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that he understood the reason for our refusal: here the atmosphere was more lively, more varied, more interesting. He had to travel first class, he almost apologized, because of his dog. In tourist there were no single cabins where you could keep him locked up. He invited us to come and meet his dog in his cabin and have a bottle of champagne. If it didn't bother us, he would have lunch with us every now and then: leaving first for tourist didn't bother him.

I asked him why he had thought of inviting us, without even knowing us. I had intrigued him from the start, he explained. It wasn't every day that a character like Scribner came to the port to greet a girl.

I had designed various covers for your publishing house, I said. Ah yes, interesting. Bemelmans said and I explained that his job was that of a humorous writer-draftsman and that, although he was born in Tyrol, he was now a naturalized American and wrote in English and if he occasionally made mistakes, well people enjoyed it even more. What books had I made the covers for? Mainly for those of Ernest Hemingway, I said.

"Do you know Hemingway?" Bemelmans asked. When I said yes, his eyes lit up with curiosity. "What do you think of his latest book, Across the River and Into the Trees?"

It was certainly not easy to answer. Papa had loved that book. "Every time I read it. And I read it about 200 times, it almost killed me." he wrote as he corrected the latest drafts and added the latest inserts. "I changed the end of about twelve capitals and tried to be as critical and constructive at the same time as possible" and he didn't realize that Renata could get us into trouble. "The prediction for critical reception is this: Time will attack the book and me because Eisenhower is their presidential candidate and not get elected if enough folks read this book. Newsweek will review it...