BOOK I

ERNEST

HEMINGWAY

The Sun

Also Rises

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

_New York_

Copyright, 1926, Charles Scribner’s Sons;

renewal copyright, 1954, Ernest Hemingway

_All rights reserved. No part of this book_

_may be reproduced in any form without the_

_permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons._

Printed in the United States of America

_This book is for_ HADLEY

_and for_ JOHN HADLEY NICANOR

”You are all a lost generation.”

—GERTRUDE STEIN _in conversation_

”One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but

the earth abideth forever. . . . The sun also ariseth, and the

sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose. . . .

The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the

north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth

again according to his circuits. . . . All the rivers run into

the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the

rivers come, thither they return again.”

—_Ecclesiastes_

BOOK I

CHAPTER

1

Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not

think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it

meant a lot to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked

it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling

of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at

Princeton. There was a certain inner comfort in knowing he could knock

down anybody who was snooty to him, although, being very shy and a

thoroughly nice boy, he never fought except in the gym. He was Spider

Kelly’s star pupil. Spider Kelly taught all his young gentlemen to box

like featherweights, no matter whether they weighed one hundred and five

or two hundred and five pounds. But it seemed to fit Cohn. He was really

very fast. He was so good that Spider promptly overmatched him and got

his nose permanently flattened. This increased Cohn’s distaste for

boxing, but it gave him a certain satisfaction of some strange sort, and

it certainly improved his nose. In his last year at Princeton he read

too much and took to wearing spectacles. I never met any one of his

class who remembered him. They did not even remember that he was

middleweight boxing champion.

I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories

hold together, and I always had a suspicion that perhaps Robert Cohn had

never been middleweight boxing champion, and that perhaps a horse had

stepped on his face, or that maybe his mother had been frightened or

seen something, or that he had, maybe, bumped into something as a young

child, but I finally had somebody verify the story from Spider Kelly.

Spider Kelly not only remembered Cohn. He had often wondered what had

become of him.

Robert Cohn was a member, through his father, of one of the richest

Jewish families in New York, and through his mother of one of the

oldest. At the military school where he prepped for Princeton, and

played a very good end on the football team, no one had made him

race-conscious. No one had ever made him feel he was a Jew, and hence

any different from anybody else, until he went to Princeton. He was a

nice boy, a friendly boy, and very shy, and it made him bitter. He took

it out in boxing, and he came out of Princeton with painful

self-consciousness and the flattened nose, and was married by the first

girl who was nice to him. He was married five years, had three children,

lost most of the fifty thousand dollars his father left him, the balance

of the estate having gone to his mother, hardened into a rather

unattractive mould under domestic unhappiness with a rich wife; and just

when he had made up his mind to leave his wife she left him and went off

with a miniature-painter. As he had been thinking for months about

leaving his wife and had not done it because it would be too cruel to

deprive her of himself, her departure was a very healthful shock.

The divorce was arranged and Robert Cohn went out to the Coast. In

California he fell among literary people and, as he still had a little

of the fifty thousand left, in a short time he was backing a review of

the Arts. The review commenced publication in Carmel, California, and

finished in Provincetown, Massachusetts. By that time Cohn, who had been

regarded purely as an angel, and whose name had appeared on the

editorial page merely as a member of the advisory board, had become the

sole editor. It was his money and he discovered he liked the authority

of editing. He was sorry when the magazine became too expensive and he

had to give it up.

By that time, though, he had other things to worry about. He had been

taken in hand by a lady who hoped to rise with the magazine. She was

very forceful, and Cohn never had a chance of not being taken in hand.

Also he was sure that he loved her. When this lady saw that the magazine

was not going to rise, she became a little disgusted with Cohn and

decided that she might as well get what there was to get while there was

still something available, so she urged that they go to Europe, where

Cohn could write. They came to Europe, where the lady had been educated,

and stayed three years. During these three years, the first spent in

travel, the last two in Paris, Robert Cohn had two friends, Braddocks

and myself. Braddocks was his literary friend. I was his tennis friend.

The lady who had him, her name was Frances, found toward the end of the

second year that her looks were going, and her attitude toward Robert

changed from one of careless possession and exploitation to the absolute

determination that he should marry her. During this time Robert’s mother

had settled an allowance on him, about three hundred dollars a month.

During two years and a half I do not believe that Robert Cohn looked at

another woman. He was fairly happy, except that, like many people living

in Europe, he would rather have been in America, and he had discovered

writing. He wrote a novel, and it was not really such a bad novel as the

critics later called it, although it was a very poor novel. He read many

books, played bridge, played tennis, and boxed at a local gymnasium.

I first became aware of his lady’s attitude toward him one night after

the three of us had dined together. We had dined at l’Avenue’s and

afterward went to the Café de Versailles for coffee. We had several

_fines_ after the coffee, and I said I must be going. Cohn had been

talking about the two of us going off somewhere on a weekend trip. He

wanted to get out of town and get in a good walk. I suggested we fly to

Strasbourg and walk up to Saint Odile, or somewhere or other in Alsace.

“I know a girl in Strasbourg who can show us the town,” I said.

Somebody kicked me under the table. I thought it was accidental and went

on: “She’s been there two years and knows everything there is to know

about the town. She’s a swell girl.”

I was kicked again under the table and, looking, saw Frances, Robert’s

lady, her chin lifting and her face hardening.

“Hell,” I said, “why go to Strasbourg? We could go up to Bruges, or to

the Ardennes.”

Cohn looked relieved. I was not kicked again. I said good-night and went

out. Cohn said he wanted to buy a paper and would walk to the corner

with me. “For God’s sake,” he said, “why did you say that about that

girl in Strasbourg for? Didn’t you see Frances?”

“No, why should I? If I know an American girl that lives in Strasbourg

what the hell is it to Frances?”

“It doesn’t make any difference. Any girl. I couldn’t go, that would be

all.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You don’t know Frances. Any girl at all. Didn’t you see the way she

looked?”

“Oh, well,” I said, “let’s go to Senlis.”

“Don’t get sore.”

“I’m not sore. Senlis is a good place and we can stay at the Grand Cerf

and take a hike in the woods and come home.”

“Good, that will be fine.”

“Well, I’ll see you to-morrow at the courts,” I said.

“Good-night, Jake,” he said, and started back to the café.

“You forgot to get your paper,” I said.

“That’s so.” He walked with me up to the kiosque at the corner. “You are

not sore, are you, Jake?” He turned with the paper in his hand.

“No, why should I be?”

“See you at tennis,” he said. I watched him walk back to the café

holding his paper. I rather liked him and evidently she led him quite a

life.

CHAPTER

2

That winter Robert Cohn went over to America with his novel, and it was

accepted by a fairly good publisher. His going made an awful row I

heard, and I think that was where Frances lost him, because several

women were nice to him in New York, and when he came back he was quite

changed. He was more enthusiastic about America than ever, and he was

not so simple, and he was not so nice. The publishers had praised his

novel pretty highly and it rather went to his head. Then several women

had put themselves out to be nice to him, and his horizons had all

shifted. For four years his horizon had been absolutely limited to his

wife. For three years, or almost three years, he had never seen beyond

Frances. I am sure he had never been in love in his life.

He had married on the rebound from the rotten time he had in college,

and Frances took him on the rebound from his discovery that he had not

been everything to his first wife. He was not in love yet but he

realized that he was an attractive quantity to women, and that the fact

of a woman caring for him and wanting to live with him was not simply a

divine miracle. This changed him so that he was not so pleasant to have

around. Also, playing for higher stakes than he could afford in some

rather steep bridge games with his New York connections, he had held

cards and won several hundred dollars. It made him rather vain of his

bridge game, and he talked several times of how a man could always make

a living at bridge if he were ever forced to.

Then there was another thing. He had been reading W. H. Hudson. That

sounds like an innocent occupation, but Cohn had read and reread “The

Purple Land.” “The Purple Land” is a very sinister book if read too late

in life. It recounts splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfect

English gentleman in an intensely romantic land, the scenery of which is

very well described. For a man to take it at thirty-four as a guide-book

to what life holds is about as safe as it would be for a man of the same

age to enter Wall Street direct from a French convent, equipped with a

complete set of the more practical Alger books. Cohn, I believe, took

every word of “The Purple Land” as literally as though it had been an

R. G. Dun report. You understand me, he made some reservations, but on

the whole the book to him was sound. It was all that was needed to set

him off. I did not realize the extent to which it had set him off until

one day he came into my office.

“Hello, Robert,” I said. “Did you come in to cheer me up?”

“Would you like to go to South America, Jake?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I never wanted to go. Too expensive. You can see all the

South Americans you want in Paris anyway.”

“They’re not the real South Americans.”

“They look awfully real to me.”

I had a boat train to catch with a week’s mail stories, and only half of

them written.

“Do you know any dirt?” I asked.

“No.”

“None of your exalted connections getting divorces?”

“No; listen, Jake. If I handled both our expenses, would you go to South

America with me?”

“Why me?”

“You can talk Spanish. And it would be more fun with two of us.”

“No,” I said, “I like this town and I go to Spain in the summer-time.”

“All my life I’ve wanted to go on a trip like that,” Cohn said. He sat

down. “I’ll be too old before I can ever do it.”

“Don’t be a fool,” I said. “You can go anywhere you want. You’ve got

plenty of money.”

“I know. But I can’t get started.”

“Cheer up,” I said. “All countries look just like the moving pictures.”

But I felt sorry for him. He had it badly.

“I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really

living it.”

“Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters.”

“I’m not interested in bull-fighters. That’s an abnormal life. I want to

go back in the country in South America. We could have a great trip.”

“Did you ever think about going to British East Africa to shoot?”

“No, I wouldn’t like that.”

“I’d go there with you.”

“No; that doesn’t interest me.”

“That’s because you never read a book about it. Go on and read a book

all full of love affairs with the beautiful shiny black princesses.”

“I want to go to South America.”

He had a hard, Jewish, stubborn streak.

“Come on down-stairs and have a drink.”

“Aren’t you working?”

