Hemingway is always my contemporary.

Desultor once told me he loves when the ancients pop out and speak to him as a peer, through the books.

And that happens sometimes, they become my contemporary, the ancients, but Hemingway, he is always that way. Here are some familiar things from early moments in A Farewell to Arms (both coincidentally priest-related):

"How do you do?" he asked. He put some packages down by the bed, on the floor. "All right, father." He sat down in the chair that had been brought for Rinaldi and looked out of the window embarrassedly. I noticed his face looked very tired. "I can only stay a minute," he said. "It is late." "It's not late. How is the mess?" He smiled. "I am still a great joke."

That particular sense of embarrassment, and then the flow of conversation.

And this, this is tremendously sweet; Lt. Henry ("I") has just come back from a furlough.

That night at the mess I sat next to the priest and he was disappointed and suddenly hurt that I had not gone to the Abruzzi. He had written to his father that I was coming and they had made preparations. I myself felt as badly as he did and could not understand why I had not gone. It was what I had wanted to do and I tried to explain how one thing had led to another and finally he saw it and understood that I had really wanted to go and it was almost all right. I had drunk much wine and afterward coffee and Strega and I explained, winefully, how we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things.

"Winefully" :-)