To die. In the rain. Alone.

[Francis A. Miniter]

These words "To die. In the rain. Alone." are apocryphally
attributed to Hemingway in a bit of recent humor in which
various people from Plato to Stalin respond to the question
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" But recent it is,
probably within the last decade or so.

So, when I read in Alan Furst's *The Kingdom of Shadows*
(written 2000) the protagonist thinking in the spring of
1939 (in italics, which tend to indicate a quotation) "To
die in the rain on a Tuesday afternoon" I came to a
screeching halt, and had to inquire into the source.

First, I checked the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca. But
no. It does remind me of his poem *Lament for Ignacio
Sánchez Mejías*, which begins,
--------------------------------------------------
At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime ready prepared
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death, and death alone.
-------------------------------------------------
But that is all. There is a much later mention of rain
dripping into his mouth ("All is finished. The rain
penetrates his mouth.") in Part 3 of the poem, but nothing
is together.

Next, I tried to search the phrase out in Hemingway. No
luck, at least to the extent of my internet resources. All
I come up with is the recent joke.

So, I am in a cunundrum. Did Furst make an anachronism, or
is there a source for his words that I don't know about? Or
did he just take elements of Garcia Lorca's poem and blend
them together?

--
Francis A. Miniter

Oscuramente
libros, laminas, llaves
siguen mi suerte.

Jorge Luis Borges, La Cifra Haiku, 6

[Bud]

Francis A. Miniter wrote:
> These words "To die. In the rain. Alone." are apocryphally
> attributed to Hemingway in a bit of recent humor in which
> various people from Plato to Stalin respond to the question
> "Why did the chicken cross the road?" But recent it is,
> probably within the last decade or so.
>

> Next, I tried to search the phrase out in Hemingway. No
> luck, at least to the extent of my internet resources. All
> I come up with is the recent joke.

Led me here, Francis:http://www.sarahmillerbooks.com/readingjul.html

She quotes it from Hemingway's _The Old Man and the Sea_ as well as why

the chicken cross the road?

--
Bud