“No,” I said. We went down the stairs to the café on the ground floor. I

had discovered that was the best way to get rid of friends. Once you had

a drink all you had to say was: “Well, I’ve got to get back and get off

some cables,” and it was done. It is very important to discover graceful

exits like that in the newspaper business, where it is such an important

part of the ethics that you should never seem to be working. Anyway, we

went down-stairs to the bar and had a whiskey and soda. Cohn looked at

the bottles in bins around the wall. “This is a good place,” he said.

“There’s a lot of liquor,” I agreed.

“Listen, Jake,” he leaned forward on the bar. “Don’t you ever get the

feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage

of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live

already?”

“Yes, every once in a while.”

“Do you know that in about thirty-five years more we’ll be dead?”

“What the hell, Robert,” I said. “What the hell.”

“I’m serious.”

“It’s one thing I don’t worry about,” I said.

“You ought to.”

“I’ve had plenty to worry about one time or other. I’m through

worrying.”

“Well, I want to go to South America.”

“Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference.

I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one

place to another. There’s nothing to that.”

“But you’ve never been to South America.”

“South America hell! If you went there the way you feel now it would be

exactly the same. This is a good town. Why don’t you start living your

life in Paris?”

“I’m sick of Paris, and I’m sick of the Quarter.”

“Stay away from the Quarter. Cruise around by yourself and see what

happens to you.”

“Nothing happens to me. I walked alone all one night and nothing

happened except a bicycle cop stopped me and asked to see my papers.”

“Wasn’t the town nice at night?”

“I don’t care for Paris.”

So there you were. I was sorry for him, but it was not a thing you could

do anything about, because right away you ran up against the two

stubbornnesses: South America could fix it and he did not like Paris. He

got the first idea out of a book, and I suppose the second came out of a

book too.

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got to go up-stairs and get off some cables.”

“Do you really have to go?”

“Yes, I’ve got to get these cables off.”

“Do you mind if I come up and sit around the office?”

“No, come on up.”

He sat in the outer room and read the papers, and the Editor and

Publisher and I worked hard for two hours. Then I sorted out the

carbons, stamped on a by-line, put the stuff in a couple of big manila

envelopes and rang for a boy to take them to the Gare St. Lazare. I went

out into the other room and there was Robert Cohn asleep in the big

chair. He was asleep with his head on his arms. I did not like to wake

him up, but I wanted to lock the office and shove off. I put my hand on

his shoulder. He shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he said, and put his

head deeper into his arms. “I can’t do it. Nothing will make me do it.”

“Robert,” I said, and shook him by the shoulder. He looked up. He smiled

and blinked.

“Did I talk out loud just then?”

“Something. But it wasn’t clear.”

“God, what a rotten dream!”

“Did the typewriter put you to sleep?”

“Guess so. I didn’t sleep all last night.”

“What was the matter?”

“Talking,” he said.

I could picture it. I have a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom

scenes of my friends. We went out to the Café Napolitain to have an

_apéritif_ and watch the evening crowd on the Boulevard.

CHAPTER

3

It was a warm spring night and I sat at a table on the terrace of the

Napolitain after Robert had gone, watching it get dark and the electric

signs come on, and the red and green stop-and-go traffic-signal, and the

crowd going by, and the horse-cabs clippety-clopping along at the edge

of the solid taxi traffic, and the _poules_ going by, singly and in

pairs, looking for the evening meal. I watched a good-looking girl walk

past the table and watched her go up the street and lost sight of her,

and watched another, and then saw the first one coming back again. She

went by once more and I caught her eye, and she came over and sat down

at the table. The waiter came up.

“Well, what will you drink?” I asked.

“Pernod.”

“That’s not good for little girls.”

“Little girl yourself. Dites garçon, un pernod.”

“A pernod for me, too.”

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Going on a party?”

“Sure. Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. You never know in this town.”

“Don’t you like Paris?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you go somewhere else?”

“Isn’t anywhere else.”

“You’re happy, all right.”

“Happy, hell!”

Pernod is greenish imitation absinthe. When you add water it turns

milky. It tastes like licorice and it has a good uplift, but it drops

you just as far. We sat and drank it, and the girl looked sullen.

“Well,” I said, “are you going to buy me a dinner?”

She grinned and I saw why she made a point of not laughing. With her

mouth closed she was a rather pretty girl. I paid for the saucers and we

walked out to the street. I hailed a horse-cab and the driver pulled up

at the curb. Settled back in the slow, smoothly rolling _fiacre_ we

moved up the Avenue de l’Opéra, passed the locked doors of the shops,

their windows lighted, the Avenue broad and shiny and almost deserted.

The cab passed the New York _Herald_ bureau with the window full of

clocks.

“What are all the clocks for?” she asked.

“They show the hour all over America.”

“Don’t kid me.”

We turned off the Avenue up the Rue des Pyramides, through the traffic

of the Rue de Rivoli, and through a dark gate into the Tuileries. She

cuddled against me and I put my arm around her. She looked up to be

kissed. She touched me with one hand and I put her hand away.

“Never mind.”

“What’s the matter? You sick?”

“Yes.”

“Everybody’s sick. I’m sick, too.”

We came out of the Tuileries into the light and crossed the Seine and

then turned up the Rue des Saints Pères.

“You oughtn’t to drink pernod if you’re sick.”

“You neither.”

“It doesn’t make any difference with me. It doesn’t make any difference

with a woman.”

“What are you called?”

“Georgette. How are you called?”

“Jacob.”

“That’s a Flemish name.”

“American too.”

“You’re not Flamand?”

“No, American.”

“Good, I detest Flamands.”

By this time we were at the restaurant. I called to the _cocher_ to

stop. We got out and Georgette did not like the looks of the place.

“This is no great thing of a restaurant.”

“No,” I said. “Maybe you would rather go to Foyot’s. Why don’t you keep

the cab and go on?”

I had picked her up because of a vague sentimental idea that it would be

nice to eat with some one. It was a long time since I had dined with a

_poule_, and I had forgotten how dull it could be. We went into the

restaurant, passed Madame Lavigne at the desk and into a little room.

Georgette cheered up a little under the food.

“It isn’t bad here,” she said. “It isn’t chic, but the food is all

right.”

“Better than you eat in Liège.”

“Brussels, you mean.”

We had another bottle of wine and Georgette made a joke. She smiled and

showed all her bad teeth, and we touched glasses. “You’re not a bad

type,” she said. “It’s a shame you’re sick. We get on well. What’s the

matter with you, anyway?”

“I got hurt in the war,” I said.

“Oh, that dirty war.”

We would probably have gone on and discussed the war and agreed that it

was in reality a calamity for civilization, and perhaps would have been

better avoided. I was bored enough. Just then from the other room some

one called: “Barnes! I say, Barnes! Jacob Barnes!”

“It’s a friend calling me,” I explained, and went out.

There was Braddocks at a big table with a party: Cohn, Frances Clyne,

Mrs. Braddocks, several people I did not know.

“You’re coming to the dance, aren’t you?” Braddocks asked.

“What dance?”

“Why, the dancings. Don’t you know we’ve revived them?” Mrs. Braddocks

put in.

“You must come, Jake. We’re all going,” Frances said from the end of the

table. She was tall and had a smile.

“Of course, he’s coming,” Braddocks said. “Come in and have coffee with

us, Barnes.”

“Right.”

“And bring your friend,” said Mrs. Braddocks laughing. She was a

Canadian and had all their easy social graces.

“Thanks, we’ll be in,” I said. I went back to the small room.

“Who are your friends?” Georgette asked.

“Writers and artists.”

“There are lots of those on this side of the river.”

“Too many.”

“I think so. Still, some of them make money.”

“Oh, yes.”

We finished the meal and the wine. “Come on,” I said. “We’re going to

have coffee with the others.”

Georgette opened her bag, made a few passes at her face as she looked in

the little mirror, re-defined her lips with the lipstick, and

straightened her hat.

“Good,” she said.

We went into the room full of people and Braddocks and the men at his

table stood up.

“I wish to present my fiancée, Mademoiselle Georgette Leblanc,” I said.

Georgette smiled that wonderful smile, and we shook hands all round.

“Are you related to Georgette Leblanc, the singer?” Mrs. Braddocks

asked.

“Connais pas,” Georgette answered.

“But you have the same name,” Mrs. Braddocks insisted cordially.

“No,” said Georgette. “Not at all. My name is Hobin.”

“But Mr. Barnes introduced you as Mademoiselle Georgette Leblanc. Surely

he did,” insisted Mrs. Braddocks, who in the excitement of talking

French was liable to have no idea what she was saying.

“He’s a fool,” Georgette said.

“Oh, it was a joke, then,” Mrs. Braddocks said.

“Yes,” said Georgette. “To laugh at.”

“Did you hear that, Henry?” Mrs. Braddocks called down the table to

Braddocks. “Mr. Barnes introduced his fiancée as Mademoiselle Leblanc,

and her name is actually Hobin.”

“Of course, darling. Mademoiselle Hobin, I’ve known her for a very long

time.”

“Oh, Mademoiselle Hobin,” Frances Clyne called, speaking French very

rapidly and not seeming so proud and astonished as Mrs. Braddocks at its

coming out really French. “Have you been in Paris long? Do you like it

here? You love Paris, do you not?”

“Who’s she?” Georgette turned to me. “Do I have to talk to her?”

She turned to Frances, sitting smiling, her hands folded, her head

poised on her long neck, her lips pursed ready to start talking again.

“No, I don’t like Paris. It’s expensive and dirty.”

“Really? I find it so extraordinarily clean. One of the cleanest cities

in all Europe.”

“I find it dirty.”

“How strange! But perhaps you have not been here very long.”

“I’ve been here long enough.”

“But it does have nice people in it. One must grant that.”

Georgette turned to me. “You have nice friends.”

Frances was a little drunk and would have liked to have kept it up but

the coffee came, and Lavigne with the liqueurs, and after that we all

went out and started for Braddocks’s dancing-club.

The dancing-club was a _bal musette_ in the Rue de la Montagne Sainte

Geneviève. Five nights a week the working people of the Pantheon quarter

danced there. One night a week it was the dancing-club. On Monday nights

it was closed. When we arrived it was quite empty, except for a

policeman sitting near the door, the wife of the proprietor back of the

zinc bar, and the proprietor himself. The daughter of the house came

downstairs as we went in. There were long benches, and tables ran across

the room, and at the far end a dancing-floor.

