter close to Gertrude Stein’s salon and got in
contact with many important artists. Hemingway hoped to have his “Short Stories” published,
but found no editor. Young poets usually gained some reputation by publishing their pieces in
one of the small newspapers. There were some in Paris: The “Little Review”, “Transatlantic
Review” or “This Quarter”. They worked on a little budget and could afford hardly any
wages, but they helped to get known. Before being popular enough to be published, Ernest
wrote a lot of stories for these small newspapers.
As a reporter for the “Toronto Star” he travelled through the whole of Europe. He wrote
articles from Genua, an interview with Benito Mussolini in Mailand, about the Greek-Turkish
war from Istanbul or about a peace conference in Lausanne. We get the impression that he
describes the experiences there not only in his articles but also in his books.
In January 1927 Hadley and Ernest divorced because he fell in love with Pauline Pfeiffer, his
wife’s best friend.

Friends and supporters

Sherwood Anderson: Anderson had persuaded the Hemingways to leave the United States and
to move to Paris. He had given them letters of recommendation to his friends in the cultural
world. There Hemingway was sometimes compared to Sherwood Anderson’s style and so he
once wrote a parody on one of his friend’s pieces. He later tried to excuse this by saying that
he had wanted to improve his friend’s style. Anyway, Anderson was very angry at Ernest.

Josephine Baker: She was a well known dancer in the night clubs. One evening Hemingway
saw her in a club without knowing her and he asked her for a dance. They danced for the
whole evening and only in the end he learned her name.

Gertrude Stein: She also came from the United States and she gave advice to many young
poets and painters. She supported Picasso right from the beginning and also gave some useful
advice to Hemingway. Her house was frequented by all the cultural society of Paris. He even
used to visit her when he was better known than she had ever been.

Sylvia Beach: She had come to Europe as a member of Red Cross as Hemingway did, but she
didn’t return. She founded a meeting point for artist and a book shop called “Shakespeare and
Company”. She helped young poets in publishing their pieces and in paying their bills and she
was a good friend of Ernest Hemingway’s.

Ezra Pound: He was a Professor for romanistic languages and he was a supporter of young
poets. He helped James Joyce to become famous and also Ernest Hemingway. Pound had
some of Hemingway’s texts printed and he found a job for Ernest as a reporter for the
“Transatlantic Review”. Pound later moved to Italy and worked for the radio there, but in
pronouncing slogans against America and against Jews, he lost his good reputation.

James Joyce: He was born in Dublin, came to Paris, returned to Dublin and married Nora
Barnacle. Then he got a job as an English teacher in Triest. Then he came back to Paris and
met Ernest in Sylvia Beach’s bookshop. They became good friends and shared the hobby of
drinking. Hemingway helped him in publishing his book “Ulysses”.

Wyndham Lewis: He came to Paris as a friend of Ezra Pound’s, but in opposite to his teacher
he couldn’t stand Ernest Hemingway. They criticised each other, both wanting to gain
attention of the publishers.

Ford Madox Ford: He was the editor of a newspaper and employed Hemingway. He even
allowed Ernest to take care of the paper while he was away. When Hemingway published
mean critics and a boring story, nobody wanted to buy it any more, so the newspaper had to
close down.

Robert McAlmon: He owned a small publishing house and was wealthy enough to publish
new authors. So he was the first to print a book by Ernest Hemingway, “Three Stories and
Ten Poems” and he was the first important critic to praise Hemingway.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: They didn’t really like each other, but they had a common interest in
litterature. Fitzgerald didn’t hold one liquor well and Hemingway disliked his face. They
shared some friends and met sometimes, but were the complete opposite to each other. One
was rich, but not very disciplined in working, the other was poor, but a hard worker. Scott
Fitzgerald recommended Hemingway at Scribner’s publishing house and they took over “The
sun also rises” in 1926.

Gerald and Sarah Murphy
They were a very rich couple with a lot of important friends and also supporters of modern
art. They knew Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and together they went skiing or
visited the Riviera. They introduced Hemingway in bullfighting and from that time on he
went to Spain every year, where he also met his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer. He learned the
bullfight slang and soon became well known in the Spanish population. The books “The sun
also rises” and “In our time” reflect on these journeys.

