There were no ski lifts from Schruns and no funiculars. You climbed on foot carrying your skis and higher up, where the snow was too deep, you climbed on seal skins that you attached to the bottoms of the skis . At the tops of the mountain valleys there were the big Alpine huts….The most famous of these high base huts were the Lindauer-Hutte, the Madlener-Haus and the Wiesbadener-Hutte.
—A Moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) lived a life of diverse adventures, but when young, many were the ski trips he did with his 1st wife, Hadley Richardson. Hemingway had a tangential engagement in WWI (served as an ambulance driver and infantryman with the Italian army), but given the fact WWI ended in 1918, Hemingway’s involvement was short-lived, he being only 19 years of age at the time. It was, though, from 1921-1926 that Hemingway and his wife Hadley Richardson (and their son Bumby) lived in Paris, and, when Paris winters were wet and cold, they took to Schruns in Austria to ski. Hemingway and Hadley, when in Parish, hob knobbed with the literary high mucky-mucks such as Stein, Pound, Fitzgerald, Ford, and others, but it was to the winter beauty of the Austrian Alps that they often turned to for oxygen of the soul and literary inspiration (The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway’s breakthrough novel done in drafts when in Schruns). Hemingway, in the final chapter of A Moveable Feast, writes, “We loved the Vorarlberg, and we loved Schruns. We would go there about Thanksgiving time and stay until nearly Easter.”
Ernest and Hadley had begun their skiing days together in Switzerland and Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites when Bumby was near birth. But, it was to the spacious Montafon Valley in Austria where Ernest and Hadley turned to ski when Paris was not pleasant to live, Schruns and Tchagguns their favourite ski treks. Ernest was in his mid-20s, Hadley in her early 30s in the peak of their ski years, the Hotel Taube in Schruns their winter home. Hadley and Ernest were fortunate, in the early 1920s, that Walter Lent had started a ski school in the area, Lent a disciple and friend of the ski pioneer Hannes Schneider (1890-1955). Lent took them to the high glaciers and superb ski runs, no lifts in those days, treks to the high alpine huts their scenic delights, Madlener-Haus a favourite ski trip. Many of the Austrian huts mentioned by Hemingway are beauties worth the visit as hikes in the summer or ski trips in the white-clothed winter. Hemingway mentioned the dangers of avalanches, his courses in avalanches with Lent and the death of 13 buried (9 killed) in an avalanche when Lent did not heed his own sense of mountain safety and was called a coward for not taking guests from Germany to places he should not have taken them—sadly so, Lent lived to regret his intimidation. Lent’s ski school took a dive afterwards and, in many ways, Ernest and Hadley became his only students. Hemingway makes a gentle dig against the Roman Catholic Church by mentioning a man killed in the avalanche “was refused burial in the consecrated ground by the local priest, since there was no proof he was a Catholic”.
He also mentioned attending a Christmas play in Schruns by Hans Sachs (a passionate Lutheran of the 16th century), he wrote a glowing report of.
Hemingway was called “the Black Christ” and “the Black Kirsch-drinking Christ” by many of the locals given his dark sun-tanned skin, thick black beard, and delight in kirsch. Sadly so, as the final chapter of A Moveable Feast Ends, the seemingly idyllic relationship between Ernest and Hadley comes to an end as Ernest cavorts with another woman. As Hemingway reflects on such a path taken, he says in retrospect, “All things truly wicked start from an innocence”--indeed, much wisdom packed into such a revealed experience, serious errors on the slopes leading to tragedies, serious misreads of relationships leading to similar results.
