I Was In Europe, Though Not In Paris Yet

I graduated from high school in 1917. The war was going on in Europe. In Russia the Tzar was overthrown. The Austrians broke through the alpine lines at Caporetto. I became a reported for the Kansas City Star, where I learned to write a simple, declarative sentence.

My directions: “Short first paragraphs, vigorous language, no superfluous words, few adjectives, no trite phrases” (22). After 7 months, I joined the Missouri Home Guard, and volunteered my time in the Great European War driving ambulances for The Red Cross (23). I was called then called to duty, though the accident that happened shortly after I was ready to serve was tragic.

It was July, 1918 when I was asked to man a canteen on the Piave River front and was blown up by an Austrian Trench mortar (23). I was no yet 19 (23). For five months I kept in a hospital, where Agnes Von Kurosky nursed me back to health. She was attractive for an older lady. Seven years my senior and eager to take care of me. We were engaged to be married, though she did not and would not have it. The following march I received her letter stating there would be no wedding, just as there never would have been (23).

I returned to Kansas City to write for the paper and met Hadley Richardson. She was a St. Louis girl 8 years my senior. We were married in 1921 and moved to Paris when my magazine went bankrupt. I had the names of people to know in Paris. Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Sylvia Beach: these would be my friends. We moved to the Latin Quarter and called our fourth floor walk-up home (24).

Source:

Wagner-Martin, Linda. A Historical Guide to Ernest Hemingway. Oxford University Press: New York, 1999.