A Moveable Feast

A storm descends on the Place Contrescarpe at the end of fall. Hemingway and many others take shelter in Café des Amateurs, a bar where drunkards crowded. The Café is the cesspool of the rue Mouffetards, the crowded market situated at the entrance of the Place Contrescarpe. Hemingway recalls that, in the summertime, one could hear the pumping of the waste into horse-drawn tank wagons and the accompanying odor. Yet, the Café des Amateurs was never emptied. Instead, it smelled of the waste from the cesspool and from the drunkards.

Hemingway recalls the sadness which fell over the city in winter: “there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed door of the small shops” (4). Hemingway takes the reader through the dark streets of Paris in the winter, arriving at his hotel. He continues to walk past the Lycee Henri Quatre and the ancient church of St-Etienne-du-Mont until coming to a café, the Place St-Michel. In relation to the Café de Amateurs, Place St-Michel is a pleasant café. Hemingway describes it as, “warm and clean and friendly” (5). He orders a café au lait and begins to write. He writes of a cold Michigan day because it matches the current cold, bleak environment. He is distracted by a beautiful woman who enters the café. Believing her to be waiting for someone, he decides not to include her in his story. He reflects, “I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil” (5). Hemingway becomes engrossed in his writing and when he looks up again, the woman is gone. He orders oysters and some white wine to wash away the mixture of feelings that come with finishing a story. He begins to make “happy plans” of visiting a place where it snows and doesn’t only rain (6). He mentions his wife writing, “We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright” (6).

Hemingway decides to give up his room at the hotel. He ponders if he’ll be able to write about Paris while he is away from Paris the way he can write about Michigan while he’s in Paris. Upon reflection, he realizes that at that time, he did not know nearly enough about the city to truly capture his adventures there.

When Hemingway and his wife return to Paris, Hemingway observes how lovely it has become. Winter has settled, or rather, Hemingway has come to reconcile with the grey skies and barren trees. The hotel where he works is beautiful now that he’d spent time in the mountains. He describes the small tangerine-like oranges he eats while he works and the kirsch he drinks at the end of a long day. Hemingway recalls his fix for writers-block, stating, “I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know’” (7). When he began to write elaborately or like he was given a presentation, he would scrap his work and write the first, true, declarative sentence that came to mind. While he was away from his work, he would allow his subconscious to do the work and refrain from consciously thinking about his writing.

Hemingway walks to the Jardin du Luxembourg to view the art of Cezanne and other Impressionists. If the lights are off at the Luxembourg, he will walk through the gardens to Gertrude Stein’s apartment. Stein’s apartment is described as “the big studio with the great paintings” (8). Stein has “beautiful eyes and a strong German-Jewish face” (8). She lives with her companion who is pleasant and small with dark hair. Hemingway thinks back to his conversations with Stein: “They seemed to like us…and treated us as though we were very good, well-mannered and promising children and I felt that they forgave us for being in love and being married…and when my wife invited them to tea, they accepted” (8).

One evening, when Stein and her companion visit Hemingway’s apartment, Stein says she likes all of his stories, except Up in Michigan. She calls it “inaccrochable,” stating, “That means it is like a picture that a painter paints and then cannot hang” (9). She tells Hemingway that no matter what, a writer must never write anything that is inaccrochable. The group converses, and Stein invites Hemingway to visit her apartment on 27 rue de Fleurus.

Hemingway has many more conversations with Stein. He realizes that for Stein to be happy, she must not only write everyday but receive recognition for that writing as well. Hemingway ponders why she needs such recognition, since she has a way of charming everyone she meets, critic or otherwise. On another occasion, Stein instructs Hemingway on sex, telling him that he is very uneducated about sex and prejudiced against homosexuality. Hemingway attempts to defend himself, explaining that “when you were a boy and moved in the company of men, you had to be prepared to kill a man, know how to do it and really know that you would do it in order not to be interfered with” (11). Stein tells Hemingway that men like that are vicious and should be pitied; that these men are conflicted with desires and can never be happy unless actively corrupting others, critiquing the restrictive and violent nature of such prescriptive masculinity.

