Ernest Hemingway

“ Diana felt that might turn the trick. Happily she had opened The Century and read all morning. Then the wind, the warm chinook wind, had started to blow, and she knew Scripps would soon be home. Men were coming down the street in increasing numbers. Was Scripps among them? She did not like to put on her spectacles to look. She wanted Scripps's first glimpse of her to be of her at her best. ”

“ Yogi, in the starlight, saw that he had lost one of his artificial arms.
"Me no play pool no more," the little Indian sobbed. He shook his one arm at the window of the club, from which a thin slit of light came. "Club heap goddam hell no good."
"Never mind," Yogi said. "I'll get you a job in the pump-factory."
"Pump-factory, hell," the big Indian said. "We all go join Salvation Army."
"Don't cry," Yogi said to the little Indian. "I'll buy you a new arm."
The little Indian went on crying. He sat down in the snowy road. "No can play pool me no care about nothing," he said. ”

“ Sherman had burned their house down on his March to the Sea. "War is hell," Sherman had said. "But you see how it is, Mrs. O'Neil. I've got to do it." He had touched a match to the white-pillared old house.
"If General O'Neil were here, you dastard!" his mother had said, speaking in her broken English, "you'd never have touched a match to that house."
Smoke curled up from the old house. The fire was mounting. The white pillars were obscured in the rising smoke-wreaths. Scripps had held close to his mother's linsey-woolsey dress. ”

“ They left the pool-table, placed their cues in the rack on the wall, paid at the counter, and went out into the night.
Along the dark streets men were sneaking home. The frost had come and frozen everything stiff and cold. The chinook had not been a real chinook, after all. Spring had not yet come, and the men who had commenced their orgies were halted by the chill in the air that told them the chinook wind had been a fake. That foreman, Yogi thought, he'll catch hell to-morrow. Perhaps it had all been engineered by the pump-manufacturers to get the foreman out of his job. ”

“ Gosse stopped in front of the stuffed flamingo in the glass case and said, 'What have we here, Buque?'
"'It's a flamingo, Sir Edmund,' the marquis answered.
"'That's not my idea of a flamingo,' Gosse remarked.
"'No, Gosse. That's God's idea of a flamingo,' Professor Whatsisname said. I wish I could remember his name."
"Don't bother," Scripps said. His eyes were bright. He leaned forward. Something was pounding inside of him. Something he could not control. "I love you, Mandy," he said. "I love you. You are my woman." The thing was pounding away inside of him. It would not stop. ”

“ Football, like the war, was unpleasant; stimulating and exciting after you had attained a certain hardness, and the chief difficulty had been that of remembering the signals. Yogi was thinking about the war, not the army. He meant combat. The army was something different. You could take it and ride with it or you could buck the tiger and let it smash you. The army was a silly business, but the war was different.
Yogi was not haunted by men he had killed. He knew he had killed five men. Probably he had killed more. He didn't believe men you killed haunted you. ”

“ Scripps followed this man, who showed him through the pump-factory. It was dark but warm inside the pump-factory. Men naked to the waist took the pumps in huge tongs as they came trundling by on an endless chain, culling out the misfits and placing the perfect pumps on another endless chain that carried them up into the cooling room. Other men, Indians for the most part, wearing only breech-clouts, broke up the misfit pumps with huge hammers and adzes and rapidly recast them into axe heads, wagon springs, trombone slides, bullet moulds, all the by-products of a big pump-factory. ”

“ Scripps O'Neil said. He was strangely moved by the story.
"You don't always tell it the same way, dear," Mrs. Scripps remarked to Mandy. There were tears in Mandy's eyes. "I feel very strongly about Henry James," she said.
"What was the matter with James?" asked the drummer. "Wasn't America good enough for him?"
Scripps O'Neil was thinking about Mandy, the waitress. What a background she must have, that girl! What a fund of anecdotes! A chap could go far with a woman like that to help him! He stroked the little bird that sat on the lunch-counter before him. The bird pecked at his finger. ”

“ Scripps had not even seen them. "I'll bring the bird, dear," Diana said. "He hasn't been out all day."
Together they went down the street to the beanery. They did not walk hand in hand now. They walked like what are called old married people. Mrs. Scripps carried the bird-cage. The bird was happy in the warm wind. Men lurching along, drunk with the spring, passed them. Many spoke to Scripps. He was well known and well liked in the town now. Some, as they lurched by, raised their hats to Mrs. Scripps. ”

“ Then it was blocked by two black figures, there was the sound of a kick, a blow, a series of thuds, some dull, some sharp, and two human forms came crashing down the ladder. From above floated the dark, haunting sound of black Negro laughter.
The two woods Indians picked themselves up from the straw and limped toward the door. One of them, the little one, was crying. Yogi followed them out into the cold night. It was cold. The night was clear. The stars were out.
"Club no damn good," the big Indian said. "Club heap no damn good." ”

“ She had a man now. A man of her own. For her own. Could she keep him? Could she hold him for her own? She wondered.
Mrs. Scripps, formerly an elderly waitress, now the wife of Scripps O'Neil, with a good job in the pump-factory. Diana Scripps. Diana was her own name. It had been her mother's, too. Diana Scripps looking into the mirror and wondering could she hold him. It was getting to be a question. Why had he ever met Mandy? Would she have the courage to break off going to the restaurant with Scripps to eat? She couldn't do that. He would go alone. ”

“ It was finally established by them that I had crossed the channel with my mother, but they could do nothing beyond that." Tears came into the elderly waitress's eyes. "I never saw Mummy again. Never again. Not even once."
"What about the general?"
"He finally loaned me one hundred francs—not a great sum even in those days—and I came to America and became a waitress. That's all there is to the story."
"There's more than that," Scripps said. "I'd stake my life there's more than that."
"Sometimes, you know, I feel there is," the waitress said. "I feel there must be more than that. ”

