"A Canary for One" is a short story byErnest Hemingway. It was first published inScribner's Magazine April 1927.[1][2][3] It was republished inMen Without Women (1927),The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1961) andThe Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (1987).
Three Americans, a married couple and a middle-aged woman, are traveling on a train from theFrench riviera throughMarseille andAvignon overnight toParis. The middle-aged woman seems to be partly deaf and anxious about the fast-moving train crashing. She is delighted by acanary she bought inPalermo inSicily. The train passes a house fire and wrecked vehicles. Halfway through the story, the narrator reveals himself to be the husband, listening in on the woman’s conversation with his wife. After finding out that the couple are American, the woman mentions repeatedly that Americans make the only good husbands. She bought the canary for herstill-heartbroken daughter, whom she prevented from marrying a Swiss man inVevey two years ago. As they exit the train, it is revealed that the American couple will live separately in Paris.
Hemingway began writing the first drafts of "A Canary for One" in September 1926.[1]
The full text ofA Canary for One at Wikisource