Ernest and Hadley begin their life in Paris: 74 Rue du Cardinal Lemoine

“We were utter strangers in the city of Paris”

~ Hadley

As I was writing this post about Hadley, I got an email from Peter Krynicki, a Hemingway friend and voracious reader. Peter has the enviable gift of remembering much of what he reads. Peter wrote that he was reading Gioa Dilberto’s biography of Hadley and was dragging his feet to finish it because he knows how it will end. It is true that after a handful of glorious years in Paris, Hadley is headed straight into heartbreak and betrayal – but Peter’s comment really got me thinking.

Who can ever know what lies ahead of us?  Would we continue if we knew?  Such beautiful things have been written about this very question, about the value of the journey, rather than the destination. Cavafy’s gorgeous poem comes to mind, with it’s promising first line, As you set out for Ithaca, and Jack Gilbert’s poem, A Brief for the Defense (both of which should be memorized). Whenever I read a novel in which the characters are headed towards certain suffering, I often have to put the book down and prepare myself to continue.  Will they be okay?  Who will help them?  Do they see what’s coming?  Do they have the resources to deal with it?  But I always go back to the book – to the story – because I want to see how it ends, I will always want to know how they endured what they have to endure. As I get older, I see this part of the story as the essence, really, because after living long enough, we know how difficult the going gets – that as glorious as any moment is, we lose everything eventually, one way or another, especially our dear friends. In fiction, this becomes the plot; in a biography, it becomes the central or defining event in a life that can be examined from start to finish. But in our own lives?  It’s part of the journey.

None of us really plans for heartbreak, do we?  Despite the hardships, uncertainties, and failures that are part of almost all stories, we still dream and plan.  We go ahead and take the trip, the risk, or the adventure without knowing what lies ahead of us. This is what makes Hadley’s life so compelling and so unbearably poignant.  Such courage she had!  Such faith in herself and in Ernest and in wherever their new love would take them.

The adventurous tone of their relationship was set long before they set sail for Europe.  Hadley and Ernest began planning in their letters for their life together in Italy, squirreling away money to turn into Italian lires (although they would eventually end up in Paris). This colorful new currency could buy them a new landscape, a whole new life.  They must have seen in each other the qualities that could make such an adventure possible.  Both of them were ready to shed the Midwest, their families and their country for something bolder and more exciting.

Hadley had enough compunction to go forward with no fixed address, no particular plan, and very little money. What she did have was a basic grasp of French, a modern new haircut, and a new husband. In the photos they look brave and happy, but because they are young, they don’t even know they are brave.

Hadley would say later that all of the heartache she suffered were worth it, every sorrow matched by a multitude of memories of wonder and discovery and growth. For Ernest, his five years with Hadley would give him a lifetime of material to write about.

The front door of the former Hemingway apartment

I think of Hadley often as I have had my own adventures in Europe and South America. In the last few years, I have been able to visit some of the places Hadley saw, and many of them haven’t changed that much. In the streets and neighborhoods of Paris, at the bullring in Pamplona, it is easy to feel the joy she and Ernest must have found in these environments. These places still radiate the elegance and uncharted layers of almost mythic history that writers of every decade try to describe.

In November, I got the chance to visit Paris again and see the street where Ernest and Hadley lived in their first apartment.  After a flurry of love letters between Chicago and Saint Louis,  a wedding in Michigan, and a few months in Chicago, here is where their story picks up speed: 74 Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, where the newlyweds begin their life in Paris.  Nothing could dampen their spirits, not the cold weather, post war conditions in the city, a rough neighborhood, or even a tight budget. In fact, some of these hardships, reflected upon later, are part of what was make the story so beautiful.

Here is a passage from Bernice Kert’s book, The Hemingway Women, about their start in Paris:

“Ernest wanted to spend their little store of money for travel and recreation, not fancy digs.  Hadley was as enthusiastic as he was about exploring other parts of Europe. Finally Lewis directed them to a fourth-floor walk up at 74 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, in an archaic, working-class district of the Fifth Arrondissement, far from the good cafes and restaurants. Hadley agreed with Ernest that they should take it. Paris was still wet when they moved in on January 9, 1922 . . . “

”At the top of the street in the old cobblestone square known as Place de la Contrescarpe were the bistros, some of them smelly and awful. Bundles of rags blocked the doorways, then the rags moved, reveling themselves as wine-soaked men and women. The green autobus careened around the corner. Flower vendors dyed their flowers, the purple dye running into the gutters. On the market street. . . housewives shouted and shoved and fought for cheap goods. Tired beggars bleated for alms…

Hadley never developed a love affair with Place de la Contrescarpe to the degree that Ernest did. But she learned to move about it with ease, no longer frightened by the squalor. . . Ernest’s vitality was contagious.”

Click on the link below to hear Hadley describe their first apartment:

Hadley talks about their first apartment in Paris

The clip is 8 minutes long, with several stops and starts during the conversation. Below are a few photos of my Paris trip!