Continuing Series, Longer Stories, Original Series

The Fourteenth Guest: SS Île de France

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Inspired by Max’s blog, ‘Old Steam Ships’ –
this is my dramatized fiction piece based
on a true renowned introduction on
board the SS Île de France, written
in the style of Ernest Hemingway.

Île De France
© SS Maritime

The Île de France was widely known as Ernest Hemingway’s favorite ocean liner of the interwar era because of  its elite passenger lists, excellent French cuisine, and unpretentious yet luxurious atmosphere. Hemingway crossed the Atlantic as a passenger aboard the SS Île de France multiple times, but one specific voyage stands out for its historic encounter and personal drama. The most legendary voyage occurred in 1934 when he met the iconic actress Marlene Dietrich. Their spontaneous encounter sparked a lifelong, platonic flirtation and deep friendship. They frequently wrote affectionate letters to one another and called each other “Kraut” and “Papa.” Both admitted they never slept together because they were never single at the same time. Hemingway wrote that they were “victims of unsynchronized passion.” His letters were deeply affectionate, vulnerable, and often written from his Cuba estate, Finca Vigía. Their correspondence lasted 30 years until Hemingway’s death in 1961. This is Ernest’s story:

Île de France Sitting Room
© SS Maritime

The ship was the finest thing on the Atlantic that year and I was not supposed to be aboard her at all, not in the part of her that counted for anything. My cabin was three decks down and aft, where you could hear the screws working all night like something patient and hungry. But I knew a guy named Charlie Sweeny who traveled first class the way other men traveled coach, without thinking about it, and Charlie had asked me up for a drink before dinner, and one drink had become the kind of evening where you forget what class of ticket you are carrying.

Île de France Grand Salon
© Getty Images

The grand salon on that ship was built to make a man feel briefly immortal. Black lacquer columns going up into a ceiling of glass, and the electric light coming down through it clean and cold, the way moonlight comes through ice. The carpet underfoot was patterned so large and so strange …. a single flower spread out across acres of wool …. that walking across it felt like trespassing on something. I had had two whiskeys and was working on being unimpressed by all of it, which is a thing you can only do for so long on a ship like that.

Charlie invited me to stay for dinner and we made our way to the dining salon and settled in when there was a commotion by the head of the table. Not a loud one. A woman, tall in the way that made the room reorganize itself around her, and she had on something pale that did not compete with anything else in that black and gold room, which took a kind of discipline I understood and admired. I knew immediately who she was.

She remained standing very still while a head waiter counted heads with his finger, moving his lips, and looking unhappy about the number he arrived at.

Île de France Grand Dining Salon
© Getty Images

“Thirteen,” she said, to no one and to everyone. Her voice had gravel in it and an accent that turned the word into something heavy. “I will not sit at thirteen.” Not snobbish or uppity, just a simple statement of fact leaving no room for discussion.

The waiter was already moving, apologetic, looking for a fourteenth body among men who had wives and men who had appointments and men who had simply eaten already and did not want to eat again for the sake of a superstition. Nobody moved. I have never understood why nobody moved. Maybe they were afraid of her. I was a little afraid of her myself, standing there.

I said I would sit. I do not remember deciding to say it. It came out the way a thing comes out when your body has already decided and your mind is only now catching up to sign off on it.

She looked at me the way you look at a dog that has done something unexpected and not unwelcome. “You are not one of Charlie’s friends,” she said. That was a correct assessment, and it was true, and it was also, somehow, exactly the introduction we needed, because it meant we could skip the part where people tell each other who they are.

“I am tonight,” I said.

We sat. The waiter looked relieved in the way of a man who has been spared a difficulty he did not create and does not understand. Down the long table the silver was laid out like a militia and the wine came around and around, and she and I talked past all of it, past the other guests, past the courses, in the particular way that happens sometimes between two people who have decided without saying so that the rest of the evening belongs to them and no one else.

Ernest Hemingway & Marlene Dietrich
© Getty Images

She told me she never sat at thirteen and had not since a girl she knew had done it once and something bad had followed within the year. She told me she wasn’t sure if she really believed it but felt it was too important not to respect. I told her I understood not believing in a thing and needing it obeyed anyway. That is most of what a man carries with him, I said, the things he does not believe and cannot put down.

