How Does... Ernest Hemingway Live?

At the present time the film "The Old Man and the Sea" is being directed and shot — the famous story written by Ernest Hemingway and counted the summit of his production. It is worth mentioning that the great actor Spencer Tracy is playing the part of the hero, and that he will retire from acting after finishing this film. Below is a glimpse of the life that "old Ernest" lives today.

Ernest Hemingway lives today in a house built in the Spanish style, standing on a farm half an hour from the city of "Havana." He has given this farm of his the name "Finca Vigía," and it is surrounded by a stout wall that makes entry difficult... Ernest Hemingway's face differs from his photographs: he looks tired, and the days have bent his back. And the tired man says that he loves his "trade"... and were it not for that love he would have chosen commerce, say, or engineering...
"Ernest" cares nothing for money or for success and titles; he pursues his work without them — he does not even trouble himself about publishing or printing his books... The proof of it is that he now has four works unpublished, and he does not intend to print them, for a simple reason: the tax amounts to 85% of the original price... The great writer is thinking of leaving these four stories to his family so that they may profit from them; and he will not consent to disclose to anyone even the names of these stories — but he says they are bigger and greater than his last story, "The Old Man and the Sea," which won worldwide fame. Living with "Hemingway" is his wife Mary, a woman small of stature, slight of body, pleasant in appearance for all her simplicity; then she is the writer's private secretary, arranging his appointments for him and preparing whatever gives him ease; and she is besides a housewife and a skilled fisherwoman, who has won a prize in fishing... and the table is hardly ever without a fish she has caught and cooked herself... The amusing thing is that Mary met Ernest in 1944 in the office of the newspaper "Time" in London, and married him two years later. And when "Ernest" sits with his visitors or before the photographer's lens, he takes off his spectacles, so as not to "frighten them," as he puts it...

In his house the visitors behold books — huge, numerous, and varied

... for his library contains 4,623 works, and he says he has read them all, at a rate of three books in a single day... He would like everyone around him to give himself over to reading, and on this basis his gifts to the cowboys and the farmers consist of light books... This famous man of letters has views on the various sides of life. He believes, for instance, that it is a man's duty to love a woman with all that is in him — provided she is deserving of this love... Then men and women alike have duties, pleasures, and rewards, and they likewise have the right to make mistakes — provided they do not make the mistake deliberate... As for his advice to young writers, it comes down to this: let the writer work... and work with effort and devotion, without despair or fear of shocks.