No Need

"How much is this?"

"Fifty lire. It is very cheap."

"All right. I want two extra clips and a box of cartridges."

She brought them from under the counter.

"Have you any need for a sword?" she asked. "I have some used swords very cheap."

"I'm going to the front," I said.

"Oh yes, then you won't need a sword," she said.


--Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, 1929

Cuba - Fidel, Che, Hemingway

“There’s a strange secular trinity in Cuba: Fidel is the Holy Father, Che is the martyred son, and Hemingway is the mysterious but powerful Holy Ghost.”

--David Lansing, “Papa’s story changes at Finca La Vigía,” 2009 March 19

Cat in the Rain

"Hemingway has succeeded in rendering an immensely poignant human experience with all the poetry that pure prose can achieve. The simple language and brittle style simultaneously conceal and reveal a powerful emotional situation without the least trace of sentimentality. The delicacy and accuracy of the achievement are magnificent."

--John V. Hagopian, "Symmetry in 'Cat in the Rain,'" College English, 1962 December

there was such a smell

"The smell of a battlefield in hot weather one cannot recall. You can remember that there was such a smell, but nothing ever happens to you to bring it back."

--Ernest Hemingway, "A Natural History of the Dead," 1933

Biology: Polydactyl cat

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Polydactyly is a congenital abnormality, usually genetically inherited as an autosomal dominant trait with incomplete penetrance. Polydactyly is not life-threatening and usually not even debilitating to a cat. Some polydactyl kittens initially have more difficulty in learning to walk and climb than normal animals. However in some cases it appears to improve the dexterity of the animal. For example, a common variation of polydactyly with six toes on the front paws, with two opposing digits on each, (comparable in use to human thumbs) enables the cat to learn and perform feats of manual dexterity generally not observed in non-polydactyl cats, such as opening latches or catching objects with a single paw."

Our nada who art in nada

"The Nothing is a relentless monotony, unbroken by joy or sorrow. It is unending emptiness without comfort or companionship of man or God. It is the senselessness of each heart-beat that is just like the last and refuses to give in to death."

--Elizabeth S. Wall, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway"

Epiography of The Steppe

New Amazon list of the sources for the epiography of The Steppe.

www.TheSteppe.com

Spanish Civil War

The tanks had not come up in time and finally had refused to advance, and two of the battalions had failed to attain their objectives. The third had taken theirs, but it formed an untenable salient. The only real result had been a few prisoners, and these had been confided to the tank men to bring back and the tank men had killed them. The General had only failure to show, and they had killed his prisoners.

“What can I write on it?” I asked.

“Nothing that is not in the official communiqué. Have you any whisky in that long flask?”

“Yes.”

He took a drink and licked his lips carefully. He had once been a captain of Hungarian Hussars, and he had once captured a gold train in Siberia when he was a leader of irregular cavalry with the Red Army and held it all one winter when the thermometer went down to forty below zero. We were good friends and he loved whisky, and he is now dead.


--Ernest Hemingway, “Under the Ridge”

Anomy

“Have you decided what you are going to do yet, Harold?” his mother said, taking off her glasses.
“No,” said Krebs.
“Don’t you think it’s about time?” His mother did not say this in a mean way. She seemed worried.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Krebs said.
“God has some work for every one to do,” his mother said. “There can be no idle hands in His Kingdom.”
“I’m not in His Kingdom,” Krebs said.

“Don’t you love your mother, dear boy?”
“No,” Krebs said.
His mother looked at him across the table. Her eyes were shiny. She started crying.
“I don’t love anybody,” Krebs said.

“I’m your mother,” she said. “I held you next to my heart when you were a tiny baby.”
Krebs felt sick and vaguely nauseated.


--Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home,” 1925