Hills Like White Elephats, highs and lows.

Because he is so invested in realism, the only thing that’s hidden in Hemingway, particularly in “Hills Like White Elephants” are details that the plot itself hides. We don’t know precisely what the couple is discussing because we’re eavesdropping out of context, and Hemingway is not about to be the master and commander of the world of story by telling us “behind her distant eyes and elusive words, the girl imagined the life she dawned inside, dying before the physician puts on his gloves”- she simply takes dinks the beer.
Hemingway, then, shows off how observant he is. In his prose, his words filter what we need from what we don’t, noting the character actions that make up for the intricate sentences that paint character psyches. This story is praised for what it doesn’t say.
Leaving it to the words of the characters, Hemingway took on the god-like task of creating a world so “real” that lends itself for assumptions we would take on conversation in real life. Except that Hemingway is a god that allows his characters to have free will, unlike other writers that trickle their worlds with foreshadowing and telling symbols.
It is widely said that this story is all about the subtext, that it’s merit lays in the trick of having a story without saying it. But the real achievement is in what the story does say, in creating that frame that lends itself to have such subtext. Liberated from the anxiety of deciphering intricate symbolism, or any stylistic devices someone in “high” style would use, we are free to observe knowing things happen because they happen, and that there is no majestic plan behind them.
“ ‘Dos cervezas,’ the man said into the curtain.”
He ordered to beers, nothing tricky about that. Two because one is for him, the other for the girl, not because the two beers represent the twins she’s carrying in her womb, and them gulping them representing the abortion.
We only have to interpret for the sake of understanding what words mean to the characters. It’s relevant that she lies about being fine because it tells us what she’s like, at least with him.

Here’s a conversion to high style:

Hemingway’s:
He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He looked up the tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the bar-room, where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.

High:
The American picked up the suitcases, equal in style, the naked eye would presume they’re identical, matching, belonging to the same set. But he knew what was inside; he knew the stiff blazers in one and the fragile floral dresses in the other, he knew the garments in the suitcases were entirely different and not matching at all, for he had packed them himself while the girl pretended to be asleep.
Back at the bar-room, the others stood patiently for the train like schoolchildren at a bus stop, sipping their drinks with no more malice than children would sip from their juice boxes. His eyes waltzed through them as he drank an Anis, he stood in the same way he’d stand at the playground- alienated, frightened, different.
He walked through the bead curtain and found she was also alone. With her eyes just as scared, she shed of smile of both relieved recognition and frightened anxiety.


That came off as a satire of high style, but the distinction is evident.