In the cafes he got to know some famous artists like Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Matisse,
Braque or Claude Monet and he was fascinated by modern art. He even bought a picture of
Joan Miró, “The farm”, and gave it as a gift to his wife Hadley.

The sun also rises

The book is about the U.S. Journalist Jake Barnes, who was wounded in the war and became
impotent. He frequently meets with some friends in Paris to find out how to live without
problems, but he falls in love with the English Lady Ashley. They stay together although he
cannot satisfy her sexual demands.
Robert John is another character in the book, another American to live in Paris. But he has
never been accepted by local society. The three of them travel together to Spain to see some

bullfighting. After getting to know the torero Romero, Lady Ashley stops her affair with John
and he returns to Paris in madness. She also leaves the torero soon to prevent him from being
spoiled by her. In the end she and Jake come together again.

Death in the afternoon

This book was printed in 1932. The story takes place in Spain and describes the way a
bullfight works, the functions of the single participants, of the torero, the matador, the
picadero or the banderillos. To Hemingway bullfighting is more a sport than a show, a game
with death. For him a torero is a “real” man when he keeps completely cool although he plays
with his life.

Key West

Whitehead Street 907

In the year 1927 Ernest Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer, who was four years older. She
came from a very wealthy family. She had learned journalism in school and was reporting
about fashion for the newspaper “Vogue”, when his first books were printed and he started
gaining some reputation as a poet. She completely changed his way of living: They didn’t ski
in cheap Schruns but in fashionable Gstaad, they hunted lions in Africa. They didn’t spend
time watching bike-competitions any longer, but waiting for fish in Key West, where they had
moved in 1928. Ernest Hemingway wanted to rediscover the United States. Key West is the
island that is situated in the very South of the peninsula of Florida. To get there in those days
they had to get on a ferry boat. The island was inhabited by a couple of poor Spanish
inhabitants and some rich, who had their own ships. It was a perfect place to go fishing,
swimming or diving and Hemingway got very passionate for these new hobbies.
Their first child Patrick was born on the 27

of June 1928 and their second one Gregory on

the 12

of November 1931.

They lived in Key West for twelve years and he wrote most of his successful pieces there:
“Death in the afternoon”, “To have and have not”, “The green hills of Africa”, “The fifth
column”, “For whom the bell tolls” and the two short stories “The snows of Kilimanjaro” and
“The short happy life of Francis Macomber”.
The family bought an old house and renovated it very expensively. They created a wonderful
place, Hemingway called it “the most beautiful piece of land where I have ever been!”. They
invited all their friends and many came. One of them was Max Perkins, the lector of
Hemingway’s books. He proved a very good friend, even when all the newspapers criticised
his work.
The Hemingways also got to know some neighbours, the captain Bra Saunders, who taught
him professional fishing, the docker Jim Sullivan, who became godfather of Hemingway’s
third child, or the alcohol smuggler Joe Russell. They gave him the insight for the book “The
old man and the sea”, which was published far later in 1956:

The old man and the sea

The old man Santiago has been fishing for weeks without success. He has been sailing out
into the sea every day without catching a single fish. After eighty-four unlucky days he drives
far out again. A huge swordfish, longer than his boat, swallows the bait and struggles on the
line. The combat lasts two days and two nights. The fisher man speaks to himself and uses all
his energy and experience to beat the fish which nevertheless pulls the boat further and
further out into the ocean. Finally the fish gives up and dies. Santiago fastens the fish on one

side of the boat and starts his return. But sharks discover the fresh meat and attack. The old
man tries to defend his booty, but arriving in the harbour, there is nothing left but fishbone.
In his true life Hemingway had gone through one very similar situation. He had caught two
tuna, one with 140 kilogram, the other with even more, but they were attacked by sharks. He
used a machine gun to drive them away and so won the fight against nature other than the old
man.

