The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white.
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The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.
“They look like white elephants,” she said.
“I’ve never seen one,” the man drank his beer.
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
“I might have,” the man said.
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“But I don’t want you to,” he said, “I don’t care anything about it.”
“I’ll scream,” the girl said.
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“I’d better take the bags over to the other side of the station,” the man said. She smiled at him.
“All right. Then come back and we’ll finish the beer.”
He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He looked up the tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the barroom, where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.
“Do you feel better?” he asked.
“I feel fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.”
"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
ReplyDelete"Green Hills of Africa" may be Hemingway at his best, translating his observations vividly into words, and taking the reader to the wild savannah of Africa ... "A Farewell to Arms" may be the best ... But "Hills Like White Elephants" is the piece that I always remember ...
NMAL: Notes on Modern American Literature... Levels of reading for “Hills”
ReplyDeleteThe “other side,” the fertile side of this fictional setting, is south of the station. The man moves their two bags because the train is approaching, the express from Barcelona. This train would use the east-west rail line on the northern side of the station, so no train is using the southern rail line—at least not in the next five minutes. So the couple is no longer headed for Madrid and an abortion; instead, they may head for Barcelona and pregnancy by waiting for a train to approach the fertile side of the railway station. On the other hand, “if the man loses . . . , the girl does not win.”