The marriage of Ernest and Hedley came to an end in 1927, but Ernest continued his ski journey, ever mixing and melding, in a suggestive and not to be forgotten manner the relationship between skiing and life, the apt and ample lessons of skiing formative for the journey through life. “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (published in 1936) is a layered short story of a man and woman (Hemingway’s final wife?) on a big game hunt, and the man becomes injured and infected with gangrene--he seems to be near the end of his all too human journey and his relationship with the woman is tense and feisty. But, as he pondered his future fate, his mind turns to earlier phases and stages of his journey, and his 1st reflection is on his ski years post WWI, and a Christmas Day in the high alpine above Schruns, the exquisite ski descent but, back of the simple and exhilarating ski descent on the glacier and time spent in Madlener-haus, a tale told of those in WWI, the German-Austrian tensions by Herr Lent. Obviously, Herr Lent had seen much tragedy in WWI, and gambling became his addiction, his common refrain “Sans Voir” (unseeing) his reality. Hemingway, in his deft and sensitive way, walks the reader into the deeper inner life of a much-admired ski instructor (his past and ghosts of his past ever haunting him). And, those who were enemies in the war, all sharing post-WWI a common interest in skiing--Hemingway does not flinch from going to such places as the ailing elder of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” short story emerges, the memory of Schruns still very much alive, its message ever deepening.
“Cross-Country Snow” (published in 1925) is a charmer and shorter tale than “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, the classical Nick Adams Hemingway persona at work. Nick and George take the funicular up the mountainside, then off it they get and down the white powder they ski, “like a shot rabbit”, the Arlberg, Christy, and Telemark their descent styles. The ski trip seems to be in Switzerland, a German-speaking waitress, in obvious anxiety, pregnant, no ring on finger, indicating much--it is these small touches in a Swiss “Weinstube” (a restaurant that serves wine) that Nick and George notice, Hemingway ever the alert observer. Both men have thoroughly enjoyed their day on the white gold, pub, dinner, and fine wine, a fitting finale. But, what next? Shall they go from hill to hill, village to village, ski run to ski run, ski bums that live such a life? Or, was such a cross-country snow ski but part of a larger vision of life? Nick and George have fuller goals and responsibilities, education, family, and much else, skiing a pleasurable hobby or avocation. Yes, they can romanticize the ski dream, but both realize their time spent together on the hills most enjoyable but there is much more to life—such is the gist of the varied issues pondered in “Cross-Country Snow”
“An Alpine Idyll” (published in 1927) is, in many ways, a surreal sort of short story. The story begins with Nick and John coming down from a lengthy period of spring skiing in the entrancing Silvretta Alps (sometimes called the Blue Silvretta given all the glaciers and later glacier skiing in the spring season). Nick and John (now May in the high regions) have been too long in the snow and bright sun, the Valley much hotter and in early spring. The title “alpine idyllic’ has an ironic twist and bent to it for two reasons. First, the lingering, in principle, of doing spring skiing in the Silvretta seems to be a good and much-desired thing for those keen to be on the slopes and nights spent in high huts. But, a good thing indulged in too long can lose its sheen and lustre. Nick and John sum up their thoughts and feelings in the Inn after a hearty “Ski-heil” by saying, “You oughtn’t to ever do anything too long” and by way of reply, “We were up there too long”. And, John concludes with “Too damn long—It’s no good doing a thing too long”. Hemingway’s message cannot be missed in this short story. But, there is more to the seeming idyll. Second, there is a tendency to idealize the ski world of the Swiss and Austrians, the people living an idyllic mountain life, Rousseau style. But, when Nick and John descend from the initial idyllic ski trip that lasted too long, its idyllic glow losing its charm and appeal, they notice a funeral of sorts. They continue to the Inn, good ale and food served, John rather weary from too much sun and skiing. The tale is soon told of a peasant whose wife died in the densely packed snow mountain in the winter. He (Olz) had no way of getting her to the town for a burial, her body soon frozen. So, he put her, standing up in his work shed, her mouth open, a lantern in her mouth when he had to cut wood. This was his reality from December to May. The innkeeper insisted “These peasants are beasts”, the priest and sexton doing their best to make sense of a bizarre situation. So, so much for a Swiss idyll, Nick and John having indulged too long, the peasant and his dead wife offering a picture of Swiss mountain life not often noted in the tourist brochures.
There is no doubt Hemmingway was one of the finest writers of the 20th century, his style of writing accessible, plain and readable. Many of the stories he tells, without being explicit, have significant insights and truth-telling ways. The fact that Hemmingway, in the 1920s (when he was in his 20s) spent many a day, week and month in the alps means he could not resist the tendency to tell, being a ski nomad in those days, ski stories, each tale well told but each, suggestively so, with much wisdom packed into it.
Montani Semper Liberi
Ron Dart
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