“I wish people would come earlier,” Braddocks said. The daughter came up

and wanted to know what we would drink. The proprietor got up on a high

stool beside the dancing-floor and began to play the accordion. He had a

string of bells around one of his ankles and beat time with his foot as

he played. Every one danced. It was hot and we came off the floor

perspiring.

“My God,” Georgette said. “What a box to sweat in!”

“It’s hot.”

“Hot, my God!”

“Take off your hat.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Some one asked Georgette to dance, and I went over to the bar. It was

really very hot and the accordion music was pleasant in the hot night. I

drank a beer, standing in the doorway and getting the cool breath of

wind from the street. Two taxis were coming down the steep street. They

both stopped in front of the Bal. A crowd of young men, some in jerseys

and some in their shirt-sleeves, got out. I could see their hands and

newly washed, wavy hair in the light from the door. The policeman

standing by the door looked at me and smiled. They came in. As they went

in, under the light I saw white hands, wavy hair, white faces,

grimacing, gesturing, talking. With them was Brett. She looked very

lovely and she was very much with them.

One of them saw Georgette and said: “I do declare. There is an actual

harlot. I’m going to dance with her, Lett. You watch me.”

The tall dark one, called Lett, said: “Don’t you be rash.”

The wavy blond one answered: “Don’t you worry, dear.” And with them was

Brett.

I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are

supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to

swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering

composure. Instead, I walked down the street and had a beer at the bar

at the next Bal. The beer was not good and I had a worse cognac to take

the taste out of my mouth. When I came back to the Bal there was a crowd

on the floor and Georgette was dancing with the tall blond youth, who

danced big-hippily, carrying his head on one side, his eyes lifted as he

danced. As soon as the music stopped another one of them asked her to

dance. She had been taken up by them. I knew then that they would all

dance with her. They are like that.

I sat down at a table. Cohn was sitting there. Frances was dancing. Mrs.

Braddocks brought up somebody and introduced him as Robert Prentiss. He

was from New York by way of Chicago, and was a rising new novelist. He

had some sort of an English accent. I asked him to have a drink.

“Thanks so much,” he said, “I’ve just had one.”

“Have another.”

“Thanks, I will then.”

We got the daughter of the house over and each had a _fine à l’eau_.

“You’re from Kansas City, they tell me,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Do you find Paris amusing?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to

be careless.

“For God’s sake,” I said, “yes. Don’t you?”

“Oh, how charmingly you get angry,” he said. “I wish I had that

faculty.”

I got up and walked over toward the dancing-floor. Mrs. Braddocks

followed me. “Don’t be cross with Robert,” she said. “He’s still only a

child, you know.”

“I wasn’t cross,” I said. “I just thought perhaps I was going to throw

up.”

“Your fiancée is having a great success,” Mrs. Braddocks looked out on

the floor where Georgette was dancing in the arms of the tall, dark one,

called Lett.

“Isn’t she?” I said.

“Rather,” said Mrs. Braddocks.

Cohn came up. “Come on, Jake,” he said, “have a drink.” We walked over

to the bar. “What’s the matter with you? You seem all worked up over

something?”

“Nothing. This whole show makes me sick is all.”

Brett came up to the bar.

“Hello, you chaps.”

“Hello, Brett,” I said. “Why aren’t you tight?”

“Never going to get tight any more. I say, give a chap a brandy and

soda.”

She stood holding the glass and I saw Robert Cohn looking at her. He

looked a great deal as his compatriot must have looked when he saw the

promised land. Cohn, of course, was much younger. But he had that look

of eager, deserving expectation.

Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a

tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all

that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you

missed none of it with that wool jersey.

“It’s a fine crowd you’re with, Brett,” I said.

“Aren’t they lovely? And you, my dear. Where did you get it?”

“At the Napolitain.”

“And have you had a lovely evening?”

“Oh, priceless,” I said.

Brett laughed. “It’s wrong of you, Jake. It’s an insult to all of us.

Look at Frances there, and Jo.”

This for Cohn’s benefit.

“It’s in restraint of trade,” Brett said. She laughed again.

“You’re wonderfully sober,” I said.

“Yes. Aren’t I? And when one’s with the crowd I’m with, one can drink in

such safety, too.”

The music started and Robert Cohn said: “Will you dance this with me,

Lady Brett?”

Brett smiled at him. “I’ve promised to dance this with Jacob,” she

laughed. “You’ve a hell of a biblical name, Jake.”

“How about the next?” asked Cohn.

“We’re going,” Brett said. “We’ve a date up at Montmartre.” Dancing, I

looked over Brett’s shoulder and saw Cohn, standing at the bar, still

watching her.

“You’ve made a new one there,” I said to her.

“Don’t talk about it. Poor chap. I never knew it till just now.”

“Oh, well,” I said. “I suppose you like to add them up.”

“Don’t talk like a fool.”

“You do.”

“Oh, well. What if I do?”

“Nothing,” I said. We were dancing to the accordion and some one was

playing the banjo. It was hot and I felt happy. We passed close to

Georgette dancing with another one of them.

“What possessed you to bring her?”

“I don’t know, I just brought her.”

“You’re getting damned romantic.”

“No, bored.”

“Now?”

“No, not now.”

“Let’s get out of here. She’s well taken care of.”

“Do you want to?”

“Would I ask you if I didn’t want to?”

We left the floor and I took my coat off a hanger on the wall and put it

on. Brett stood by the bar. Cohn was talking to her. I stopped at the

bar and asked them for an envelope. The patronne found one. I took a

fifty-franc note from my pocket, put it in the envelope, sealed it, and

handed it to the patronne.

“If the girl I came with asks for me, will you give her this?” I said.

“If she goes out with one of those gentlemen, will you save this for

me?”

“C’est entendu, Monsieur,” the patronne said. “You go now? So early?”

“Yes,” I said.

We started out the door. Cohn was still talking to Brett. She said good

night and took my arm. “Good night, Cohn,” I said. Outside in the street

we looked for a taxi.

“You’re going to lose your fifty francs,” Brett said.

“Oh, yes.”

“No taxis.”

“We could walk up to the Pantheon and get one.”

“Come on and we’ll get a drink in the pub next door and send for one.”

“You wouldn’t walk across the street.”

“Not if I could help it.”

We went into the next bar and I sent a waiter for a taxi.

“Well,” I said, “we’re out away from them.”

We stood against the tall zinc bar and did not talk and looked at each

other. The waiter came and said the taxi was outside. Brett pressed my

hand hard. I gave the waiter a franc and we went out. “Where should I

tell him?” I asked.

“Oh, tell him to drive around.”

I told the driver to go to the Parc Montsouris, and got in, and slammed

the door. Brett was leaning back in the corner, her eyes closed. I got

in and sat beside her. The cab started with a jerk.

“Oh, darling, I’ve been so miserable,” Brett said.

CHAPTER

4

The taxi went up the hill, passed the lighted square, then on into the

dark, still climbing, then levelled out onto a dark street behind St.

Etienne du Mont, went smoothly down the asphalt, passed the trees and

the standing bus at the Place de la Contrescarpe, then turned onto the

cobbles of the Rue Mouffetard. There were lighted bars and late open

shops on each side of the street. We were sitting apart and we jolted

close together going down the old street. Brett’s hat was off. Her head

was back. I saw her face in the lights from the open shops, then it was

dark, then I saw her face clearly as we came out on the Avenue des

Gobelins. The street was torn up and men were working on the car-tracks

by the light of acetylene flares. Brett’s face was white and the long

line of her neck showed in the bright light of the flares. The street

was dark again and I kissed her. Our lips were tight together and then

she turned away and pressed against the corner of the seat, as far away

as she could get. Her head was down.

“Don’t touch me,” she said. “Please don’t touch me.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t stand it.”

“Oh, Brett.”

“You mustn’t. You must know. I can’t stand it, that’s all. Oh, darling,

please understand!”

“Don’t you love me?”

“Love you? I simply turn all to jelly when you touch me.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do about it?”

She was sitting up now. My arm was around her and she was leaning back

against me, and we were quite calm. She was looking into my eyes with

that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw

out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else’s

eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there

were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she

was afraid of so many things.

“And there’s not a damn thing we could do,” I said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to go through that hell again.”

“We’d better keep away from each other.”

“But, darling, I have to see you. It isn’t all that you know.”

“No, but it always gets to be.”

“That’s my fault. Don’t we pay for all the things we do, though?”

She had been looking into my eyes all the time. Her eyes had different

depths, sometimes they seemed perfectly flat. Now you could see all the

way into them.

“When I think of the hell I’ve put chaps through. I’m paying for it all

now.”

“Don’t talk like a fool,” I said. “Besides, what happened to me is

supposed to be funny. I never think about it.”

“Oh, no. I’ll lay you don’t.”

“Well, let’s shut up about it.”

“I laughed about it too, myself, once.” She wasn’t looking at me. “A

friend of my brother’s came home that way from Mons. It seemed like a

hell of a joke. Chaps never know anything, do they?”

“No,” I said. “Nobody ever knows anything.”

I was pretty well through with the subject. At one time or another I had

probably considered it from most of its various angles, including the

one that certain injuries or imperfections are a subject of merriment

while remaining quite serious for the person possessing them.

“It’s funny,” I said. “It’s very funny. And it’s a lot of fun, too, to

be in love.”

“Do you think so?” her eyes looked flat again.

“I don’t mean fun that way. In a way it’s an enjoyable feeling.”

“No,” she said. “I think it’s hell on earth.”

“It’s good to see each other.”

“No. I don’t think it is.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“I have to.”

We were sitting now like two strangers. On the right was the Parc

Montsouris. The restaurant where they have the pool of live trout and

where you can sit and look out over the park was closed and dark. The

driver leaned his head around.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked. Brett turned her head away.

“Oh, go to the Select.”

“Café Select,” I told the driver. “Boulevard Montparnasse.” We drove

straight down, turning around the Lion de Belfort that guards the

passing Montrouge trams. Brett looked straight ahead. On the Boulevard

Raspail, with the lights of Montparnasse in sight, Brett said: “Would

you mind very much if I asked you to do something?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Kiss me just once more before we get there.”

