Hemingway's six-fingered cat

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

It's worth it to get a cat once, and you won't be able to stop. Ernest Hemingway, famous writer and Nobel laureate, thought so. Indeed, he was very fond of cats, and at home, on the estate on the island of Key West, he arranged a real cat paradise. His pets could walk wherever they liked, received good food and lived at ease. But the writer had not quite ordinary cats at home. In this article, we will talk about them. So, which cats are called Hemingway cats?

Snowball

This kitten was given to the famous writer by his friend, Captain Stanley Dexter, back in 1935. The pet was supposed to bring good luck to Hemingway, because according to an old legend common among sailors, such cats are real talismans. They were taken with them on long voyages by ship captains, so that later they would definitely return back.

Snowball (as Hemingway called his kitten) had six toes on each foot. This little fluffy ball grew up, became an adult cat and lived side by side with the famous writer for many more years, opening a new life in his life.era.

A few words about the cat's features

Polydactyly is an anatomical disorder. It is characterized by the fact that on the paws of the animal there are more fingers than provided by nature. Normally, cats have five toes on their front paws and four on their back paws. With polydactyly, the number of fingers is increased, and the paw looks unusual, strange.

It is known that polydactyly is inherited. That is, if a cat has this deviation, with a 50 percent probability it will be transmitted to her offspring. Another hypothesis for the occurrence of polydactyly is that it can be caused by violations of embryonic development. Unfortunately, what factors can lead to such a deviation has not yet been established.

No inconvenience, however, this feature does not cause cats. It does not affect the behavior of animals in any way. If desired, the owners of such an unusual kitten can go to a veterinary clinic, where extra fingers will simply be removed surgically. But Ernest Hemingway, of course, did not carry out such manipulations with his pets.

Cat Paradise

As mentioned above, a few years later, more animals appeared in the writer's house. Snowball fell in love with a beautiful representative of his own kind, kittens were born. However, some were also six-fingered. They all stayed at the Hemingway estate.

As the years passed, the number of cats grew. By the end of World War II, twenty pets lived in the writer's house. AndHemingway loved them all very much.

I miss you

Everyone knew about the warm attachment of a talented writer to his pets. And journalists in those days repeatedly visited the estate to see how Ernest Hemingway and his extraordinary cats live. Entertaining materials appeared in the press, individual pictures and even entire photo reports. And, of course, everyone was interested in the very six-fingered cat of Hemingway - Snowball. His pictures were printed next to the photos of the owner.

He got into the press and another Hemingway cat. A case was described when the writer had to shoot his pet, which was hit by a car. The animal was in great pain, so the owner had no other choice. On that day, journalists arrived at the house of a famous writer by chance, and it so happened that they found tears in the eyes of this man who had seen his life …

Later in a letter to a close friend, Hemingway wrote that he wanted to tell his departed pet how much he missed him. “I have had to shoot people, but I have never experienced such severe pain as when I held you in my arms, broken, dying, but purring…”

Fifty-seven Hemingway cats

The following fact is interesting. In 1957, fifty-seven felines lived on the writer's estate. Hemingway's first six-toed cat, Snowball, was an ancestor to many of them.

The writer's wife ordered to attach a tower to the house. She believed thatthere Hemingway would be able to write in solitude, without distractions. However, the writer himself continued to create in his bedroom, and the tower was given to the cats, who freely settled on its first floor.

Ernest Hemingway carried his love for fluffy pets throughout his life. And, of course, this strong attachment could not but affect the writer's work.

Cats in the works of Hemingway

Even at the very beginning of his writing career, Ernest Hemingway created a short story in which one of the main characters was a cat. It was only three pages of a story about two Americans, a married couple staying in an Italian hotel. The wife sees a cat outside the window, sitting in the rain, and goes downstairs to take him to the room. The owner of the hotel sends a maid with an umbrella for the girl. The cat, however, has already gone somewhere, and the girl returns to her husband's room. There, a small skirmish occurs between the spouses, but the maid soon enters the room, holding a cat in her arms. “The owner asked me to give it to you,” she says. And that's all Hemingway wanted to tell the reader. “The Cat in the Rain” is the name of this story, which makes you think about people, their relationships, characters and actions.

The novel "Islands in the Ocean", published by the writer's widow after his death, tells the story of the appearance of the cat Boyce in the Hemingway house. Ham picked him up near his favorite restaurant as a kitten. This Hemingway cat enjoyed a privileged position in the house: he couldclimb into bed with the owner and eat with him from the same bowl. It is said that the writer's pet adopted from him a love for sweet tropical fruits.

Hemingway House Museum and its inhabitants

After the death of the writer, his house on the island of Key West became a museum. And all the cats that lived there before remained in their usual place. Ernest Hemingway himself bequeathed to his pets and their descendants an indefinite maintenance. At the same time, cats should be allowed to be where they want, to give attention, they should be fed deliciously.

Furry residents of the museum are equipped with automatic feeders, which they can visit at any time of the day or night, and drinking fountains. One of these fountains was made by Ernest Hemingway himself, adapting an old urinal from a nearby bar for this purpose. And it still works, cats use it.

At the museum there are more than fifty representatives of the cat family, about forty of them are descendants of that same Snowball, they have pronounced polydactyly. At the same time, due to their free crossing among themselves, very interesting variations in the manifestation of the trait arise - seven and eight fingers on the front paws. The colors of these cats are also very different, there are also descendants of the black and white handsome Boyce.

The island also has a cat cemetery, where the inhabitants of the museum and the pets of Ham himself lie buried. Each small headstone bears the names and dates of birth and death of cats.

America's National Treasure

Several years ago, a threat loomed over the inhabitants of the house-museum of Ernest Hemingway. ByAccording to the law of the state of Florida, to which the island of Key West belongs, each citizen can keep no more than four cats in his home.

The Department of Agriculture filed a lawsuit against the administration of the museum. The statement argued that keeping so many cats was illegal, as was showing them to visitors for money. The lawsuit lasted for several years, but the museum staff defended their pets. Now the cats living in the territory of Ernest Hemingway's house are considered the national treasure of America and are officially protected by law.

How to communicate with Hemingway cats?

Come visit his house museum in Key West, Florida. Here you can not only learn about the life of a famous writer and join his work, but also get acquainted with numerous cats, descendants of Snowball, who settled with Ham back in 1935.

Museum cats are accustomed to the attention of visitors. They behave calmly, many even climb on the knees of the guests and begin to purr.

And one more interesting fact about Ernest Hemingway's cats. During his lifetime, he called his pets so that their nicknames contained the consonant "C". And after the death of the writer, cats began to be named after celebrities. Now Audrey Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin, Sophia Loren and Pablo Picasso live on the island.

Ernest Hemingway loved cats. They accompanied his life and work, helped to find inspiration and tune in to the working wave. The writer took care of his furrypets, and they answered him with a devoted purr. What cats did Ernest Hemingway love? The answer is simple: he loved everyone, even the special ones.