In the holidays

In summer they used to travel to Wyoming to a small ranch to escape from the heat and
danger of thunderstorms in Florida. There they lived in the L-Bar-T-Ranch close to the
Yellowstone National Park. There he wrote “Death in the afternoon”, which I already
mentioned before.
In 1933 Ernest and Pauline Hemingway and Charles Thompson, a friend from Key West, took
a ship to Mombasa in Kenia. In Kenia they hired Philip Percival as a guide. He taught them
how to hunt. Ernest was infected with dysentery. A small aeroplane picked him up to bring
him to Nairobi, where he was soon cured. In his short novel “Snows under Kilimanjaro” one
passage surely refers to this flight: The boys picked up the cot and carried it around the green
tents and down along the rock and out onto the plain and along past the smudges that were
burning brightly now, the grass all consumed, and the wind fanning the fire, to the little
plane. It was difficult getting him in, but once in he lay back the leather seat, and the leg was
stuck straight out to one side of the seat where Compton sat. Compton started the motor and
got in. He waved to Helen and to the boys and, as the clatter moved into the old familiar roar,
they swung around with Compie watching for wart-hog holes and roared, bumping, along the
stretch between the fires and with the last bump rose and he saw them all standing below,
waving, and the camp beside the hill, flattening now, and the plain spreading, clumps of trees,
and the bush flattening, while the game trails ran now smoothly to the dry waterholes, and
there was a new water that he had never known of.
Hemingway returned soon and went on hunting. We find his feelings and impressions about
this Africa trip in his book “The green hills of Africa”.

The green hills of Africa

He published the book in 1935 and it gives us a report of his African hunt in 1933. In thirteen
chapters members of the tour and some local hunters discuss about family, life and literature,
but most of the time they stand up early and hunt. It is an autobiography and mentions many
themes which touch Hemingway’s life, for instance violence, envy, courage and the will to
survive.

The snows of Kilimanjaro

This book was printed in 1936, one year after “The green hills of Africa”. Poet Harry gets ill
because of an injured leg. He didn’t notice before, and so the gangrene was able to spread out.
Waiting for the rescue aeroplane, he keeps talking with his wife. She is sure that the plane will
arrive in time, but he already believes in his death. Close to death he remembers many topics
he had wanted to write about during his life. In the end he mixes up reality and dreams, one of
them describing very realisticly how the plane arrives to take him away. Next morning his
wife will find him dead.

The short and happy life of Francis Macomber

Francis Macomber, a good-natured man, and his wife Margaret make a safari through Africa
seeking adventure. Although their relationship is not all that happy any more, they are still
together. Partly she is too old to find another rich man, and she is too pretty to be left by her
husband. They hire the English guide Wilson and hunt animals. One day they are attacked by
a hurt lion. Francis runs away, but Wilson keeps cool and shoots the animal. Francis' wife is
disappointed by her nervous husband, criticises him and even spends the night with Wilson.
Reacting, the next day Francis suddenly abandons all his fears. When a buffalo runs right his
way, he doesn’t escape, but stands still and aims on the animal with his rifle. Realising that
with his new courage he would leave her soon, Margaret shoots him.

Ships

Hemingway crossed the Atlantic more than thirty times. He enjoyed those big ocean liners.
His first transports over the Atlantic were with the “Chicago” into the First World War and
then back to the United States. This was an army transporter and not very comfortable. Later
he took the “Normandie” and the “Ile-de-France”, and these were big and beautiful ships. In
1934 he got to know Marlene Dietrich on such a trip. Their friendship should last for 27 years.
Coming back from Africa, he bought a boat in Brooklyn docks. He wanted to discover the
world of ocean fishing with his own boat. It was 12 metres long, and had a range of 750
kilometres. He called it “Pilar” after a nickname of Pauline. This boat and the experiences he
made with it led him to the ideas for his books “To have and have not” and “The old man and
the sea”, which I have already mentioned above. Living in Key West he spent some hours
every day on the boat working or fishing. He and his sons sometimes drove out for several
days and he taught them how to handle big fish and how to survive in nature, as he had
learned from his father years before. Later he used the boat as a hideout for love affairs. One
of them was with Jane Mason. She was a very rich and feministic woman and lived in
Havanna. Maybe he had bought the boat in order to be able to visit her more often. They were
in love for about five years, but Pauline didn’t object and Jane’s husband didn’t even notice.
In 1940 Hemingway armed the boat, so he could search for German submarines.

