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CHAPTER 18 Trouble Ahead (1937) About the time Martha decided to leave Key West, Ernest’s planned trip to New York took on newfound urgency. Fortuitously, he heard from Virginia Pfeiffer in New York regarding a place to stay. After wiring her several times from Key West and receiving no answer, Ernest finally received a telegram on January 7, in which Virginia apologized for a migraine that had prevented her from responding and letting him know that he would be a welcome guest at her new apartment. Martha left on January 9, and Ernest departed the next day, catching up with her for dinner in Miami with boxer Tom Heeney as a chaperone. Martha and Ernest went on by train together as far as Jacksonville, where he continued on to New York and Martha entrained for St. Louis. During Martha’s return home, she wrote to Pauline, thanking her for the hospitality in Key West and for not minding her “becoming a fixture, like a kudu head, in your home.”1 She also let Pauline know that she had had a lovely steak dinner in Miami with Ernest, whom she now called Ernesto. The letter bore a strange resemblance to Pauline’s letters to Hadley some ten years earlier. No doubt Pauline recognized the irony. When Arnold Gingrich mistakenly received word of Ernest having a serious illness, she wired back: “SECONDHAND REPORT ABSOLUTELY BASELESS ERNEST IN MIAMI ENROUTE TO NEW YORK IN SHALL WE SAY PERFECT HEALTH THANKS FOR SOLICITUDE.”2 Pauline shipped Ernest’s cold-weather clothes via special delivery to New York, since his quick departure from Key West had left no time to pack. Upon his arrival, the author began a round of meetings to wrap up his novel, get things organized for Spain, and assist a young novelist with narrative for a Spanish documentary film. Maxwell Perkins counseled against the trip, since Hemingway had a book in the works, but Ernest assured him he would get back in time to finish rewrites and read proofs. Additionally, 195 he worked out terms with John Wheeler of the North American News Alliance (NANA) to receive five hundred dollars for each cabled story and one thousand dollars for each mailed feature, with payments sent to Pauline in Key West. While in New York, Ernest and Virginia, along with Sidney Franklin, made a trip to Saranac Lake in upstate New York to see sixteen-year-old Patrick Murphy, whose health had gradually deteriorated. When Ernest came out of the boy’s room, he wept openly at how sick Patrick appeared. Later in the day, the sick boy shakily wrote in his diary, “Ernest came in to see me for a few minutes before I went to bed. He is giving me a bear-skin for a Christmas present, but it is not ready yet.”3 Virginia stayed on to help Sara and the family and made arrangements for her cousin Ward Merner to bring her car from Manhattan the following week. Aside from concern for the Murphys, Virginia may have remained at Saranac Lake to avoid more time with Ernest. The two had gotten into a serious argument at her apartment in New York. Each accused the other of changing drastically since they first met. Virginia criticized Ernest about his infatuations with other women, the way he abused and berated his friends, his lack of appreciation for Pauline’s total devotion to him, and his plans to leave his family and go to Spain. It concerned her as well that Ernest assumed his relationship with Virginia could be the same as in the beginning, before he married her sister.4 Their arguing continued at the Murphys, prompting Gerald to write to Pauline, “There was, it seems, a certain amount of conversational sniping going on between Ernest and Ginnie. . . . Someone won on points, I suppose .”5 Virginia compared Ernest to a porcupine, which sticks anyone who gets too close. Ernest declared Virginia to be the one sticking in the barbs. Caught in the middle, Pauline wrote to Ernest on his return to New York, “I am sorry about the Jinny situation. You are probably both to blame, but that doesn’t help me any, the middleman.”6 After Ernest returned to Key West the fighting continued by mail, and Virginia reminded him, “The quills on a porcupine are pointed out and not in and intended to protect the porcupine by jabbing anyone who comes in contact with him anywhere. That is...

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