When the taxi stopped I got out and paid. Brett came out putting on her

hat. She gave me her hand as she stepped down. Her hand was shaky. “I

say, do I look too much of a mess?” She pulled her man’s felt hat down

and started in for the bar. Inside, against the bar and at tables, were

most of the crowd who a been at the dance.

“Hello, you chaps,” Brett said. “I’m going to have a drink.”

“Oh, Brett! Brett!” the little Greek portrait-painter, who called

himself a duke, and whom everybody called Zizi, pushed up to her. “I got

something fine to tell you.”

“Hello, Zizi,” Brett said.

“I want you to meet a friend,” Zizi said. A fat man came up.

“Count Mippipopolous, meet my friend Lady Ashley.”

“How do you do?” said Brett.

“Well, does your Ladyship have a good time here in Paris?” asked Count

Mippipopolous, who wore an elk’s tooth on his watch-chain.

“Rather,” said Brett.

“Paris is a fine town all right,” said the count. “But I guess you have

pretty big doings yourself over in London.”

“Oh, yes,” said Brett. “Enormous.”

Braddocks called to me from a table. “Barnes,” he said, “have a drink.

That girl of yours got in a frightful row.”

“What about?”

“Something the patronne’s daughter said. A corking row. She was rather

splendid, you know. Showed her yellow card and demanded the patronne’s

daughter’s too. I say it was a row.”

“What finally happened?”

“Oh, some one took her home. Not a bad-looking girl. Wonderful command

of the idiom. Do stay and have a drink.”

“No,” I said. “I must shove off. Seen Cohn?”

“He went home with Frances,” Mrs. Braddock put in.

“Poor chap, he looks awfully down,” Braddocks said.

“I dare say he is,” said Mrs. Braddocks.

“I have to shove off,” I said. “Good night.”

I said good night to Brett at the bar. The count was buying champagne.

“Will you take a glass of wine with us, sir?” he asked.

“No. Thanks awfully. I have to go.”

“Really going?” Brett asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got a rotten headache.”

“I’ll see you to-morrow?”

“Come in at the office.”

“Hardly.”

“Well, where will I see you?”

“Anywhere around five o’clock.”

“Make it the other side of town then.”

“Good. I’ll be at the Crillon at five.”

“Try and be there,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” Brett said. “I’ve never let you down, have I?”

“Heard from Mike?”

“Letter to-day.”

“Good night, sir,” said the count.

I went out onto the sidewalk and walked down toward the Boulevard St.

Michel, passed the tables of the Rotonde, still crowded, looked across

the street at the Dome, its tables running out to the edge of the

pavement. Some one waved at me from a table, I did not see who it was

and went on. I wanted to get home. The Boulevard Montparnasse was

deserted. Lavigne’s was closed tight, and they were stacking the tables

outside the Closerie des Lilas. I passed Ney’s statue standing among the

new-leaved chestnut-trees in the arc-light. There was a faded purple

wreath leaning against the base. I stopped and read the inscription:

from the Bonapartist Groups, some date; I forget. He looked very fine,

Marshal Ney in his top-boots, gesturing with his sword among the green

new horse-chestnut leaves. My flat was just across the street, a little

way down the Boulevard St. Michel.

There was a light in the concierge’s room and I knocked on the door and

she gave me my mail. I wished her good night and went up-stairs. There

were two letters and some papers. I looked at them under the gas-light

in the dining-room. The letters were from the States. One was a bank

statement. It showed a balance of $2432.60. I got out my check-book and

deducted four checks drawn since the first of the month, and discovered

I had a balance of $1832.60. I wrote this on the back of the statement.

The other letter was a wedding announcement. Mr. and Mrs. Aloysius Kirby

announce the marriage of their daughter Katherine—I knew neither the

girl nor the man she was marrying. They must be circularizing the town.

It was a funny name. I felt sure I could remember anybody with a name

like Aloysius. It was a good Catholic name. There was a crest on the

announcement. Like Zizi the Greek duke. And that count. The count was

funny. Brett had a title, too. Lady Ashley. To hell with Brett. To hell

with you, Lady Ashley.

I lit the lamp beside the bed, turned off the gas, and opened the wide

windows. The bed was far back from the windows, and I sat with the

windows open and undressed by the bed. Outside a night train, running on

the street-car tracks, went by carrying vegetables to the markets. They

were noisy at night when you could not sleep. Undressing, I looked at

myself in the mirror of the big armoire beside the bed. That was a

typically French way to furnish a room. Practical, too, I suppose. Of

all the ways to be wounded. I suppose it was funny. I put on my pajamas

and got into bed. I had the two bull-fight papers, and I took their

wrappers off. One was orange. The other yellow. They would both have the

same news, so whichever I read first would spoil the other. _Le Toril_

was the better paper, so I started to read it. I read it all the way

through, including the Petite Correspondance and the Cornigrams. I blew

out the lamp. Perhaps I would be able to sleep.

My head started to work. The old grievance. Well, it was a rotten way to

be wounded and flying on a joke front like the Italian. In the Italian

hospital we were going to form a society. It had a funny name in

Italian. I wonder what became of the others, the Italians. That was in

the Ospedale Maggiore in Milano, Padiglione Ponte. The next building was

the Padiglione Zonda. There was a statue of Ponte, or maybe it was

Zonda. That was where the liaison colonel came to visit me. That was

funny. That was about the first funny thing. I was all bandaged up. But

they had told him about it. Then he made that wonderful speech: “You, a

foreigner, an Englishman” (any foreigner was an Englishman) “have given

more than your life.” What a speech! I would like to have it illuminated

to hang in the office. He never laughed. He was putting himself in my

place, I guess. “Che mala fortuna! Che mala fortuna!”

I never used to realize it, I guess. I try and play it along and just

not make trouble for people. Probably I never would have had any trouble

if I hadn’t run into Brett when they shipped me to England. I suppose

she only wanted what she couldn’t have. Well, people were that way. To

hell with people. The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of

handling all that. Good advice, anyway. Not to think about it. Oh, it

was swell advice. Try and take it sometime. Try and take it.

I lay awake thinking and my mind jumping around. Then I couldn’t keep

away from it, and I started to think about Brett and all the rest of it

went away. I was thinking about Brett and my mind stopped jumping around

and started to go in sort of smooth waves. Then all of a sudden I

started to cry. Then after a while it was better and I lay in bed and

listened to the heavy trams go by and way down the street, and then I

went to sleep.

I woke up. There was a row going on outside. I listened and I thought I

recognized a voice. I put on a dressing-gown and went to the door. The

concierge was talking down-stairs. She was very angry. I heard my name

and called down the stairs.

“Is that you, Monsieur Barnes?” the concierge called.

“Yes. It’s me.”

“There’s a species of woman here who’s waked the whole street up. What

kind of a dirty business at this time of night! She says she must see

you. I’ve told her you’re asleep.”

Then I heard Brett’s voice. Half asleep I had been sure it was

Georgette. I don’t know why. She could not have known my address.

“Will you send her up, please?”

Brett came up the stairs. I saw she was quite drunk. “Silly thing to

do,” she said. “Make an awful row. I say, you weren’t asleep, were you?”

“What did you think I was doing?”

“Don’t know. What time is it?”

I looked at the clock. It was half-past four. “Had no idea what hour it

was,” Brett said. “I say, can a chap sit down? Don’t be cross, darling.

Just left the count. He brought me here.”

“What’s he like?” I was getting brandy and soda and glasses.

“Just a little,” said Brett. “Don’t try and make me drunk. The count?

Oh, rather. He’s quite one of us.”

“Is he a count?”

“Here’s how. I rather think so, you know. Deserves to be, anyhow. Knows

hell’s own amount about people. Don’t know where he got it all. Owns a

chain of sweetshops in the States.”

She sipped at her glass.

“Think he called it a chain. Something like that. Linked them all up.

Told me a little about it. Damned interesting. He’s one of us, though.

Oh, quite. No doubt. One can always tell.”

She took another drink.

“How do I buck on about all this? You don’t mind, do you? He’s putting

up for Zizi, you know.”

“Is Zizi really a duke, too?”

“I shouldn’t wonder. Greek, you know. Rotten painter. I rather liked the

count.”

“Where did you go with him?”

“Oh, everywhere. He just brought me here now. Offered me ten thousand

dollars to go to Biarritz with him. How much is that in pounds?”

“Around two thousand.”

“Lot of money. I told him I couldn’t do it. He was awfully nice about

it. Told him I knew too many people in Biarritz.”

Brett laughed.

“I say, you are slow on the up-take,” she said. I had only sipped my

brandy and soda. I took a long drink.

“That’s better. Very funny,” Brett said. “Then he wanted me to go to

Cannes with him. Told him I knew too many people in Cannes. Monte Carlo.

Told him I knew too many people in Monte Carlo. Told him I knew too many

people everywhere. Quite true, too. So I asked him to bring me here.”

She looked at me, her hand on the table, her glass raised. “Don’t look

like that,” she said. “Told him I was in love with you. True, too. Don’t

look like that. He was damn nice about it. Wants to drive us out to

dinner to-morrow night. Like to go?”

“Why not?”

“I’d better go now.”

“Why?”

“Just wanted to see you. Damned silly idea. Want to get dressed and come

down? He’s got the car just up the street.”

“The count?”

“Himself. And a chauffeur in livery. Going to drive me around and have

breakfast in the Bois. Hampers. Got it all at Zelli’s. Dozen bottles of

Mumms. Tempt you?”

“I have to work in the morning,” I said. “I’m too far behind you now to

catch up and be any fun.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“Can’t do it.”

“Right. Send him a tender message?”

“Anything. Absolutely.”

“Good night, darling.”

“Don’t be sentimental.”

“You make me ill.”

We kissed good night and Brett shivered. “I’d better go,” she said.

“Good night, darling.”

“You don’t have to go.”

“Yes.”

We kissed again on the stairs and as I called for the cordon the

concierge muttered something behind her door. I went back up-stairs and

from the open window watched Brett walking up the street to the big

limousine drawn up to the curb under the arc-light. She got in and it

started off. I turned around. On the table was an empty glass and a

glass half-full of brandy and soda. I took them both out to the kitchen

and poured the half-full glass down the sink. I turned off the gas in

the dining-room, kicked off my slippers sitting on the bed, and got into

bed. This was Brett, that I had felt like crying about. Then I thought

of her walking up the street and stepping into the car, as I had last

seen her, and of course in a little while I felt like hell again. It is

awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at

night it is another thing.

