“[Here is] Lady Duff is sitting on a mule during an adventure up in Northern New Mexico, probably enjoying the services of a dude ranch,” he informed me. He speculated that the photo was taken in Bandelier, a national park with over 30,000 acres of canyon and mesa country.
The image is undated, but it may be the last surviving photograph of Lady Duff Twysden, and this is the first time it has been published. It was poignant to behold her there in that desert, a world away from the raucous cafes and bals musettes of Montparnasse. Even though free at last from fleets of suitors, she still seemed to have a commanding presence—and the aloofness that intoxicated men on two continents. This seems appropriate. After all, so few people have been so effectively immortalized yet remained so mysterious at the same time.
Blume is the author of Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises, from which this article is partially adapted.