She laughed at that, not politely. She had a real laugh, the kind that costs something to produce and is worth more for it.

Later, much later, on the boat deck with the black water going by fast and the funnels sending sparks up into weather that could not decide if it wanted to be clear, she said we would write to each other. I said we would. Neither of us said anything about what we would not do, which by then was understood, the way the true things on a ship like that were always understood without being said, under the deck lights, over the water, going west.

Letter from Ernest Hemingway to Marlene Dietrich
© Open Culture

NAR©2026

This is “You and the Night and the Music” by Enric Madiguera & his Orchestra

SS Île de France: The Saint Bernard of the Seas

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.

27 thoughts on “The Fourteenth Guest: SS Île de France”

  2. This is a fantastic post Nance – I never knew they had such a long friendship. In that photo you could swear they looked like they were in love! That quote of Hemingway’s ‘victims of unsynchronized passion’ – is just incredible 😃. Love your story too I could just visualise it happening and ‘ You and the Night and the Music’ is just divine – perfect for the piece 🙌

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    1. Ange, I had a blast writing this story and I’m thrilled to know how much you enjoyed it. I was very fortunate to find some great photos online and I felt the same way about the shot of Ernest & Marlene together. It truly captures the moment perfectly. Thank you so much for your gracious and enthusiastic comments. You made my day! ❤️😊

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  3. When I talked to you yesterday…I couldn’t think which part you would focus on…and this totally surprised me. This is a pairing (although just friends) I would have never pieced together! Your story is just as interesting without the ship! I love this…Dietrich has always been a mystery to me. I knew way more about Hemmingway than I did her. Now…I’m going to look into her more. Thank you Nancy once again!

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    1. Max, when I discovered there was no shipwreck to write about this time, I was momentarily thrown off. Then, after digging deeper into Île de France, I discovered her popularity with the Hollywood and literary elite, namely Ernest & Marlene. There were other stories about Hemingway on board the Île de France but this was the most compelling. Who knew?! Thank goodness for the interweb! LOL! I’m so pleased to know you enjoyed my story sans shipwreck; it was a nice diversion and a great pleasure for me to write.

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      1. I was wondering the same thing! I have plenty of shipwreck stories coming up but yes…I was wondering how you were going to do this one. Now I wish I would have covered some of their relationship. I enjoyed your story as a standalone as well! But thank you once again.

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          1. lol…that is true! When I published it…I thought dang…Nancy can’t do anything with this…I was wrong! And I am happy to be wrong. You think outside of the box…which is a great thing.

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    1. Right you are, Jim! Hemingway love six-toed cats! In the 1930s, a ship captain gave him a white, six-toed cat named Snow White (or maybe Snowball …. can’t recall). Hemingway brought the cat to live in his Key West home and her descendants still live on the property there. Thanks; so glad you enjoyed my story.

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  6. Oh, I adored reading your incredible narration of the “couples” plutonic relationship … it was a great bedtime story for me … I’m not only exhaustipated but exasperated as well … my computer’s “Task Bar” has been malfunctioning off and on all day … shutdowns, and reboots every time … nite, nite my friend …

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    1. Good grief! Not comp problems again, my dear friend! I wonder if it’s time to gift yourself with a brand spanking new device? I hope you feel refreshed in the AM. Thank you for a fabulous comment; I’m so glad you enjoyed this piece written from my heart and dedicated to the memory of Ernest and Marlene. It would be lovely if they found each other in the afterlife. 🥰

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  9. “This is magnificent. You’ve truly captured Hemingway’s voice—that lean, rhythmic, unadorned prose where every word earns its keep. The line about the screws ‘working all night like something patient and hungry’ is pure Papa.

    And the way you weave in the real history—the unsynchronized passion with Dietrich, the thirty years of letters—without letting the facts weigh down the fiction… that’s a tightrope walk, and you pulled it off beautifully.

    I’m already hooked. Please tell me there’s more to come from this crossing. I’d read the whole voyage.” 🥃📖🚢

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