To have and have not

In 1937 he wrote a story about Harry Morgan. Harry Morgan lives in Key West and earns his
money renting a motor yacht to rich fishermen. He is physically handicapped because a
customs investigator once shot his arm. One customer destroys his fishing equipment. Then
he transports illegal immigrants from Cuba to Florida and murders someone. When the
customs office investigates on him smuggling alcoholics, they confiscated his boat. Finally
four Cubans who want to support the revolution in Cuba highjack his boat and shoot his
shipmate. Then they force him to drive his yacht to Cuba. He tries to kill his customers, but he
is hurt deadly in his stomach, too.

Spain

Martha Gellhorn

When the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Pauline Pfeiffer didn’t work so well
any more and when the affair with Jane Mason was over, Hemingway was looking for another

woman. Martha Gellhorn had once come into “Sloppy’s Joe” bar where Hemingway was a
regular customer. They started a relationship, but in 1936 she moved to Germany. She soon
left to Spain to warn the Spanish of Hitler. There she would meet again with Ernest
Hemingway.

The Spanish Civil War

On July 17

, 1936 the Spanish Civil War began. General Franco and the army in Morocco

revolted against the Republican government in Madrid. Franco was supported by Hitler
Germany and Mussolini Italy, while the Soviet Union supported the Spanish government.
Ernst Hemingway was asked to report from this war by the North American Newspaper
Alliance. In February 1937 he left New York to travel to Spain, as he did for many times
during the following two years. He supported the Socialists and collected money for the film
about this war “The Spanish Earth”. It turned out a big success, and with the money he earned
he bought some ambulance cars for Spain.
When the Republicans won the battle of Teruel, he marched into the captured city with the
troops. He followed the troops till only Barcelona and Madrid were in their hands. Then the
newspaper quit their assignment, because the complete victory of Franco was only a matter of
time. He returned in November 1938 together with Marlene Dietrich.

For whom the bell tolls

Two years later he publishes the book about the Civil War. The first sentence is: No man is an
island. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Robert Jordan, who teaches Spanish in the United States, voluntarily joins the Republican
forces in Spain. He receives the order to destroy an important bridge with the help of the
partisans. He spends three days and three nights there. Pablo the leader is a very passionate
socialist. Realising that his party would loose the war, he strives to survive the war by all
means. Then there is his wife Pilar. She believes in the Republic system and holds the group
together. She especially cares for young Maria, who was raped by the fascists after her parents
had been killed.
Jordan and this young girl fall in love, but they both know that it will not last for a long time.
Being surrounded by hostile forces on the land and in the air, they fullfill the order to destroy
the bridge. But Jordan is wounded and cannot escape any more. Waiting for his death, he tries
to help his friends by holding up the followers.

Before the war

When Hemingway’s book “For whom the bell tolls” came out, Second World War had
already started, but Ernest went on with his life as usual.
Martha, he and his three sons moved into the “Finca Vigia” near Havana. It was surrounded
by a swimmingpool, the sea, a tennis court and a big garden. The couple employed seven
servants. They still owned the “Pilar”. Sometimes they drove to Havana to see baseball games
or to attend the “Floridita”, Hemingway’s favourite bar.

World War II

The war in China

In January 1941 the couple travelled to China. She had to write a story for “Collier’s” and he
was to find out about the consequences of the war for U.S. economic interests for the “PM”
newspaper. They travelled around a lot by aeroplane, truck, car, boat or horse and saw the
poor life of the Chinese. They also met a Chinese general. While Martha visited Singapore
and Java, he went back to the United States via Hongkong. In these years their relationship
suffered from Martha not being at home while she reported from many different places in the
world.