“ Self-destruction. Killing himself. Here in this beanery. What a mistake that would have been. He knew now. What a botch he might have made of life. Killing himself. Let spring come now. Let it come. It couldn't come fast enough. Let spring come. He was ready for it.
"Listen," he said to the two Indians. "I want to tell you about something that happened to me in Paris."
The two Indians leaned forward. "White chief got the floor," the tall Indian remarked.
"What I thought was a very beautiful thing happened to me in Paris," Yogi began. "You Indians know Paris? Good. ”

“ Yogi said in an undertone. "He's probably the greatest living pump-maker."
"You boys get along and leave us alone," Mr. Borrow said. He was carving away steadily, his infirm old hands shaking a little between strokes.
"Let the boys watch," Mr. Shaw said. "Where you from, young feller?"
"I've just come from Mancelona," Scripps answered. "My wife left me."
"Well, you won't have no difficulty finding another one," Mr. Shaw said. "You're a likely-looking young feller. But take my advice and take your time. A poor wife ain't much better than no wife at all." ”

“ It was better this way than if he were coming home to a palace. He, Scripps, was not the sort of chap that wanted a palace.
He opened the door of his house and went in. Something kept going through his head. He tried to get it out, but it was no good. What was it that poet chap his friend Harry Parker had met once in Detroit had written? Harry used to recite it: "Through pleasures and palaces though I may roam. When you something something something there's no place like home." ”

“ What is it that old writing fellow Shakespeare says: "Might makes right"? Scripps thought of that quotation as the train wen past him in the snowing darkness. First the engine passed. He saw the fireman bending to fling great shovelfuls of coal into the open furnace door. The engineer wore goggles. His face was lit up by the light from the open door of the engine. He was the engineer. It was he who had his hand on the throttle. Scripps thought of the Chicago anarchists who, when they were hanged, said: "Though you throttle us today, still you cannot something something our souls." ”

“ Every night at the restaurant, she couldn't call it a beanery now—that made a lump come in her throat and made her throat feel hard and choky. Every night at the restaurant now Scripps and Mandy talked together. The girl was trying to take him away. Him, her Scripps. Trying to take him away. Take him away. Could she, Diana, hold him?
She was no better than a slut, that Mandy. Was that the way to do? Was that the thing to do? Go after another woman's man? Come between man and wife? Break up a home? ”

“ Beyond the committee room was a locker room with a small plunge bath or swimming-pool. "It's really ridiculously small for a club," Red Dog said. "But it makes a comfortable little hole to pop into when the evenings are dull." He smiled. "We call it the wigwam, you know. That's a little conceit of my own."
"It's a damned nice club," Yogi said enthusiastically. ”

“ The elderly waitress put out a hand and stroked him. "Isn't he a manly little fellow?" she remarked. "By the way," she asked, a little shamefacedly, "what was it you ordered, sir?"
"Beans," Scripps said, "for my bird and myself."
The waitress shoved up a little wicket that led into the kitchen. Scripps had a glimpse of a warm, steam-filled room, with big pots and kettles, and many shining cans on the wall.
"A pig and the noisy ones," the waitress called in a matter-of-fact voice into the open wicket. "One for a bird!" ”

“ Into his mind, though he tried to thrust it out, there came again the monstrous picture of the squaw as she strode silently into the room. That squaw. She did not wear clothes, because she did not like them. Hardy, braving the winter nights. What might not the spring bring? ”

“ Scripps opened the door. He went in. "Lucy," he called, "it is I, Scripps." He would never drink again. No more nights out on the railroad. Perhaps Lucy needed a new fur coat. Perhaps, after all, she wanted a palace instead of this place. You never knew how you were treating a woman. ”

“ Literature has too strong an effect on people's minds. Like this American writer Willa Cather, who wrote a book about the war where all the last part of it was taken from the action in the Birth of a Nation, and ex-servicemen wrote to her from all over America to tell her how much they liked it. ”

“ Scripps asked. The single moment of spiritual communion they had had, had been dissipated. They had never really had it. But they might have. It was no use now. It was no use trying to capture what had gone. ”

“ Scripps said.
"Yes," the waitress smiled, the lines in her face not quite so deep now. "I feel better now."
"Tell me," Scripps asked the waitress. "Is there any work in this town for me and my bird?"
"Honest work?" asked the waitress. "I only know of honest work."
"Yes, honest work," Scripps said.
"They do say they're hiring hands at the new pump-factory," the waitress said. Why shouldn't he work with his hands? Rodin had done it. Cézanne had been a butcher. Renoir a carpenter. Picasso had worked in a cigarette-factory in his boyhood. ”

“ Inside the beanery. They are all inside the beanery. Some do not see the others. Each are intent on themselves. Red men are intent on red men. White men are intent on white men or on white women. There are no red women. Are there no squaws any more? What has become of the squaws? Have we lost our squaws in America? Silently, through the door which she had opened, a squaw came into the room. ”

“ Yogi Johnson stood looking out of the window of a big pump-factory in Michigan. Spring would soon be here. Could it be that what this writing fellow Hutchinson had said, "If winter comes can spring be far behind?" would be true again this year? Yogi Johnson wondered. ”

“ Yogi looked around him. The two Indians who had brought him were gone. Where were they? Then he saw them. They were over at the pool-table. The tall refined Indian to whom Yogi was talking followed his glance. He nodded his head in understanding.
"They're woods Indians," he explained apologetically. "We're most of us town Indians here."
"Yes, of course," Yogi agreed.
"The little chap has a very good war record," the tall refined Indian remarked. "The other chap was a major too, I believe."
Yogi was guided over to the bar by the tall refined Indian. Behind the bar was the bartender. ”