May 19, 2023 | Read Online

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The time Hemingway and Fitzgerald measured their members.

Cole Schafer
May 19, 2023

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Let's talk bout the time Hemingway and Fitzgerald measured members.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, the literary genius behind The Great Gatsby, was married to a woman named Zelda Sayre.

While they were certainly a power couple during the roaring twenties––known throughout Europe for their larger-than-life personalities and lavish parties––their relationship was riddled with infidelity, jealousy, alcoholism, mental illness, manipulation and a never-ending flurry of knock-down drag-out fights.

During one of the couples bouts, Zelda said something to Fitzgerald that completely derailed him. So much so, that he confided in his friend and contemporary at the time, Ernest Hemingway.

In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway writes of the encounter.

Apparently Hemingway and Fitzgerald were sitting in a Parisian cafe enjoying a cherry tart and a glass of wine when Fitzgerald spoke up...

“Zelda said that the way I was built I could never make any woman happy and that was what upset her originally. She said it was a matter of measurements. I have never felt the same since she said that and I have to know truly.”

To see for himself if there was any merit to Zelda's criticism, Hemingway told Fitzgerald to meet him in "Le Water". Once in the bathroom, Fitzgerald dropped his trousers and upon closer inspection, Hemingway gave him his prognosis…

“You’re perfectly fine.”

Hemingway then recommended that Fitzgerald look upon the statues at the Louvre and then go home and look at himself in the mirror “in profile” to see that he appeared underwhelming when looking down from above.

Then in classic Hemingway prose, he shared some wisdom with Fitzgerald about what's really important in regards to one’s member...

“It is the size that it becomes.”

I find this moment between Hemingway and Fitzgerald in Le Water fascinating because it shows us that one of the greatest American writers to ever live struggled with insecurity.

By Cole Schafer.

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