Hemingway makes a habit of visiting 27 rue de Fleurus. Miss Stein, as Hemingway calls her, is always welcoming and eager to learn of his travels to political conferences and to hear the Canadian news. He recalls, “She wanted to know the gay part of how the world was going; never the real, never the bad” (12).

To take his mind off work, Hemingway reads authors such as Aldous Huxley and D.H. Lawrence. Stein questions Hemingway’s choice of literature, telling him that he should “only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad” (13). Stein takes particular issue with him reading the work of a dead man. She suggests he read Marie Belloc Lowndes and loans him The Lodger. He remarks how Stein only wants to speak of the author, never their work and very rarely likes anyone who has critiqued her own writing or who has not advanced her career. She exhibits this favoritism in obvious ways; she dislikes Ezra Pound because a small and fragile chair broke under his weight, with no regard to his prowess as a poet or his generosity as a man.

In another story, Stein has ignition trouble with her Model T Ford and takes it to the mechanic where a young man, who has served in the war, does not prioritize her car. Heming writes, “he has not been serieux and had been corrected severely by the patron of the garage after Miss Stein’s protest. The patron had said to him, ‘You are all a generation perdue’”(15). She applies this term, “the lost generation,” to Hemingway and all of the others who fought in the war, arguing that they have no respect for anything and drink themselves to death (15). While walking home that night, Hemingway sees a statue of Marsha Ney. He observes how lonely the Waterloo commander looks and decides to keep him company for a while. Hemingway reflects that all generations were lost in one way or another and thinks that Miss Stein is nice, “but the hell with her lost-generation talk and all the dirty, easy labels” (16).

Shakespeare and Company is a rental library where Hemingway frequently borrows books. Hemingway describes it as, “a warm, cheerful place with a bug stove in the winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living” (16). A woman named Sylvia Beach runs the rental shop; he enjoys her youthful and vibrant personality. Despite Hemingway not having the money to join the rental library, Sylvia still allows him to rent as many books as he wants even though, he reflects, she had no reason to trust he’d pay the fine.

Hemingway rents novels by Turgenev, D.H. Lawrence, and Dostoevsky. Before he leaves, Sylvia invites Hemingway and his wife to dinner. Hemingway returns home and tells his wife about the wonderful rental library he has found. She insists that he go back and pay today. The two fantasize about a wonderful evening walking down the rue de Seine, having a drink at a new café, and eating a lovely meal. Hemingway’s wife says it’s very lucky he found this rental library, as now they not only have all of the books they could ever want but also an excuse to leave the house. Hemingway agrees, saying that they’re always lucky. Looking back, Hemingway remarks that he should have knocked on wood.

Along the quais de la Seine, the quay of the river where boats dock to load and unload cargo and passengers, there is a small bookshop selling American novels. Many of these bookstalls sell books of little value, only meant to provide entertainment for a single boat ride. The woman who runs the shop cares very little for books written in English and sells them cheaply, believing them to be bound poorly. Hemingway asks another bookseller what happens to the books by the Seine that are never purchased, to which she responds that they are thrown away.

Hemingway recalls walking along the quais to clear his mind after a day of writing. He states, “It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood” (20). This train of thought brings him to the best place on the Seine to fish. The island ends in a point that had a small park positioned at the water’s edge. Many fishermen would travel under the bridge to fish and would catch the best goujon. Hemingway loved to eat goujon at an open-air restaurant called La Peche Miraculeuse. On nice days, he bought a book from the bookstalls and a bottle of wine to comfortably watch the fishermen. Hemingway admired their work; “But I followed it closely and it was interesting and good to know about, and it always made me happy that there were men fishing in the city itself, having sound, serious fishing and taking a few fritures home to their families” (20). This beautiful scene along the Seine, of men fishing, boats passing under bridges, and trees blooming everywhere, is the natural state of Paris. Hemingway ponders that once the grueling winds and rain of winter come, it is as if “a young person had died for no reason” (21). Despite knowing that spring will always return, he finds it frightening that it nearly failed.