HEMINGWAY
405
believe me when I was ready to say what I could: that I loved him
for his weakness without ceasing to despise him for his strength.
We had left Seymour Betsky's car in town, and as the four of us
looked at each other now, more than ready to be done with our meeting,
Hemingway and his wife offered to drive us back in to pick it up. He
had to do some small chores, chiefly go to the bank. But it was a
Saturday, as we had all forgotten; and Betsky and I stood for a moment
after we had been dropped off watching Hemingway bang at the closed
glass doors, rather feebly perhaps but with a rage he was obviously
tickled to be able to feel. "Shit," he said finally to the dark interior
and the empty street; and we headed for our car fast, fast, hoping to
close the scene on the first authentic Hemingway line of the morning.
But we did not move quite fast enough, had to hear over the slamming
of our car door the voice of Mrs. Hemingway calling to her husband
(he had started off in one direction, she in another) , "Don't forget your
vitamin tablets, daddy."
