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CHAPTER 1 Introduction When Ernest Hemingway met the Pfeiffer sisters in late March 1925, he found Virginia far more fetching than her older sister, Pauline, who later became his second wife. At the time, Virginia gave him the attention he craved, while Pauline thought him boorish. Pauline was working in Paris for Main Bocher, editor of the Vogue magazine French edition. Previously a writer for Vogue in New York, she used the opportunity to become part of the Paris social scene. When her sister, Virginia, joined her in France for an extended visit, they each found their niche in Paris. In those heady days and nights in the enchanted city, cafés and bars served as rendezvous for American expatriates and tourists who came together to share ideas and plan activities. Each establishment catered to a distinct clientele and took on its own personality. Pauline’s tastes favored the expensive Right Bank spots, where she dined on Portuguese oysters with friends at Prunier’s, or sipped Bloody Marys with colleagues at the elegant Ritz Hotel. When Pauline crossed to the more avant-garde Left Bank, she sought out places in the upscale St. Germain district, such as Café de Flore and Aux Deux Magots, which catered to journalists, Sorbonne professors, and working intellectuals. Her more adventurous sister, Virginia, preferred Café Rotonde on the Left Bank, where tourists flocked to observe revolutionaries , Greenwich Village transplants, and assorted misfits who uniformly aimed for nonconformity. Another likely spot for Virginia, the noisy Café du Dôme, drew struggling artists and expatriates attempting to be seen and make connections. Paris in those days worked like a magnet, pulling in writers, artists, musicians, and intellectuals. Europeans and Americans learned to dance the Charleston from a new Paris sensation, an African American cabaret queen known as Bricktop for her red hair, but born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Smith in Alderson, West Virginia. Along with sipping Pernod and 1 listening to Cole Porter’s music, patrons filled cafes, bars, studios, and salons with spirited discussions of intellectual topics. Alive with creative energy at all hours of the day and night, citizens of Paris learned to live with outrageous lifestyles and behaviors. Wealthy Americans reveled in the deliciously hedonistic atmosphere, while indigent artists and unknown writers found inexpensive living and a supportive environment. Hemingway perhaps captured the French capital best when he wrote more than a quarter century later, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”1 Shortly after the Pfeiffers became part of this frenetic city, Pauline became friends with Kitty Cannell, fashion editor for the New York Times in Paris. For months Kitty had been telling Pauline she wanted to introduce her to another of her friends, Hadley Richardson Hemingway. Although they had not previously met, Hadley and Pauline had grown up in nearby St. Louis neighborhoods. They also shared a mutual friend in Katy Smith. Katy had attended Mary Institute in St. Louis with Hadley and later become friends with Pauline at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Katy provided another link as well. While growing up in St. Louis, she had spent summers in Petoskey, Michigan, where she and her younger brother Bill met and became friends with Ernest Hemingway. In October 1920, Katy introduced Ernest to Hadley, eight years his senior, and they fell “cockeyed in love” and married less than a year later.2 Shortly after their marriage, they moved to Paris, where Ernest pursued his writing ambitions while living on Hadley’s trust fund. Though Pauline and Hadley had much in common, a meeting between the two did not take place earlier because the Hemingways were away when the Pfeiffer sisters arrived in Paris. Ernest and Hadley passed most of winter 1924–25 in Schruns, Austria, skiing and celebrating the pending New York publication of his first book, In Our Time. As soon as they returned, Hadley received an invitation for tea at Kitty Cannell’s apartment near the Eiffel Tower to meet the Pfeiffers. The sisters showed up around four in the afternoon looking like Japanese dolls, according to Kitty. Both petite, with “bones as delicate as a small bird’s,” they had bright, almond-shaped eyes and black bobbed hair stylishly cut across the forehead in thick bangs. Perfect grooming and fashionable outfits enhanced their striking physical features...

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