Papa Hemingway by A. E. Hotchner Read Free Book Online Page B

the truly great steeplechase rider Georges Parfremont."
    "How can you remember their names after all these years?" I asked. "Have you seen them since?"
    "No. I have always made things stick that I wanted to stick. I've never kept notes or a journal. I just push the recall button and there it is. If it isn't there, it wasn't worth keeping. Take Parfremont. I can see him as plainly as I see you, and hear him as I heard him the last time he spoke to me. It was Parfremont who scored the first French victory in the Liverpool Grand National astride James Hennessey's Lutteur III. That's one of the toughest steeple courses in the world and Georges had seen it for the first time the day before the race. He told me how the English trainers had taken him around and shown him the big jumps, and he repeated to me what he had told them: 'The size of the obstacle is nothing—the only danger in steeplechasing is the pace.' Poor Georges. It was his own prophecy. He was killed at the final hedge in a cheap race at Enghien, a hedge that was barely three feet high.
    "The old Enghien—the antique, rustic, conniving Enghien before they rebuilt the stands in pesage and pelouse and all that unfriendly concrete—that was my all-time-favorite track. It had a relaxed, unbuttoned atmosphere. One of the last times I went there—I remember it was with Evan Shipman, who was a professional handicapper as well as a writer, and Harold Stearns, who was 'Peter Pickum' for the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune at the time—Harold and Evan were relying on form and drew a blank on the day's card. I hit six winners out of eight. Harold was rather testy about my wins and asked me for the secret of my success. 'It was easy,' I told him. 'I went down to the paddock between races, and I smelled them.' The truth is, where horses are concerned the nose will triumph over science and reason every time."
    Ernest stood up and turned and watched the people crowding to the bet windows. "Listen to their heels on the wet pavement," he said. "It's all so beautiful in this misty light. Mr. Degas could have painted it and gotten the light so that it would be truer on his canvas than what we now see. That is what the artist must do. On canvas or on printed page he must capture the thing so truly that its magnification will endure. That is the difference between journalism and literature. There is very little literature. Much less than we think."
    He took the racing form out of his pocket and studied it a moment. "This is the true art of fiction," he said. "Well, we haven't done very well today. I wish I still had my nose, but I can't trust it any more. I can trace the decline of my infallible-nose period to the day John Dos Passos and I came out to this track to make our winter stake. We were both working on books and we needed enough cash to get us through the winter. I had touted Dos onto my paddock-sniffing as a sure thing and we had pooled everything we had. One of the horses in the seventh race smelled especially good to me, so we put our whole stake on him. He fell at the first jump. We didn't have a sou in our pockets and had to walk all the way back to the Left Bank from here."
    Two touts, one of whom spoke with a cockney accent, came up and offered Ernest something juicy in the next race, but he graciously declined their offer. A handsome young man in a trench coat had been standing in the aisle, looking at Ernest; he came over rather hesitantly. "Mr. Hemingway;" he asked in French, "do you remember me?" Ernest studied him for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. "I'm Richard." Ernest's face exploded in recognition. "Rickey!" He threw his arms around the boy and hugged him. "Rickey!" He took another look at the boy. "No wonder," Ernest said. "First time I ever saw you out of uniform—or should I say out of somebody else's uniform."
    Ernest explained that Rickey had been in his Irregular troops, a member of the celebrated band which Ernest had assembled after the