CHAPTER

5

In the morning I walked down the Boulevard to the rue Soufflot for

coffee and brioche. It was a fine morning. The horse-chestnut trees in

the Luxembourg gardens were in bloom. There was the pleasant

early-morning feeling of a hot day. I read the papers with the coffee

and then smoked a cigarette. The flower-women were coming up from the

market and arranging their daily stock. Students went by going up to the

law school, or down to the Sorbonne. The Boulevard was busy with trams

and people going to work. I got on an S bus and rode down to the

Madeleine, standing on the back platform. From the Madeleine I walked

along the Boulevard des Capucines to the Opéra, and up to my office. I

passed the man with the jumping frogs and the man with the boxer toys. I

stepped aside to avoid walking into the thread with which his girl

assistant manipulated the boxers. She was standing looking away, the

thread in her folded hands. The man was urging two tourists to buy.

Three more tourists had stopped and were watching. I walked on behind a

man who was pushing a roller that printed the name CINZANO on the

sidewalk in damp letters. All along people were going to work. It felt

pleasant to be going to work. I walked across the avenue and turned in

to my office.

Up-stairs in the office I read the French morning papers, smoked, and

then sat at the typewriter and got off a good morning’s work. At eleven

o’clock I went over to the Quai d’Orsay in a taxi and went in and sat

with about a dozen correspondents, while the foreign-office mouthpiece,

a young Nouvelle Revue Française diplomat in horn-rimmed spectacles,

talked and answered questions for half an hour. The President of the

Council was in Lyons making a speech, or, rather he was on his way back.

Several people asked questions to hear themselves talk and there were a

couple of questions asked by news service men who wanted to know the

answers. There was no news. I shared a taxi back from the Quai d’Orsay

with Woolsey and Krum.

“What do you do nights, Jake?” asked Krum. “I never see you around.”

“Oh, I’m over in the Quarter.”

“I’m coming over some night. The Dingo. That’s the great place, isn’t

it?”

“Yes. That, or this new dive, The Select.”

“I’ve meant to get over,” said Krum. “You know how it is, though, with a

wife and kids.”

“Playing any tennis?” Woolsey asked.

“Well, no,” said Krum. “I can’t say I’ve played any this year. I’ve

tried to get away, but Sundays it’s always rained, and the courts are so

damned crowded.”

“The Englishmen all have Saturday off,” Woolsey said.

“Lucky beggars,” said Krum. “Well, I’ll tell you. Some day I’m not going

to be working for an agency. Then I’ll have plenty of time to get out in

the country.”

“That’s the thing to do. Live out in the country and have a little car.”

“I’ve been thinking some about getting a car next year.”

I banged on the glass. The chauffeur stopped. “Here’s my street,” I

said. “Come in and have a drink.”

“Thanks, old man,” Krum said. Woolsey shook his head. “I’ve got to file

that line he got off this morning.”

I put a two-franc piece in Krum’s hand.

“You’re crazy, Jake,” he said. “This is on me.”

“It’s all on the office, anyway.”

“Nope. I want to get it.”

I waved good-by. Krum put his head out. “See you at the lunch on

Wednesday.”

“You bet.”

I went to the office in the elevator. Robert Cohn was waiting for me.

“Hello, Jake,” he said. “Going out to lunch?”

“Yes. Let me see if there is anything new.”

“Where will we eat?”

“Anywhere.”

I was looking over my desk. “Where do you want to eat?”

“How about Wetzel’s? They’ve got good hors d’œuvres.”

In the restaurant we ordered hors d’œuvres and beer. The sommelier

brought the beer, tall, beaded on the outside of the steins, and cold.

There were a dozen different dishes of hors d’œuvres.

“Have any fun last night?” I asked.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“How’s the writing going?”

“Rotten. I can’t get this second book going.”

“That happens to everybody.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that. It gets me worried, though.”

“Thought any more about going to South America?”

“I mean that.”

“Well, why don’t you start off?”

“Frances.”

“Well,” I said, “take her with you.”

“She wouldn’t like it. That isn’t the sort of thing she likes. She likes

a lot of people around.”

“Tell her to go to hell.”

“I can’t. I’ve got certain obligations to her.”

He shoved the sliced cucumbers away and took a pickled herring.

“What do you know about Lady Brett Ashley, Jake?”

“Her name’s Lady Ashley. Brett’s her own name. She’s a nice girl,” I

said. “She’s getting a divorce and she’s going to marry Mike Campbell.

He’s over in Scotland now. Why?”

“She’s a remarkably attractive woman.”

“Isn’t she?”

“There’s a certain quality about her, a certain fineness. She seems to

be absolutely fine and straight.”

“She’s very nice.”

“I don’t know how to describe the quality,” Cohn said. “I suppose it’s

breeding.”

“You sound as though you liked her pretty well.”

“I do. I shouldn’t wonder if I were in love with her.”

“She’s a drunk,” I said. “She’s in love with Mike Campbell, and she’s

going to marry him. He’s going to be rich as hell some day.”

“I don’t believe she’ll ever marry him.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t believe it. Have you known her a long time?”

“Yes,” I said. “She was a V. A. D. in a hospital I was in during the

war.”

“She must have been just a kid then.”

“She’s thirty-four now.”

“When did she marry Ashley?”

“During the war. Her own true love had just kicked off with the

dysentery.”

“You talk sort of bitter.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to give you the facts.”

“I don’t believe she would marry anybody she didn’t love.”

“Well,” I said. “She’s done it twice.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Well,” I said, “don’t ask me a lot of fool questions if you don’t like

the answers.”

“I didn’t ask you that.”

“You asked me what I knew about Brett Ashley.”

“I didn’t ask you to insult her.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

He stood up from the table his face white, and stood there white and

angry behind the little plates of hors d’œuvres.

“Sit down,” I said. “Don’t be a fool.”

“You’ve got to take that back.”

“Oh, cut out the prep-school stuff.”

“Take it back.”

“Sure. Anything. I never heard of Brett Ashley. How’s that?

“No. Not that. About me going to hell.”

“Oh, don’t go to hell,” I said. “Stick around. We’re just starting

lunch.”

Cohn smiled again and sat down. He seemed glad to sit down. What the

hell would he have done if he hadn’t sat down? “You say such damned

insulting things, Jake.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve got a nasty tongue. I never mean it when I say nasty

things.”

“I know it,” Cohn said. “You’re really about the best friend I have,

Jake.”

God help you, I thought. “Forget what I said,” I said out loud. “I’m

sorry.”

“It’s all right. It’s fine. I was just sore for a minute.”

“Good. Let’s get something else to eat.”

After we finished the lunch we walked up to the Café de la Paix and had

coffee. I could feel Cohn wanted to bring up Brett again, but I held him

off it. We talked about one thing and another, and I left him to come to

the office.

CHAPTER

6

At five o’clock I was in the Hotel Crillon waiting for Brett. She was

not there, so I sat down and wrote some letters. They were not very good

letters but I hoped their being on Crillon stationery would help them.

Brett did not turn up, so about quarter to six I went down to the bar

and had a Jack Rose with George the barman. Brett had not been in the

bar either, and so I looked for her up-stairs on my way out, and took a

taxi to the Café Select. Crossing the Seine I saw a string of barges

being towed empty down the current, riding high, the bargemen at the

sweeps as they came toward the bridge. The river looked nice. It was

always pleasant crossing bridges in Paris.

The taxi rounded the statue of the inventor of the semaphore engaged in

doing same, and turned up the Boulevard Raspail, and I sat back to let

that part of the ride pass. The Boulevard Raspail always made dull

riding. It was like a certain stretch on the P. L. M. between

Fontainebleau and Montereau that always made me feel bored and dead and

dull until it was over. I suppose it is some association of ideas that

makes those dead places in a journey. There are other streets in Paris

as ugly as the Boulevard Raspail. It is a street I do not mind walking

down at all. But I cannot stand to ride along it. Perhaps I had read

something about it once. That was the way Robert Cohn was about all of

Paris. I wondered where Cohn got that incapacity to enjoy Paris.

Possibly from Mencken. Mencken hates Paris, I believe. So many young men

get their likes and dislikes from Mencken.

The taxi stopped in front of the Rotonde. No matter what café in

Montparnasse you ask a taxi-driver to bring you to from the right bank

of the river, they always take you to the Rotonde. Ten years from now it

will probably be the Dome. It was near enough, anyway. I walked past the

sad tables of the Rotonde to the Select. There were a few people inside

at the bar, and outside, alone, sat Harvey Stone. He had a pile of

saucers in front of him, and he needed a shave.

“Sit down,” said Harvey, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Just looking for you.”

“Been out to the races?”

“No. Not since Sunday.”

“What do you hear from the States?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I’m through with them. I’m absolutely through with them.”

He leaned forward and looked me in the eye.

“Do you want to know something, Jake?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t had anything to eat for five days.”

I figured rapidly back in my mind. It was three days ago that Harvey had

won two hundred francs from me shaking poker dice in the New York Bar.

“What’s the matter?”

“No money. Money hasn’t come,” he paused. “I tell you it’s strange,

Jake. When I’m like this I just want to be alone. I want to stay in my

own room. I’m like a cat.”

I felt in my pocket.

“Would a hundred help you any, Harvey?”

“Yes.”

“Come on. Let’s go and eat.”

“There’s no hurry. Have a drink.”

“Better eat.”

“No. When I get like this I don’t care whether I eat or not.”

We had a drink. Harvey added my saucer to his own pile.

“Do you know Mencken, Harvey?”

“Yes. Why?”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s all right. He says some pretty funny things. Last time I had

dinner with him we talked about Hoffenheimer. ‘The trouble is,’ he said,

‘he’s a garter snapper.’ That’s not bad.”

“That’s not bad.”

“He’s through now,” Harvey went on. “He’s written about all the things

he knows, and now he’s on all the things he doesn’t know.”

“I guess he’s all right,” I said. “I just can’t read him.”

