That July, the Hemingways visited the Murphys at Antibes, and from there the four of them went down to Pamplona for the July fiesta, accompanied by Hadley Hemingway’s friend Pauline Pfeiffer, a Vogue editor who would shortly become the second Mrs. Hemingway. They stayed in the Quintana Hotel, right across the corridor from the matadors Villalta and Niño de la Palma. Hemingway was well known from his previous visits to Pamplona, and because of that, and also because they were the only Americans in town, they found themselves a constant center of friendly attention. “We drank the very dry sherry and ate roasted almonds,” Murphy said, “and every time we sat down anywhere we would be surrounded by Spaniards who shot wine into Ernest’s mouth from their wineskins. One evening a whole crowd of people suddenly began pointing at Sara and me and shouting, ‘Dansa Charles-ton! Dansa Charles-ton!’ Ernest had put them up to it. The Charleston was all the rage in America then, but it hadn’t really spread to Europe as yet; Sara and I had just learned it that summer, from a traveling dance team that appeared at the casino in Juan-les-Pins—we invited them for lunch, and they taught the steps to the children and to us. And so right there in the middle of the square in Pamplona, with a little brass band playing some sort of imitation jazz and the crowd just going wild, we got up and demonstrated.”
Hemingway also obliged Gerald to make an appearance in the bull ring. “When you were with Ernest, and he suggested that you try something, you didn’t refuse,” Gerald recalled dryly. “He suggested that I test my nerve in the ring with the yearlings. I took along my raincoat and shook it about, and all of a sudden this animal—it was just a yearling and the horns were padded, but it looked about the size of a locomotive to me—came right for me, at top speed. Evidently, I was so terrified that I just stood there holding the coat in front of me. Ernest, who had been watching very carefully to see that I didn’t get into trouble, yelled, ‘Hold it to the side!’ And miraculously, at the last moment, I moved the coat to my left and the bull veered toward it and went by me. Ernest was delighted. He said I’d made a veronica. Ernest himself, meanwhile, was waiting for some of the larger bulls, and a lot of people were watching him. Finally he caught the attention of the bull he wanted, and it came toward him. He had absolutely nothing in his hands. Just as the bull reached him, he threw himself over the horns and landed on the animal’s back, and stayed there, facing the tail. The bull staggered on a few steps and then collapsed under Ernest’s great weight. After that, to my great relief, we went back to our seats.”
