The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway [3]
"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 aperitif and watch the evening crowd on the Boulevard.
Chapter III
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 garcon, 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.