“Oh, nobody reads him now,” Harvey said, “except the people that used to

read the Alexander Hamilton Institute.”

“Well,” I said. “That was a good thing, too.”

“Sure,” said Harvey. So we sat and thought deeply for a while.

“Have another port?”

“All right,” said Harvey.

“There comes Cohn,” I said. Robert Cohn was crossing the street.

“That moron,” said Harvey. Cohn came up to our table.

“Hello, you bums,” he said.

“Hello, Robert,” Harvey said. “I was just telling Jake here that you’re

a moron.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell us right off. Don’t think. What would you rather do if you could

do anything you wanted?”

Cohn started to consider.

“Don’t think. Bring it right out.”

“I don’t know,” Cohn said. “What’s it all about, anyway?”

“I mean what would you rather do. What comes into your head first. No

matter how silly it is.”

“I don’t know,” Cohn said. “I think I’d rather play football again with

what I know about handling myself, now.”

“I misjudged you,” Harvey said. “You’re not a moron. You’re only a case

of arrested development.”

“You’re awfully funny, Harvey,” Cohn said. “Some day somebody will push

your face in.”

Harvey Stone laughed. “You think so. They won’t, though. Because it

wouldn’t make any difference to me. I’m not a fighter.”

“It would make a difference to you if anybody did it.”

“No, it wouldn’t. That’s where you make your big mistake. Because you’re

not intelligent.”

“Cut it out about me.”

“Sure,” said Harvey. “It doesn’t make any difference to me. You don’t

mean anything to me.”

“Come on, Harvey,” I said. “Have another porto.”

“No,” he said. “I’m going up the street and eat. See you later, Jake.”

He walked out and up the street. I watched him crossing the street

through the taxis, small, heavy, slowly sure of himself in the traffic.

“He always gets me sore,” Cohn said. “I can’t stand him.”

“I like him,” I said. “I’m fond of him. You don’t want to get sore at

him.”

“I know it,” Cohn said. “He just gets on my nerves.”

“Write this afternoon?”

“No. I couldn’t get it going. It’s harder to do than my first book. I’m

having a hard time handling it.”

The sort of healthy conceit that he had when he returned from America

early in the spring was gone. Then he had been sure of his work, only

with these personal longings for adventure. Now the sureness was gone.

Somehow I feel I have not shown Robert Cohn clearly. The reason is that

until he fell in love with Brett, I never heard him make one remark that

would, in any way, detach him from other people. He was nice to watch on

the tennis-court, he had a good body, and he kept it in shape; he

handled his cards well at bridge, and he had a funny sort of

undergraduate quality about him. If he were in a crowd nothing he said

stood out. He wore what used to be called polo shirts at school, and may

be called that still, but he was not professionally youthful. I do not

believe he thought about his clothes much. Externally he had been formed

at Princeton. Internally he had been moulded by the two women who had

trained him. He had a nice, boyish sort of cheerfulness that had never

been trained out of him, and I probably have not brought it out. He

loved to win at tennis. He probably loved to win as much as Lenglen, for

instance. On the other hand, he was not angry at being beaten. When he

fell in love with Brett his tennis game went all to pieces. People beat

him who had never had a chance with him. He was very nice about it.

Anyhow, we were sitting on the terrace of the Café Select, and Harvey

Stone had just crossed the street.

“Come on up to the Lilas,” I said.

“I have a date.”

“What time?”

“Frances is coming here at seven-fifteen.”

“There she is.”

Frances Clyne was coming toward us from across the street. She was a

very tall girl who walked with a great deal of movement. She waved and

smiled. We watched her cross the street.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m so glad you’re here, Jake. I’ve been wanting to

talk to you.”

“Hello, Frances,” said Cohn. He smiled.

“Why, hello, Robert. Are you here?” She went on, talking rapidly. “I’ve

had the darndest time. This one”—shaking her head at Cohn—“didn’t come

home for lunch.”

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Oh, I know. But you didn’t say anything about it to the cook. Then I

had a date myself, and Paula wasn’t at her office. I went to the Ritz

and waited for her, and she never came, and of course I didn’t have

enough money to lunch at the Ritz——”

“What did you do?”

“Oh, went out, of course.” She spoke in a sort of imitation joyful

manner. “I always keep my appointments. No one keeps theirs, nowadays. I

ought to know better. How are you, Jake, anyway?”

“Fine.”

“That was a fine girl you had at the dance, and then went off with that

Brett one.”

“Don’t you like her?” Cohn asked.

“I think she’s perfectly charming. Don’t you?”

Cohn said nothing.

“Look, Jake. I want to talk with you. Would you come over with me to the

Dome? You’ll stay here, won’t you, Robert? Come on, Jake.”

We crossed the Boulevard Montparnasse and sat down at a table. A boy

came up with the _Paris Times_, and I bought one and opened it.

“What’s the matter, Frances?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said, “except that he wants to leave me.”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, he told every one that we were going to be married, and I told my

mother and every one, and now he doesn’t want to do it.”

“What’s the matter?”

“He’s decided he hasn’t lived enough. I knew it would happen when he

went to New York.”

She looked up, very bright-eyed and trying to talk inconsequentially.

“I wouldn’t marry him if he doesn’t want to. Of course I wouldn’t. I

wouldn’t marry him now for anything. But it does seem to me to be a

little late now, after we’ve waited three years, and I’ve just gotten my

divorce.”

I said nothing.

“We were going to celebrate so, and instead we’ve just had scenes. It’s

so childish. We have dreadful scenes, and he cries and begs me to be

reasonable, but he says he just can’t do it.”

“It’s rotten luck.”

“I should say it is rotten luck. I’ve wasted two years and a half on him

now. And I don’t know now if any man will ever want to marry me. Two

years ago I could have married anybody I wanted, down at Cannes. All the

old ones that wanted to marry somebody chic and settle down were crazy

about me. Now I don’t think I could get anybody.”

“Sure, you could marry anybody.”

“No, I don’t believe it. And I’m fond of him, too. And I’d like to have

children. I always thought we’d have children.”

She looked at me very brightly. “I never liked children much, but I

don’t want to think I’ll never have them. I always thought I’d have them

and then like them.”

“He’s got children.”

“Oh, yes. He’s got children, and he’s got money, and he’s got a rich

mother, and he’s written a book, and nobody will publish my stuff;

nobody at all. It isn’t bad, either. And I haven’t got any money at all.

I could have had alimony, but I got the divorce the quickest way.”

She looked at me again very brightly.

“It isn’t right. It’s my own fault and it’s not, too. I ought to have

known better. And when I tell him he just cries and says he can’t marry.

Why can’t he marry? I’d be a good wife. I’m easy to get along with. I

leave him alone. It doesn’t do any good.”

“It’s a rotten shame.”

“Yes, it is a rotten shame. But there’s no use talking about it, is

there? Come on, let’s go back to the café.”

“And of course there isn’t anything I can do.”

“No. Just don’t let him know I talked to you. I know what he wants.” Now

for the first time she dropped her bright, terribly cheerful manner. “He

wants to go back to New York alone, and be there when his book comes out

so when a lot of little chickens like it. That’s what he wants.”

“Maybe they won’t like it. I don’t think he’s that way. Really.”

“You don’t know him like I do, Jake. That’s what he wants to do. I know

it. I know it. That’s why he doesn’t want to marry. He wants to have a

big triumph this fall all by himself.”

“Want to go back to the café?”

“Yes. Come on.”

We got up from the table—they had never brought us a drink—and started

across the street toward the Select, where Cohn sat smiling at us from

behind the marble-topped table.

“Well, what are you smiling at?” Frances asked him. “Feel pretty happy?”

“I was smiling at you and Jake with your secrets.”

“Oh, what I’ve told Jake isn’t any secret. Everybody will know it soon

enough. I only wanted to give Jake a decent version.”

“What was it? About your going to England?”

“Yes, about my going to England. Oh, Jake! I forgot to tell you. I’m

going to England.”

“Isn’t that fine!”

“Yes, that’s the way it’s done in the very best families. Robert’s

sending me. He’s going to give me two hundred pounds and then I’m going

to visit friends. Won’t it be lovely? The friends don’t know about it,

yet.”

She turned to Cohn and smiled at him. He was not smiling now.

“You were only going to give me a hundred pounds, weren’t you, Robert?

But I made him give me two hundred. He’s really very generous. Aren’t

you, Robert?”

I do not know how people could say such terrible things to Robert Cohn.

There are people to whom you could not say insulting things. They give

you a feeling that the world would be destroyed, would actually be

destroyed before your eyes, if you said certain things. But here was

Cohn taking it all. Here it was, all going on right before me, and I did

not even feel an impulse to try and stop it. And this was friendly

joking to what went on later.

“How can you say such things, Frances?” Cohn interrupted.

“Listen to him. I’m going to England. I’m going to visit friends. Ever

visit friends that didn’t want you? Oh, they’ll have to take me, all

right. ‘How do you do, my dear? Such a long time since we’ve seen you.

And how is your dear mother?’ Yes, how is my dear mother? She put all

her money into French war bonds. Yes, she did. Probably the only person

in the world that did. ‘And what about Robert?’ or else very careful

talking around Robert. ‘You must be most careful not to mention him, my

dear. Poor Frances has had a most unfortunate experience.’ Won’t it be

fun, Robert? Don’t you think it will be fun, Jake?”

She turned to me with that terribly bright smile. It was very

satisfactory to her to have an audience for this.

“And where are you going to be, Robert? It’s my own fault, all right.

Perfectly my own fault. When I made you get rid of your little secretary

on the magazine I ought to have known you’d get rid of me the same way.

Jake doesn’t know about that. Should I tell him?”

“Shut up, Frances, for God’s sake.”

“Yes, I’ll tell him. Robert had a little secretary on the magazine. Just

the sweetest little thing in the world, and he thought she was

wonderful, and then I came along and he thought I was pretty wonderful,

too. So I made him get rid of her, and he had brought her to

Provincetown from Carmel when he moved the magazine, and he didn’t even

pay her fare back to the coast. All to please me. He thought I was

pretty fine, then. Didn’t you, Robert?

