Details
HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. Typed letter signed ("Ernest E. Hemingway" in pencil) to Edna Gellhorn ("Dear Mother"), Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba, n.d. [first half 1944?]. 2 pages, 4to, single-spaced on Finca Vigia imprinted letterheads, 31-word pencilled holograph closing by Hemingway, slight fold creases.
THE BREAKING UP OF A MARRIAGE
A remarkable letter, written just after Martha Gellhorn returned to Cuba after a long overseas assignment, "...For a while I thought maybe she had paranoia. There were so many symptoms, loss of memory, distortions, delusions of grandeur, false accusations and inability to think about anything except one's self. But now I think she was just plain spoiled and the sort of inhuman selfishness could just be inhuman selfishness...mother Martha is a very changed girl. I don't mean the ghastly thing she had done to her insides (I must always keep her from knowing how terrible that is) but a sort of lack of moral sense that is frightening...She says things and writes me things that no one in their right mind could write unless they were inhuman. And it isn't that she is not being given what a wife should be given by her husband. Any time she want that she has all of that she wants. She loves the war; just as war; and says she never was happier in her life. Yet in all that time she was away she never saw one man, woman, nor child killed nor did she see a dead body...But it is bad luck to have given up one's children [as Hemingway did in marrying Martha], and put another, good, woman out of business [his ex-wife Pauline] and devoted ourself to some one and their writing and their career to have them come home and say the things that she has said and act as though there were no mutual obligations in a marriage that was as seriously undertaken as ours was..."
After further expressing his worries about Martha and discussing in detail her problems about money, Hemingway continues: "I've written you many letters about things that worried and upset me but never sent them because I thought I could just as well be in the wrong myself and I did not want to worry you. But it has reached a point where I have to send this letter. If she decided she didn't love me or loved some one else she should have written me decently about it and faced the practical consequences that it entailed. But to be constantly rude...I haven't changed at all except that I have learned to keep my temper better. And mother I'm not a monster and it is bad to be treated as one unless the person doing it is ill. And mother you musn't tell a man to leave his work and offer to work for Collier's and then have him do it and then accuse him of haveing [sic] tried to get in with Collier's in order to put you in an inferior position. That's not sane. I'm not a rival of Martha's nor ever have been. I've only always tried to help her. And now she suddenly comes back hating [sic] me. Her voice was full of hate when she spoke to me on the phone. But this isn't a letter of atrocity stories. I only want to know truly and honestly if you think Marty is absolutely sound mentally now. Because if she is then I am relieved from much responsability [sic]. If she isn't then I want to look after her as well as I can. Either way my life is ruined. And that is not a wild nor exagerated [sic] statement..."
THE BREAKING UP OF A MARRIAGE
A remarkable letter, written just after Martha Gellhorn returned to Cuba after a long overseas assignment, "...For a while I thought maybe she had paranoia. There were so many symptoms, loss of memory, distortions, delusions of grandeur, false accusations and inability to think about anything except one's self. But now I think she was just plain spoiled and the sort of inhuman selfishness could just be inhuman selfishness...mother Martha is a very changed girl. I don't mean the ghastly thing she had done to her insides (I must always keep her from knowing how terrible that is) but a sort of lack of moral sense that is frightening...She says things and writes me things that no one in their right mind could write unless they were inhuman. And it isn't that she is not being given what a wife should be given by her husband. Any time she want that she has all of that she wants. She loves the war; just as war; and says she never was happier in her life. Yet in all that time she was away she never saw one man, woman, nor child killed nor did she see a dead body...But it is bad luck to have given up one's children [as Hemingway did in marrying Martha], and put another, good, woman out of business [his ex-wife Pauline] and devoted ourself to some one and their writing and their career to have them come home and say the things that she has said and act as though there were no mutual obligations in a marriage that was as seriously undertaken as ours was..."
After further expressing his worries about Martha and discussing in detail her problems about money, Hemingway continues: "I've written you many letters about things that worried and upset me but never sent them because I thought I could just as well be in the wrong myself and I did not want to worry you. But it has reached a point where I have to send this letter. If she decided she didn't love me or loved some one else she should have written me decently about it and faced the practical consequences that it entailed. But to be constantly rude...I haven't changed at all except that I have learned to keep my temper better. And mother I'm not a monster and it is bad to be treated as one unless the person doing it is ill. And mother you musn't tell a man to leave his work and offer to work for Collier's and then have him do it and then accuse him of haveing [sic] tried to get in with Collier's in order to put you in an inferior position. That's not sane. I'm not a rival of Martha's nor ever have been. I've only always tried to help her. And now she suddenly comes back hating [sic] me. Her voice was full of hate when she spoke to me on the phone. But this isn't a letter of atrocity stories. I only want to know truly and honestly if you think Marty is absolutely sound mentally now. Because if she is then I am relieved from much responsability [sic]. If she isn't then I want to look after her as well as I can. Either way my life is ruined. And that is not a wild nor exagerated [sic] statement..."