ERNEST HEMINGWAY - Premium Edition. Ernest Hemingway

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      “I’m going over to the hotel,” I said. Then I heard them talking about me.

      “Is he all right?” Edna asked.

      “We’d better walk with him.”

      “I’m all right,” I said. “Don’t come. I’ll see you all later.”

      I walked away from the café. They were sitting at the table. I looked back at them and at the empty tables. There was a waiter sitting at one of the tables with his head in his hands.

      Walking across the square to the hotel everything looked new and changed. I had never seen the trees before. I had never seen the flagpoles before, nor the front of the theatre. It was all different. I felt as I felt once coming home from an out-of-town football game. I was carrying a suitcase with my football things in it, and I walked up the street from the station in the town I had lived in all my life and it was all new. They were raking the lawns and burning leaves in the road, and I stopped for a long time and watched. It was all strange. Then I went on, and my feet seemed to be a long way off, and everything seemed to come from a long way off, and I could hear my feet walking a great distance away. I had been kicked in the head early in the game. It was like that crossing the square. It was like that going up the stairs in the hotel. Going up the stairs took a long time, and I had the feeling that I was carrying my suitcase. There was a light in the room. Bill came out and met me in the hall.

      “Say,” he said, “go up and see Cohn. He’s been in a jam, and he’s asking for you.”

      “The hell with him.”

      “Go on. Go on up and see him.”

      I did not want to climb another flight of stairs.

      “What are you looking at me that way for?”

      “I’m not looking at you. Go on up and see Cohn. He’s in bad shape.”

      “You were drunk a little while ago,” I said.

      “I’m drunk now,” Bill said. “But you go up and see Cohn. He wants to see you.”

      “All right,” I said. It was just a matter of climbing more stairs. I went on up the stairs carrying my phantom suitcase. I walked down the hall to Cohn’s room. The door was shut and I knocked.

      “Who is it?”

      “Barnes.”

      “Come in, Jake.”

      I opened the door and went in, and set down my suitcase. There was no light in the room. Cohn was lying, face down, on the bed in the dark.

      “Hello, Jake.”

      “Don’t call me Jake.”

      I stood by the door. It was just like this that I had come home. Now it was a hot bath that I needed. A deep, hot bath, to lie back in.

      “Where’s the bathroom?” I asked.

      Cohn was crying. There he was, face down on the bed, crying. He had on a white polo shirt, the kind he’d worn at Princeton.

      “I’m sorry, Jake. Please forgive me.”

      “Forgive you, hell.”

      “Please forgive me, Jake.”

      I did not say anything. I stood there by the door.

      “I was crazy. You must see how it was.”

      “Oh, that’s all right.”

      “I couldn’t stand it about Brett.”

      “You called me a pimp.”

      I did not care. I wanted a hot bath. I wanted a hot bath in deep water.

      “I know. Please don’t remember it. I was crazy.”

      “That’s all right.”

      He was crying. His voice was funny. He lay there in his white shirt on the bed in the dark. His polo shirt.

      “I’m going away in the morning.”

      He was crying without making any noise.

      “I just couldn’t stand it about Brett. I’ve been through hell, Jake. It’s been simply hell. When I met her down here Brett treated me as though I were a perfect stranger. I just couldn’t stand it. We lived together at San Sebastian. I suppose you know it. I can’t stand it any more.”

      He lay there on the bed.

      “Well,” I said, “I’m going to take a bath.”

      “You were the only friend I had, and I loved Brett so.”

      “Well,” I said, “so long.”

      “I guess it isn’t any use,” he said. “I guess it isn’t any damn use.”

      “What?”

      “Everything. Please say you forgive me, Jake.”

      “Sure,” I said. “It’s all right.”

      “I felt so terribly. I’ve been through such hell, Jake. Now everything’s gone. Everything.”

      “Well,” I said, “so long. I’ve got to go.”

      He rolled over, sat on the edge of the bed, and then stood up.

      “So long, Jake,” he said. “You’ll shake hands, won’t you?”

      “Sure. Why not?”

      We shook hands. In the dark I could not see his face very well.

      “Well,” I said, “see you in the morning.”

      “I’m going away in the morning.”

      “Oh, yes,” I said.

      I went out. Cohn was standing in the door of the room.

      “Are you all right, Jake?” he asked.

      “Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m all right.”

      I could not find the bathroom. After a while I found it. There was a deep stone tub. I turned on the taps and the water would not run. I sat down on the edge of the bath-tub. When I got up to go I found I had taken off my shoes. I hunted for them and found them and carried them down-stairs. I found my room and went inside and undressed and got into bed.

      * * * * *

      I woke with a headache and the noise of the bands going by in the street. I remembered I had promised to take Bill’s friend Edna to see the bulls go through the street and into the ring. I dressed and went down-stairs and out into the cold early morning. People were crossing the square, hurrying toward the bull-ring. Across the square were the two lines of men in front СКАЧАТЬ