Anyone who likes bullfighting is a fascist,” she then announced didactically. “Don’t you agree, Tommy?”

It was startling to hear the author of The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice addressed by the nickname he shared with my younger brother. “Tommy” shrugged and replied that he thought Hemingway was “a very interesting writer,” obviously not eager either to correct or to agree with his wife.

“Well, John,” Hemingway replied in his gravelly voice, speaking very clearly and slowly. “Every time Orson said the word ‘infantry’ it was like a cocksucker swallowing.”

There was a hush. John, rising to the occasion, managed to chuckle politely. Then after what seemed a long while, the shocked guests resumed their small talk.

Despite his injury, John was in a triumphant mood. Standing in my wet clothes at the small bar and surveying the scene in front of me, I could only marvel at his mad, indomitable spirit. Here he was, one of Hollywood’s most successful movie directors, seated in a grimy Irish pub, as pleased as if he had just won an Oscar; probably even more so, as the movie business, I realized once again, was mainly a means to an end for him, a way to make enough money so that he could satisfy his longing for adventure. In Ireland he was like a character in a movie he might have been tempted to make—the story of a slightly mad country squire in love with horses and the chase. He seemed to regret that he was stuck in another world that was solely concerned with money and power, box office returns and big deals.