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CHAPTER 24 Last Rites (1949–1951) By the time Ernest and Mary left Italy in April, the author had begun playing out his fantasies about Adriana Ivancich on paper. Eventually called Across the River and Into the Trees, this new work told the story of an aging, battered fifty-year-old American colonel, Richard Cantwell, who falls in love with a nineteen-year-old Venetian countess named Renata. Hemingway’s hero in the book has been through World War I, observed the Spanish Civil War, and survived World War II, even having a war correspondent ex-wife whom he considers a shrew. Knowing he is dying, the colonel comes to Venice to spend his last days with his young mistress. As Ernest continued working on the book back in Havana, he could not stop thinking of Adriana, and he corresponded with her regularly. Though gentle and respectful of Adriana in his letters, Ernest became surly and short-tempered with Mary. He often humiliated and embarrassed her in public the way he had Pauline when in love with Martha Gellhorn. Ernest took a break from his Adriana book in June 1949 for a celebratory trip to the Bahamas with his sons. Patrick had successfully completed his first year at Harvard University after transferring from Stanford, and Gregory was now a graduate of Canterbury School. During Ernest’s absence, Mary planned a stay with Pauline in Key West. Pauline could not have helped Mary’s frame of mind when she wrote, “How pleasant it will be to see you and hear all about the old country and those Italian Women, those Sexy Italian Women.”1 Pauline made her own return trip to the “old country” that summer, this time with both Patrick and Gregory. After arrival at Hendaye, France, near the border with Spain, Pauline dropped a postcard to Ernest saying she found no trace of the little villa or small hotel where they had once stayed, but the coast remained as beautiful as ever. She closed with “Affectionate souvenir to Mary.”2 260 The trip included a visit with Hadley, who lived near Paris with her husband , Paul Mowrer. Patrick recalled later being surprised at how friendly his mother and Hadley appeared and told biographer Bernice Kert, “Perhaps it was because they were well out of the running and could relax.”3 Pauline and her sons also then went on to Venice and met Adriana Ivancich. Ernest was concerned since Martha happened to be in Venice at the same time, fearing that the various Hemingway women might get together and compare notes.4 Despite such reservations, Ernest wanted Adriana to see his boys, warning her that their mother was “a lovely woman but very difficult at times.”5 Pauline stayed on in Europe after Patrick and Gregory returned to the United States in time to begin the fall semester, with Patrick returning to Harvard and Gregory entering St. John’s University in New York. Before departing Europe, Pauline spent a week with Jack and Puck in Berlin. They had married June 25, 1949, in Paris, and though Ernest did not attend, he sent his congratulations. It touched Jack for Pauline to visit, the only family member who braved the flight to Berlin to do so.6 While Pauline traveled through Europe, Virginia and Laura took up summer residence in Aspetuck to help Uncle Gus, who had become increasingly senile after Aunt Louise died the previous fall. Gus needed help hosting guests at the family compound, since his mind seemed to come and go. He became confused, for example, when family members scattered Louise’s ashes in the Aspetuck River, running alongside their homes. When told that Louise’s ashes were being scattered as she wished, he seemed relieved, but did not recognize they were referring to his wife.7 On another occasion before Louise’s death, when approaching the driveway of a summer home they owned in Fort Lauderdale, Gus commented, “My, the man who lives here must be very rich.”8 During that summer of 1949, Gus’s secretary, Adele Brockhoff, made the mistake of sending a letter to Ernest inquiring about how to appraise the manuscripts still in Gus’s possession. Though Gus’s last written comments on the matter indicated that he wanted them given to Pauline to hold for Patrick and Gregory, the transfer had not taken place before his senility. Had Miss Brockhoff known what a state Ernest had worked himself into earlier in the...

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