“You mustn’t misunderstand, Jake, it was absolutely platonic with the

secretary. Not even platonic. Nothing at all, really. It was just that

she was so nice. And he did that just to please me. Well, I suppose that

we that live by the sword shall perish by the sword. Isn’t that

literary, though? You want to remember that for your next book, Robert.

“You know Robert is going to get material for a new book. Aren’t you,

Robert? That’s why he’s leaving me. He’s decided I don’t film well. You

see, he was so busy all the time that we were living together, writing

on this book, that he doesn’t remember anything about us. So now he’s

going out and get some new material. Well, I hope he gets something

frightfully interesting.

“Listen, Robert, dear. Let me tell you something. You won’t mind, will

you? Don’t have scenes with your young ladies. Try not to. Because you

can’t have scenes without crying, and then you pity yourself so much you

can’t remember what the other person’s said. You’ll never be able to

remember any conversations that way. Just try and be calm. I know it’s

awfully hard. But remember, it’s for literature. We all ought to make

sacrifices for literature. Look at me. I’m going to England without a

protest. All for literature. We must all help young writers. Don’t you

think so, Jake? But you’re not a young writer. Are you, Robert? You’re

thirty-four. Still, I suppose that is young for a great writer. Look at

Hardy. Look at Anatole France. He just died a little while ago. Robert

doesn’t think he’s any good, though. Some of his French friends told

him. He doesn’t read French very well himself. He wasn’t a good writer

like you are, was he, Robert? Do you think he ever had to go and look

for material? What do you suppose he said to his mistresses when he

wouldn’t marry them? I wonder if he cried, too? Oh, I’ve just thought of

something.” She put her gloved hand up to her lips. “I know the real

reason why Robert won’t marry me, Jake. It’s just come to me. They’ve

sent it to me in a vision in the Café Select. Isn’t it mystic? Some day

they’ll put a tablet up. Like at Lourdes. Do you want to hear, Robert?

I’ll tell you. It’s so simple. I wonder why I never thought about it.

Why, you see, Robert’s always wanted to have a mistress, and if he

doesn’t marry me, why, then he’s had one. She was his mistress for over

two years. See how it is? And if he marries me, like he’s always

promised he would, that would be the end of all the romance. Don’t you

think that’s bright of me to figure that out? It’s true, too. Look at

him and see if it’s not. Where are you going, Jake?”

“I’ve got to go in and see Harvey Stone a minute.”

Cohn looked up as I went in. His face was white. Why did he sit there?

Why did he keep on taking it like that?

As I stood against the bar looking out I could see them through the

window. Frances was talking on to him, smiling brightly, looking into

his face each time she asked: “Isn’t it so, Robert?” Or maybe she did

not ask that now. Perhaps she said something else. I told the barman I

did not want anything to drink and went out through the side door. As I

went out the door I looked back through the two thicknesses of glass and

saw them sitting there. She was still talking to him. I went down a side

street to the Boulevard Raspail. A taxi came along and I got in and gave

the driver the address of my flat.

CHAPTER

7

As I started up the stairs the concierge knocked on the glass of the

door of her lodge, and as I stopped she came out. She had some letters

and a telegram.

“Here is the post. And there was a lady here to see you.”

“Did she leave a card?”

“No. She was with a gentleman. It was the one who was here last night.

In the end I find she is very nice.”

“Was she with a friend of mine?”

“I don’t know. He was never here before. He was very large. Very, very

large. She was very nice. Very, very nice. Last night she was, perhaps,

a little—” She put her head on one hand and rocked it up and down.

“I’ll speak perfectly frankly, Monsieur Barnes. Last night I found her

not so gentille. Last night I formed another idea of her. But listen to

what I tell you. She is très, très gentille. She is of very good family.

It is a thing you can see.”

“They did not leave any word?”

“Yes. They said they would be back in an hour.”

“Send them up when they come.”

“Yes, Monsieur Barnes. And that lady, that lady there is some one. An

eccentric, perhaps, but quelqu’une, quelqu’une!”

The concierge, before she became a concierge, had owned a drink-selling

concession at the Paris race-courses. Her life-work lay in the pelouse,

but she kept an eye on the people of the pesage, and she took great

pride in telling me which of my guests were well brought up, which were

of good family, who were sportsmen, a French word pronounced with the

accent on the men. The only trouble was that people who did not fall

into any of those three categories were very liable to be told there was

no one home, chez Barnes. One of my friends, an extremely

underfed-looking painter, who was obviously to Madame Duzinell neither

well brought up, of good family, nor a sportsman, wrote me a letter

asking if I could get him a pass to get by the concierge so he could

come up and see me occasionally in the evenings.

I went up to the flat wondering what Brett had done to the concierge.

The wire was a cable from Bill Gorton, saying he was arriving on the

_France_. I put the mail on the table, went back to the bedroom,

undressed and had a shower. I was rubbing down when I heard the

door-bell pull. I put on a bathrobe and slippers and went to the door.

It was Brett. Back of her was the count. He was holding a great bunch of

roses.

“Hello, darling,” said Brett. “Aren’t you going to let us in?”

“Come on. I was just bathing.”

“Aren’t you the fortunate man. Bathing.”

“Only a shower. Sit down, Count Mippipopolous. What will you drink?”

“I don’t know whether you like flowers, sir,” the count said, “but I

took the liberty of just bringing these roses.”

“Here, give them to me.” Brett took them. “Get me some water in this,

Jake.” I filled the big earthenware jug with water in the kitchen, and

Brett put the roses in it, and placed them in the centre of the

dining-room table.

“I say. We have had a day.”

“You don’t remember anything about a date with me at the Crillon?”

“No. Did we have one? I must have been blind.”

“You were quite drunk, my dear,” said the count.

“Wasn’t I, though? And the count’s been a brick, absolutely.”

“You’ve got hell’s own drag with the concierge now.”

“I ought to have. Gave her two hundred francs.”

“Don’t be a damned fool.”

“His,” she said, and nodded at the count.

“I thought we ought to give her a little something for last night. It

was very late.”

“He’s wonderful,” Brett said. “He remembers everything that’s happened.”

“So do you, my dear.”

“Fancy,” said Brett. “Who’d want to? I say, Jake, _do_ we get a drink?”

“You get it while I go in and dress. You know where it is.”

“Rather.”

While I dressed I heard Brett put down glasses and then a siphon, and

then heard them talking. I dressed slowly, sitting on the bed. I felt

tired and pretty rotten. Brett came in the room, a glass in her hand,

and sat on the bed.

“What’s the matter, darling? Do you feel rocky?”

She kissed me coolly on the forehead.

“Oh, Brett, I love you so much.”

“Darling,” she said. Then: “Do you want me to send him away?”

“No. He’s nice.”

“I’ll send him away.”

“No, don’t.”

“Yes, I’ll send him away.”

“You can’t just like that.”

“Can’t I, though? You stay here. He’s mad about me, I tell you.”

She was gone out of the room. I lay face down on the bed. I was having a

bad time. I heard them talking but I did not listen. Brett came in and

sat on the bed.

“Poor old darling.” She stroked my head.

“What did you say to him?” I was lying with my face away from her. I did

not want to see her.

“Sent him for champagne. He loves to go for champagne.”

Then later: “Do you feel better, darling? Is the head any better?”

“It’s better.”

“Lie quiet. He’s gone to the other side of town.”

“Couldn’t we live together, Brett? Couldn’t we just live together?”

“I don’t think so. I’d just _tromper_ you with everybody. You couldn’t

stand it.”

“I stand it now.”

“That would be different. It’s my fault, Jake. It’s the way I’m made.”

“Couldn’t we go off in the country for a while?”

“It wouldn’t be any good. I’ll go if you like. But I couldn’t live

quietly in the country. Not with my own true love.”

“I know.”

“Isn’t it rotten? There isn’t any use my telling you I love you.”

“You know I love you.”

“Let’s not talk. Talking’s all bilge. I’m going away from you, and then

Michael’s coming back.”

“Why are you going away?”

“Better for you. Better for me.”

“When are you going?”

“Soon as I can.”

“Where?”

“San Sebastian.”

“Can’t we go together?”

“No. That would be a hell of an idea after we’d just talked it out.”

“We never agreed.”

“Oh, you know as well as I do. Don’t be obstinate, darling.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “I know you’re right. I’m just low, and when I’m low

I talk like a fool.”

I sat up, leaned over, found my shoes beside the bed and put them on. I

stood up.

“Don’t look like that, darling.”

“How do you want me to look?”

“Oh, don’t be a fool. I’m going away to-morrow.”

“To-morrow?”

“Yes. Didn’t I say so? I am.”

“Let’s have a drink, then. The count will be back.”

“Yes. He should be back. You know he’s extraordinary about buying

champagne. It means any amount to him.”

We went into the dining-room. I took up the brandy bottle and poured

Brett a drink and one for myself. There was a ring at the bell-pull. I

went to the door and there was the count. Behind him was the chauffeur

carrying a basket of champagne.

“Where should I have him put it, sir?” asked the count.

“In the kitchen,” Brett said.

“Put it in there, Henry,” the count motioned. “Now go down and get the

ice.” He stood looking after the basket inside the kitchen door. “I

think you’ll find that’s very good wine,” he said. “I know we don’t get

much of a chance to judge good wine in the States now, but I got this

from a friend of mine that’s in the business.”

“Oh, you always have some one in the trade,” Brett said.

“This fellow raises the grapes. He’s got thousands of acres of them.”

“What’s his name?” asked Brett. “Veuve Cliquot?”

“No,” said the count. “Mumms. He’s a baron.”

“Isn’t it wonderful,” said Brett. “We all have titles. Why haven’t you a

title, Jake?”

“I assure you, sir,” the count put his hand on my arm. “It never does a

man any good. Most of the time it costs you money.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s damned useful sometimes,” Brett said.

“I’ve never known it to do me any good.”

“You haven’t used it properly. I’ve had hell’s own amount of credit on

mine.”

“Do sit down, count,” I said. “Let me take that stick.”

The count was looking at Brett across the table under the gas-light. She

was smoking a cigarette and flicking the ashes on the rug. She saw me

notice it. “I say, Jake, I don’t want to ruin your rugs. Can’t you give

a chap an ash-tray?”

