ERNEST HEMINGWAY - Premium Edition. Ernest Hemingway
and beer, and sometimes in the evening we would hear carts stop outside on the road and men come up the steps to go in the parlor to drink wine.
There was a box of wood in the hall outside the living-room and I kept up the fire from it. But we did not stay up very late. We went to bed in the dark in the big bedroom and when I was undressed I opened the windows and saw the night and the cold stars and the pine trees below the window and then got into bed as fast as I could. It was lovely in bed with the air so cold and clear and the night outside the window. We slept well and if I woke in the night I knew it was from only one cause and I would shift the feather bed over, very softly so that Catherine would not be wakened and then go back to sleep again, warm and with the new lightness of thin covers. The war seemed as far away as the football games of some one else’s college. But I knew from the papers that they were still fighting in the mountains because the snow would not come.
Sometimes we walked down the mountain into Montreux. There was a path went down the mountain but it was steep and so usually we took the road and walked down on the wide hard road between fields and then below between the stone walls of the vineyards and on down between the houses of the villages along the way. There were three villages; Chernex, Fontanivent, and the other I forget. Then along the road we passed an old square-built stone château on a ledge on the side of the mountain-side with the terraced fields of vines, each vine tied to a stick to hold it up, the vines dry and brown and the earth ready for the snow and the lake down below flat and gray as steel. The road went down a long grade below the château and then turned to the right and went down very steeply and paved with cobbles, into Montreux.
We did not know any one in Montreux. We walked along beside the lake and saw the swans and the many gulls and terns that flew up when you came close and screamed while they looked down at the water. Out on the lake there were flocks of grebes, small and dark, and leaving trails in the water when they swam. In the town we walked along the main street and looked in the windows of the shops. There were many big hotels that were closed but most of the shops were open and the people were very glad to see us. There was a fine coiffeur’s place where Catherine went to have her hair done. The woman who ran it was very cheerful and the only person we knew in Montreux. While Catherine was there I went up to a beer place and drank dark Munich beer and read the papers. I read the Corriere Della Sera and the English and American papers from Paris. All the advertisements were blacked out, supposedly to prevent communication in that way with the enemy. The papers were bad reading. Everything was going very badly everywhere. I sat back in the corner with a heavy mug of dark beer and an opened glazed-paper package of pretzels and ate the pretzels for the salty flavor and the good way they made the beer taste and read about disaster. I thought Catherine would come by but she did not come, so I hung the papers back on the rack, paid for my beer and went up the street to look for her. The day was cold and dark and wintry and the stone of the houses looked cold. Catherine was still in the hair-dresser’s shop. The woman was waving her hair. I sat in the little booth and watched. It was exciting to watch and Catherine smiled and talked to me and my voice was a little thick from being excited. The tongs made a pleasant clicking sound and I could see Catherine in three mirrors and it was pleasant and warm in the booth. Then the woman put up Catherine’s hair, and Catherine looked in the mirror and changed it a little, taking out and putting in pins; then stood up. “I’m sorry to have taken such a long time.”
“Monsieur was very interested. Were you not, monsieur?” the woman smiled.
“Yes,” I said.
We went out and up the street. It was cold and wintry and the wind was blowing. “Oh, darling, I love you so,” I said.
“Don’t we have a fine time?” Catherine said. “Look. Let’s go some place and have beer instead of tea. It’s very good for young Catherine. It keeps her small.”
“Young Catherine,” I said. “That loafer.”
“She’s been very good,” Catherine said. “She makes very little trouble. The doctor says beer will be good for me and keep her small.”
“If you keep her small enough and she’s a boy, maybe he will be a jockey.”
“I suppose if we really have this child we ought to get married,” Catherine said. We were in the beer place at the corner table. It was getting dark outside. It was still early but the day was dark and the dusk was coming early.
“Let’s get married now,” I said.
“No,” Catherine said. “It’s too embarrassing now. I show too plainly. I won’t go before any one and be married in this state.”
“I wish we’d gotten married.”
“I suppose it would have been better. But when could we, darling?”
“I don’t know.”
“I know one thing. I’m not going to be married in this splendid matronly state.”
“You’re not matronly.”
“Oh yes, I am, darling. The hairdresser asked me if this was our first. I lied and said no, we had two boys and two girls.”
“When will we be married?”
“Any time after I’m thin again. We want to have a splendid wedding with every one thinking what a handsome young couple.”
“And you’re not worried?”
“Darling, why should I be worried? The only time I ever felt badly was when I felt like a whore in Milan and that only lasted seven minutes and besides it was the room furnishings. Don’t I make you a good wife?”
“You’re a lovely wife.”
“Then don’t be too technical, darling. I’ll marry you as soon as I’m thin again.”
“All right.”
“Do you think I ought to drink another beer? The doctor said I was rather narrow in the hips and it’s all for the best if we keep young Catherine small.”
“What else did he say?” I was worried.
“Nothing. I have a wonderful blood-pressure, darling. He admired my blood-pressure greatly.”
“What did he say about you being too narrow in the hips?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. He said I shouldn’t ski.”
“Quite right.”
“He said it was too late to start if I’d never done it before. He said I could ski if I wouldn’t fall down.”
“He’s just a big-hearted joker.”
“Really he was very nice. We’ll have him when the baby comes.”
“Did you ask him if you ought to get married?”
“No. I told him we’d been married four years. You see, darling, if I marry you I’ll be an American and any time we’re married under American law the child is legitimate.”
“Where did you find that out?”
“In the New York World Almanac in the library.”
“You’re a grand girl.”
“I’ll be very glad to be an American and we’ll go to America won’t we, darling? I want to see Niagara Falls.”
“You’re a fine girl.”
“There’s something else I want to see but I can’t remember it.”
“The stockyards?”
“No. I can’t remember it.”
“The Woolworth building?”
“No.”
“The Grand Canyon?”
“No. But I’d like to see that.”
“What was it?”
“The Golden Gate! That’s what I want to see. Where