ERNEST HEMINGWAY - Premium Edition. Ernest Hemingway
in one of the bath-cabins, crossed the narrow line of beach and went into the water. I swam out, trying to swim through the rollers, but having to dive sometimes. Then in the quiet water I turned and floated. Floating I saw only the sky, and felt the drop and lift of the swells. I swam back to the surf and coasted in, face down, on a big roller, then turned and swam, trying to keep in the trough and not have a wave break over me. It made me tired, swimming in the trough, and I turned and swam out to the raft. The water was buoyant and cold. It felt as though you could never sink. I swam slowly, it seemed like a long swim with the high tide, and then pulled up on the raft and sat, dripping, on the boards that were becoming hot in the sun. I looked around at the bay, the old town, the casino, the line of trees along the promenade, and the big hotels with their white porches and gold-lettered names. Off on the right, almost closing the harbor, was a green hill with a castle. The raft rocked with the motion of the water. On the other side of the narrow gap that led into the open sea was another high headland. I thought I would like to swim across the bay but I was afraid of cramp.
I sat in the sun and watched the bathers on the beach. They looked very small. After a while I stood up, gripped with my toes on the edge of the raft as it tipped with my weight, and dove cleanly and deeply, to come up through the lightening water, blew the salt water out of my head, and swam slowly and steadily in to shore.
After I was dressed and had paid for the bath-cabin, I walked back to the hotel. The bicycle-racers had left several copies of L’Auto around, and I gathered them up in the reading-room and took them out and sat in an easy chair in the sun to read about and catch up on French sporting life. While I was sitting there the concierge came out with a blue envelope in his hand.
“A telegram for you, sir.”
I poked my finger along under the fold that was fastened down, spread it open, and read it. It had been forwarded from Paris:
COULD YOU COME HOTEL MONTANA MADRID
AM RATHER IN TROUBLE BRETT.
I tipped the concierge and read the message again. A postman was coming along the sidewalk. He turned in the hotel. He had a big moustache and looked very military. He came out of the hotel again. The concierge was just behind him.
“Here’s another telegram for you, sir.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I opened it. It was forwarded from Pamplona.
COULD YOU COME HOTEL MONTANA MADRID
AM RATHER IN TROUBLE BRETT.
The concierge stood there waiting for another tip, probably.
“What time is there a train for Madrid?”
“It left at nine this morning. There is a slow train at eleven, and the Sud Express at ten to-night.”
“Get me a berth on the Sud Express. Do you want the money now?”
“Just as you wish,” he said. “I will have it put on the bill.”
“Do that.”
Well, that meant San Sebastian all shot to hell. I suppose, vaguely, I had expected something of the sort. I saw the concierge standing in the doorway.
“Bring me a telegram form, please.”
He brought it and I took out my fountain-pen and printed:
LADY ASHLEY HOTEL MONTANA MADRID
ARRIVING SUD EXPRESS TOMORROW LOVE
JAKE.
That seemed to handle it. That was it. Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love. That was it all right. I went in to lunch.
I did not sleep much that night on the Sud Express. In the morning I had breakfast in the dining-car and watched the rock and pine country between Avila and Escorial. I saw the Escorial out of the window, gray and long and cold in the sun, and did not give a damn about it. I saw Madrid come up over the plain, a compact white sky-line on the top of a little cliff away off across the sun-hardened country.
The Norte station in Madrid is the end of the line. All trains finish there. They don’t go on anywhere. Outside were cabs and taxis and a line of hotel runners. It was like a country town. I took a taxi and we climbed up through the gardens, by the empty palace and the unfinished church on the edge of the cliff, and on up until we were in the high, hot, modern town. The taxi coasted down a smooth street to the Puerta del Sol, and then through the traffic and out into the Carrera San Jeronimo. All the shops had their awnings down against the heat. The windows on the sunny side of the street were shuttered. The taxi stopped at the curb. I saw the sign HOTEL MONTANA on the second floor. The taxi-driver carried the bags in and left them by the elevator. I could not make the elevator work, so I walked up. On the second floor up was a cut brass sign: HOTEL MONTANA. I rang and no one came to the door. I rang again and a maid with a sullen face opened the door.
“Is Lady Ashley here?” I asked.
She looked at me dully.
“Is an Englishwoman here?”
She turned and called some one inside. A very fat woman came to the door. Her hair was gray and stiffly oiled in scallops around her face. She was short and commanding.
“Muy buenos,” I said. “Is there an Englishwoman here? I would like to see this English lady.”
“Muy buenos. Yes, there is a female English. Certainly you can see her if she wishes to see you.”
“She wishes to see me.”
“The chica will ask her.”
“It is very hot.”
“It is very hot in the summer in Madrid.”
“And how cold in winter.”
“Yes, it is very cold in winter.”
Did I want to stay myself in person in the Hotel Montana?
Of that as yet I was undecided, but it would give me pleasure if my bags were brought up from the ground floor in order that they might not be stolen. Nothing was ever stolen in the Hotel Montana. In other fondas, yes. Not here. No. The personages of this establishment were rigidly selectioned. I was happy to hear it. Nevertheless I would welcome the upbringal of my bags.
The maid came in and said that the female English wanted to see the male English now, at once.
“Good,” I said. “You see. It is as I said.”
“Clearly.”
I followed the maid’s back down a long, dark corridor. At the end she knocked on a door.
“Hello,” said Brett. “Is it you, Jake?”
“It’s me.”
“Come in. Come in.”
I opened the door. The maid closed it after me. Brett was in bed. She had just been brushing her hair and held the brush in her hand. The room was in that disorder produced only by those who have always had servants.
“Darling!” Brett said.
I went over to the bed and put my arms around her. She kissed me, and while she kissed me I could feel she was thinking of something else. She was trembling in my arms. She felt very small.
“Darling! I’ve had such a hell of a time.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Nothing to tell. He only left yesterday. I made him go.”
“Why didn’t you keep him?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t the sort of thing one does. I don’t think I hurt him any.”
“You were probably damn good for him.”
“He shouldn’t be living with any one. I realized that right away.”
“No.”