I found some ash-trays and spread them around. The chauffeur came up

with a bucket full of salted ice. “Put two bottles in it, Henry,” the

count called.

“Anything else, sir?”

“No. Wait down in the car.” He turned to Brett and to me. “We’ll want to

ride out to the Bois for dinner?”

“If you like,” Brett said. “I couldn’t eat a thing.”

“I always like a good meal,” said the count.

“Should I bring the wine in, sir?” asked the chauffeur.

“Yes. Bring it in, Henry,” said the count. He took out a heavy pigskin

cigar-case and offered it to me. “Like to try a real American cigar?”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll finish the cigarette.”

He cut off the end of his cigar with a gold cutter he wore on one end of

his watch-chain.

“I like a cigar to really draw,” said the count “Half the cigars you

smoke don’t draw.”

He lit the cigar, puffed at it, looking across the table at Brett. “And

when you’re divorced, Lady Ashley, then you won’t have a title.”

“No. What a pity.”

“No,” said the count. “You don’t need a title. You got class all over

you.”

“Thanks. Awfully decent of you.”

“I’m not joking you,” the count blew a cloud of smoke. “You got the most

class of anybody I ever seen. You got it. That’s all.”

“Nice of you,” said Brett. “Mummy would be pleased. Couldn’t you write

it out, and I’ll send it in a letter to her.”

“I’d tell her, too,” said the count. “I’m not joking you. I never joke

people. Joke people and you make enemies. That’s what I always say.”

“You’re right,” Brett said. “You’re terribly right. I always joke people

and I haven’t a friend in the world. Except Jake here.”

“You don’t joke him.”

“That’s it.”

“Do you, now?” asked the count. “Do you joke him?”

Brett looked at me and wrinkled up the corners of her eyes.

“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t joke him.”

“See,” said the count. “You don’t joke him.”

“This is a hell of a dull talk,” Brett said. “How about some of that

champagne?”

The count reached down and twirled the bottles in the shiny bucket. “It

isn’t cold, yet. You’re always drinking, my dear. Why don’t you just

talk?”

“I’ve talked too ruddy much. I’ve talked myself all out to Jake.”

“I should like to hear you really talk, my dear. When you talk to me you

never finish your sentences at all.”

“Leave ’em for you to finish. Let any one finish them as they like.”

“It is a very interesting system,” the count reached down and gave the

bottles a twirl. “Still I would like to hear you talk some time.”

“Isn’t he a fool?” Brett asked.

“Now,” the count brought up a bottle. “I think this is cool.”

I brought a towel and he wiped the bottle dry and held it up. “I like to

drink champagne from magnums. The wine is better but it would have been

too hard to cool.” He held the bottle, looking at it. I put out the

glasses.

“I say. You might open it,” Brett suggested.

“Yes, my dear. Now I’ll open it.”

It was amazing champagne.

“I say that is wine,” Brett held up her glass. “We ought to toast

something. ‘Here’s to royalty.’”

“This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don’t want to

mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.”

Brett’s glass was empty.

“You ought to write a book on wines, count,” I said.

“Mr. Barnes,” answered the count, “all I want out of wines is to enjoy

them.”

“Let’s enjoy a little more of this,” Brett pushed her glass forward. The

count poured very carefully. “There, my dear. Now you enjoy that slowly,

and then you can get drunk.”

“Drunk? Drunk?”

“My dear, you are charming when you are drunk.”

“Listen to the man.”

“Mr. Barnes,” the count poured my glass full. “She is the only lady I

have ever known who was as charming when she was drunk as when she was

sober.”

“You haven’t been around much, have you?”

“Yes, my dear. I have been around very much. I have been around a very

great deal.”

“Drink your wine,” said Brett. “We’ve all been around. I dare say Jake

here has seen as much as you have.”

“My dear, I am sure Mr. Barnes has seen a lot. Don’t think I don’t think

so, sir. I have seen a lot, too.”

“Of course you have, my dear,” Brett said. “I was only ragging.”

“I have been in seven wars and four revolutions,” the count said.

“Soldiering?” Brett asked.

“Sometimes, my dear. And I have got arrow wounds. Have you ever seen

arrow wounds?”

“Let’s have a look at them.”

The count stood up, unbuttoned his vest, and opened his shirt. He pulled

up the undershirt onto his chest and stood, his chest black, and big

stomach muscles bulging under the light.

“You see them?”

Below the line where his ribs stopped were two raised white welts. “See

on the back where they come out.” Above the small of the back were the

same two scars, raised as thick as a finger.

“I say. Those are something.”

“Clean through.”

The count was tucking in his shirt.

“Where did you get those?” I asked.

“In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old.”

“What were you doing?” asked Brett. “Were you in the army?”

“I was on a business trip, my dear.”

“I told you he was one of us. Didn’t I?” Brett turned to me. “I love

you, count. You’re a darling.”

“You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn’t true.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I

can enjoy everything so well. Don’t you find it like that?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“I know,” said the count. “That is the secret. You must get to know the

values.”

“Doesn’t anything ever happen to your values?” Brett asked.

“No. Not any more.”

“Never fall in love?”

“Always,” said the count. “I am always in love.”

“What does that do to your values?”

“That, too, has got a place in my values.”

“You haven’t any values. You’re dead, that’s all.”

“No, my dear. You’re not right. I’m not dead at all.”

We drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in

my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner.

Food had an excellent place in the count’s values. So did wine. The

count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good

party.

“Where would you like to go?” asked the count after dinner. We were the

only people left in the restaurant. The two waiters were standing over

against the door. They wanted to go home.

“We might go up on the hill,” Brett said. “Haven’t we had a splendid

party?”

The count was beaming. He was very happy.

“You are very nice people,” he said. He was smoking a cigar again. “Why

don’t you get married, you two?”

“We want to lead our own lives,” I said.

“We have our careers,” Brett said. “Come on. Let’s get out of this.”

“Have another brandy,” the count said.

“Get it on the hill.”

“No. Have it here where it is quiet.”

“You and your quiet,” said Brett. “What is it men feel about quiet?”

“We like it,” said the count. “Like you like noise, my dear.”

“All right,” said Brett. “Let’s have one.”

“Sommelier!” the count called.

“Yes, sir.”

“What is the oldest brandy you have?”

“Eighteen eleven, sir.”

“Bring us a bottle.”

“I say. Don’t be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake.”

“Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in

any other antiquities.”

“Got many antiquities?”

“I got a houseful.”

Finally we went up to Montmartre. Inside Zelli’s it was crowded, smoky,

and noisy. The music hit you as you went in. Brett and I danced. It was

so crowded we could barely move. The nigger drummer waved at Brett. We

were caught in the jam, dancing in one place in front of him.

“Hahre you?”

“Great.”

“Thaats good.”

He was all teeth and lips.

“He’s a great friend of mine,” Brett said. “Damn good drummer.”

The music stopped and we started toward the table where the count sat.

Then the music started again and we danced. I looked at the count. He

was sitting at the table smoking a cigar. The music stopped again.

“Let’s go over.”

Brett started toward the table. The music started and again we danced,

tight in the crowd.

“You are a rotten dancer, Jake. Michael’s the best dancer I know.”

“He’s splendid.”

“He’s got his points.”

“I like him,” I said. “I’m damned fond of him.”

“I’m going to marry him,” Brett said. “Funny. I haven’t thought about

him for a week.”

“Don’t you write him?”

“Not I. Never write letters.”

“I’ll bet he writes to you.”

“Rather. Damned good letters, too.”

“When are you going to get married?”

“How do I know? As soon as we can get the divorce. Michael’s trying to

get his mother to put up for it.”

“Could I help you?”

“Don’t be an ass. Michael’s people have loads of money.”

The music stopped. We walked over to the table. The count stood up.

“Very nice,” he said. “You looked very, very nice.”

“Don’t you dance, count?” I asked.

“No. I’m too old.”

“Oh, come off it,” Brett said.

“My dear, I would do it if I would enjoy it. I enjoy to watch you

dance.”

“Splendid,” Brett said. “I’ll dance again for you some time. I say. What

about your little friend, Zizi?”

“Let me tell you. I support that boy, but I don’t want to have him

around.”

“He is rather hard.”

“You know I think that boy’s got a future. But personally I don’t want

him around.”

“Jake’s rather the same way.”

“He gives me the willys.”

“Well,” the count shrugged his shoulders. “About his future you can’t

ever tell. Anyhow, his father was a great friend of my father.”

“Come on. Let’s dance,” Brett said.

We danced. It was crowded and close.

“Oh, darling,” Brett said, “I’m so miserable.”

I had that feeling of going through something that has all happened

before. “You were happy a minute ago.”

The drummer shouted: “You can’t two time—”

“It’s all gone.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I just feel terribly.”

“. . . . . .” the drummer chanted. Then turned to his sticks.

“Want to go?”

I had the feeling as in a nightmare of it all being something repeated,

something I had been through and that now I must go through again.

“. . . . . .” the drummer sang softly.

“Let’s go,” said Brett. “You don’t mind.”

“. . . . . .” the drummer shouted and grinned at Brett.

“All right,” I said. We got out from the crowd. Brett went to the

dressing-room.

“Brett wants to go,” I said to the count. He nodded. “Does she? That’s

fine. You take the car. I’m going to stay here for a while, Mr. Barnes.”

We shook hands.

“It was a wonderful time,” I said. “I wish you would let me get this.” I

took a note out of my pocket.

“Mr. Barnes, don’t be ridiculous,” the count said.

Brett came over with her wrap on. She kissed the count and put her hand

on his shoulder to keep him from standing up. As we went out the door I

looked back and there were three girls at his table. We got into the big

car. Brett gave the chauffeur the address of her hotel.

“No, don’t come up,” she said at the hotel. She had rung and the door

was unlatched.

“Really?”

“No. Please.”

“Good night, Brett,” I said. “I’m sorry you feel rotten.”

“Good night, Jake. Good night, darling. I won’t see you again.” We

kissed standing at the door. She pushed me away. We kissed again. “Oh,

don’t!” Brett said.

She turned quickly and went into the hotel. The chauffeur drove me

around to my flat. I gave him twenty francs and he touched his cap and

said: “Good night, sir,” and drove off. I rang the bell. The door opened

and I went up-stairs and went to bed.