Front Cover of the 1980 Mondadori Edition of "La Torre Bianca" by Adriana Ivancich

Since I don't know a lick of Italian I'm using Google translator (with occasional semi-literate embellishment of my own when necessary) to retell the important story of Adriana Ivancich, the young muse who influenced Ernest Hemingway in the last decades of his life, as dictated from her 1980 memoir. 

That La Torre Bianca (The White Tower) hasn't already been translated into English—beyond a lack of public demand and copyright issues with the Hemingway estate concerning quoting his letter—since it is important personal scholarship pertaining to an American heavyweight of vast literary interest, is a blot upon Academia's already blemished insular reputation. But I digress with unnecessary words where action is demanded.

For purposes of continuity the blog will be formulated in reverse order with the front cover being the most current post and the obverse the earliest. When I have completed the project I will post the Italian text featured in each post in coherent e-book form.

All blank pages have been omitted.

Feel free to comment with any translation suggestions.

Preliminary Page

 Rainbow

Title Page

 The White Tower with 30 illustrations outside the text

Acknowledgement Page

The author thanks Mary Hemingway for the kind concessions to quote excerpts from Ernest Hemingway's letters. She also thanks Marita Guglielmi Vulci, Antonio Lucarda and Gianfranco Ivancich for the kind permission to reproduce some of the photos that appear in this volume.

Prologue

The White Tower 

"... I am writing you all this because they always try to create 'scandal' from my books. Then, ten years later, they become university texts. Keep this and you'll have very clear letters in hand to prove it." from a letter from Ernest Hemingway to Adriana Ivancich

Chapter 1

Under the rain 

I look at the clock once again: yes, it's finally time to go. I run across the road, I run up the embankment, these tormented green reflections in the Tagliamento are beautiful, I know what color the water in the Valley is, as my bag swings against my shoulder as I walk. I am on the bridge, among the pylons the eddies swirl, my shadow broken on the railing seems to plunge into the stream, now the shadows have dispersed, the sun has disappeared under an overlapping of clouds. Too bad, I would have preferred to see the Valley in full sunlight. 

Instead of these new concrete buildings, along the embankment there were once red brick houses with flowered arches and balconies and Istrian stone stairways that led down into the village... man destroys so much. 

Here in Latisana, in this square there were arcades and mullioned windows, on that side a decorated building and in front of it a harmonically simple one, even more beautiful. And there was a cheerful café always full of people... it's a pity not to be able to go back in time and find lost people and things.

Leaving the town, I stop near the intersection of the four roads. I'm early. I go to browse the shop window on the corner: bolts, wrenches, hoes...

Page 8

buckets stuffed into each other. The buckets were once made of copper and glistened. 

It's time. Return to the crossroads. The cars arrive, slow down, continue in different directions. One drop, two drops, drizzle. Here is a car that comes from Codripo, certainly and Carlo; no, he proceeds to Trieste. Sarà this one that swerves towards me, spotted, accelerates, sprays me with water, damn it. 

It rains harder. I go back to the shop to repair myself against the wall. I peek into the window, count the hoes and bolts, check the prices... what if Carlo doesn't come at all? Very capable of having climbed into the saddle for a moment to make one of his horses move and now gallop through the countryside, forgetting everything. But what did it matter to me that Carlo Kechler was the best knight in Italy, that the coveted "Gold Cup" in London also dominated the countless cups won at the horse racing competitions, so rude was he to forget me. Yet it was he who had made me this appointment to take me to Nanuck's Valley. He was always so kind to me, Carlo, despite the difference in age, although I know he often enjoyed making fun of me. 

Almost an hour has passed. If I go to call, Carlo doesn't see me, he will think that I haven't come. If I stay against the wall, he might go straight on. Better to go back to the intersection. 

At the intersection I put the bag on the ground, I care if it gets dirty, I too am all muddy. One car, two, maybe and one, four, five... Carlo isn't coming anyway, I am stupid for wanting to cry, I just can't go to the Valley. Seven, eight... I'm tired of counting cars and then what does it matter to me about going to the Valley, I can imagine that monotonous expanse of water interrupted by the reeds, the Lagoon full of vale, the seagulls, nothing special. I'm leaving now. 

A few steps, I stop. What if it comes right now?