"You know, Johann," said Hemingway [to Goethe, as they walked through the alleys of the other world], "I can't escape their constant accusations either. Instead of reading my books, they write books about me. They say I didn't love my wives. That I didn't care enough about my son. That I broke a critic's face. That I wasn't honest. That I was arrogant. That I was a chauvinist. That I boasted about having 230 war wounds when I only had 206. That I masturbated. That I was bad to my mother."

"That's how immortality is, what can you do," said Goethe. "Immortality is eternal trial."

"If it's an eternal trial, it needs a real judge! Not a village schoolteacher with a stick in her hand."

"That's exactly what eternal trial is: the stick in the hand of a village schoolteacher! What did you imagine, Ernest?"

"I didn't imagine anything. I just hoped that after my death, I would live a little peacefully."

"You did everything to become immortal."

"Nonsense. I just wrote books, that's all."

"Exactly!" Goethe laughed.

"I have no objection to my books being immortal. I wrote them in such a way that no one can change a word. That they withstand the storms. But I, as a person, as Ernest Hemingway, don't give a damn about immortality!"

"I understand you. But you should have been more measured while you were alive. Now it's probably too late."