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CHAPTER 21 Acrimony and Alimony (1940–1941) Ernest stayed nine days in the Key West house, packing his belongings and attempting to work on his novel. He stored boxes of manuscripts and other papers in the basement of Sloppy Joe’s bar and filled his Buick full of clothing , fishing gear, and other personal items. The day after Christmas, he drove onto the Key West–Havana ferry and said goodbye to his years as a resident of Florida. Meanwhile, Pauline said her goodbyes to Ernest’s family. Her letter to Grace Hemingway expressed deep sorrow over the breakup but admitted it seemed best for everyone involved. Ernest’s brother Leicester recalled that “Pauline was as gracious and considerate as any human being could be. . . . [Her] letter expressed the kind of feeling which Ernest had long searched for in others.”1 During Pauline’s Christmas holiday in New York, she discussed events with Uncle Gus, who advised her to immediately work on a settlement and move on. Nevertheless, the process dragged on for months as Pauline grappled with conflicting emotions. On one hand, she still loved Ernest despite his relationship with Martha. “I think she felt very bad about the divorce,” recalled her sister-in-law Matilda. “But by that time, she knew Ernest. And she knew when he decided he was going to marry another woman . . . there was probably nothing she could do, and there was no point in standing in the way.”2 On a deeper level, Pauline felt humiliated and abandoned. Consequently, she vacillated from wanting a fair settlement to wanting to punish him for his disloyalty and the hurt he had caused. After all, she had abandoned a career and poured her life and energy into helping him achieve success as a writer, with her family supporting him financially all the while. In the fifteen years of their relationship, including thirteen as a married couple, Ernest had gone from an unknown writer to a legendary literary figure, producing 224 nine books and numerous articles and short stories during their time together. She had functioned as his chief editor and critic, as well as providing financial and emotional support. But Ernest no longer saw her devotion to him as an asset. In fact, he told Edna Gellhorn, his prospective motherin -law, that he especially valued Martha’s independence and the fact that she would never be “a dull wife who just forms herself on me like Pauline and Hadley.”3 Ernest clearly missed Pauline’s editing skills, though. Back in Cuba, he had expanded his novel to twenty-three chapters by the time Martha returned from Finland in mid-January. Anxious for it to be his greatest book yet, Ernest passed early chapters to friends for review. But he preferred Pauline’s opinion and complained that she would not speak to him, much less look at his book. “Pauline hates me so much now she wouldn’t read it,” he told Maxwell Perkins, “and that is a damned shame because she has the best judgement of all.”4 Indirectly, Pauline’s refusal to read the book may have been a positive influence on its quality. Ernest later told Perkins it had become a matter of principle with him to write a book so good that anything ever written in Pauline’s company would “seem slight by comparison.”5 As to Pauline’s hurt and humiliation over being abandoned for Martha, Ernest contended that Pauline had gotten what she deserved. After all, she had done exactly the same thing to Hadley, Ernest rationalized, and he took no responsibility for either split. He saw himself as an innocent bystander watching other women parade into his happy home life and break up his marriages. According to Ernest, Pauline had deliberately set out to steal him away from her good friend Hadley. “When women start on that sort of thing they can’t be stopped,” he told Mary “Pete” Lanham, wife of his good friend Buck Lanham.6 He had succumbed, Ernest admitted, because Pauline seduced him with the wealth Hadley lacked. With Pauline now in Hadley’s shoes, and Ernest wanting a divorce to marry Martha, he callously told Pauline, “Well my dear, those that live by the sword must die by the sword.”7 As part of the separation agreement, Ernest paid five hundred dollars a month for the boys’ support, which was to be sent to Pauline by his publisher . She did not need the money, but...

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