World war II

While Martha travelled through Europe, Hemingway helped the U.S.. He organised a spy ring
in Cuba to defend it against German or Japanese spies. He engaged six full-time agents and
more than twenty helpers. This ring observed supporters of Hitler and Franco from 1942 until
1943. Next he converted his boat “Pilar” into a spy boat to follow German submarines in the
golf of Mexico.
But Hemingway wanted to work at the front, too. He was engaged by “Collier’s” as chief
correspondent, instead of his wife. She was angry at him and moved into another hotel. In the
meantime he fell in love with Mary Welsh, a reporter for “Time-magazine”.
Although Hemingway was wounded in a car accident, he flew with aeroplanes and he
watched D-Day from a bomber. His wife Martha even landed with the troops on an
ambulance ship. Hemingway came to France soon after and followed the 22

regiment. This

regiment first arrived in Paris, destroyed the “Siegfried-line” and defended their position
successfully during the German attack in the Ardennes.
Years later he would narrate that arriving in Paris he directly drove to the hotel “Ritz” to drink
something at the bar. In Paris he had always lived in the “Ritz”, there was a kind of
association: Ritz-Paris, Paris-Ritz.
He got wounded during a German attack, and for some days he was governor of Rambouillet.
He questioned prisoners, collected weapons and watched for German positions, but he was
almost sent back to the United States because of his behaviour. He considered the battle of
“Hürtenwald” as the highlight of the war. This battle was so hard that he himself took a
weapon – against the convention of Genf – and shot German soldiers.
They got divorced in 1945 and immediately he tried to convince Mary Welsh to marry him.

Cuba, Venice and his last days

Mary Welsh

Mary Welsh was born in 1908 in Minnesota. She studied journalism at the “Northwestern
University”, but stopped her education to work for “The American Florist”. Later she got a
job for “Daily Express”. During World War II Mary worked for “Time-magazine”. She
married Ernest Hemingway in 1946. Both were passionate hunters, skiers and fishers and
spent days on the “Pilar”. She was able to drink as much as he did, still their lives were
neither quiet nor peaceful. They often quarrelled, he had some other girlfriends, but they
never divorced.

Venice

In 1948 the couple spent their winter in Venice instead of Cortina. They lived in the noble
hotel “Gritti Palace” and visited Venice’s society. That is where Ernest got to know Adriana
Ivancich. She was 18 years old and quite pretty. They dated almost every day in Venice. In
the book “Across the river and into the trees” he uses her character for the main person.
The Hemingways never went to Venice in the summer, because Ernest didn’t like the stones
of Venice in the hot sun.
In 1953 he came to Venice again after a plane accident. In Africa his plane had crashed into
the earth and the rescue machine had also had an accident. Ernest was injured, but fortunately
not seriously. In Venice, after a couple of days, he got dizzy and broke down in a fire. He
received some burns and lost almost all his hair.

Across the river and into the trees

In this short book he describes the last three days in the life of Richard Cantwell, who is a
fifty year old army colonel. He and his driver travel to Venice to hunt ducks and to meet the
very young Renata. Richard spends two days in Venice and on the hunt’s day he dies because
of heart attack, but his driver doesn’t notice.

The Nobel price

On October 28

, 1954 the Swedish academy decided to award the Nobel price to Ernest

Hemingway because of his powerful and modern style and his idealism for male brave and
principles. He didn’t travel to Stockholm himself claiming to be wounded after a plain crash
in Africa, but he wrote a speech to be read by the U.S ambassador John M. Cabot.

Ketchum

After the revolution in Cuba under Fidel Castro Hemingway looked for another place to live.
The government in Cuba was against the United States. In 1959 they moved to Ketchum,
which is situated close to Sun Valley. They bought a small house there. The countryside was
beautiful around the house.
He got old, searched for quarrels and became mentally confused. He tried to commit suicide
several times without success and was sent to a clinic, but even that didn’t help. On July 2

1961, two days after leaving the hospital, he shot himself.

Sources

Kindlers Literatur Lexikon, München 1974
A. E. Hotchner, Hemingway und seine Welt, München 1989
Philip Young, Ernest Hemingway, United States 1952
Ernest Hemingway, A farewell to arms, United States 1995
Ernest Hemingway, The snows of Kilimanjaro, London 1994