The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway [40]
"How are yours?"
"Smaller."
"Let's see them."
"They're packed."
"How big are they really?"
"They're all about the size of your smallest."
"You're not holding out on me?"
"I wish I were."
"Get them all on worms?"
"Yes."
"You lazy bum!"
Bill put the trout in the bag and started for the river, swinging the open bag. He was wet from the waist down and I knew he must have been wading the stream.
I walked up the road and got out the two bottles of wine. They were cold. Moisture beaded on the bottles as I walked back to the trees. I spread the lunch on a newspaper, and uncorked one of the bottles and leaned the other against a tree. Bill came up drying his hands, his bag plump with ferns.
"Let's see that bottle," he said. He pulled the cork, and tipped up the bottle and drank. "Whew! That makes my eyes ache."
"Let's try it."
The wine was icy cold and tasted faintly rusty.
"That's not such filthy wine," Bill said.
"The cold helps it," I said.
We unwrapped the little parcels of lunch.
"Chicken."
"There's hard-boiled eggs."
"Find any salt?"
"First the egg," said Bill. "Then the chicken. Even Bryan could see that."
"He's dead. I read it in the paper yesterday."
"No. Not really?"
"Yes. Bryan's dead."
Bill laid down the egg he was peeling.
"Gentlemen," he said, and unwrapped a drumstick from a piece of newspaper. "I reverse the order. For Bryan's sake. As a tribute to the Great Commoner. First the chicken; then the egg."
"Wonder what day God created the chicken?"
"Oh," said Bill, sucking the drumstick, "how should we know? We should not question. Our stay on earth is not for long. Let us rejoice and believe and give thanks."
"Eat an egg."
Bill gestured with the drumstick in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other.
"Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?"
"After you, brother."
Bill took a long drink.
"Utilize a little, brother," he handed me the bottle. "Let us not doubt, brother. Let us not pry into the holy mysteries of the hencoop with simian fingers. Let us accept on faith and simply say—I want you to join with me in saying—What shall we say, brother?" He pointed the drumstick at me and went on. "Let me tell you. We will say, and I for one am proud to say—and I want you to say with me, on your knees, brother. Let no man be ashamed to kneel here in the great out-of-doors. Remember the woods were God's first temples. Let us kneel and say: 'Don't eat that, Lady—that's Mencken.'
"Here," I said. "Utilize a little of this."
We uncorked the other bottle.
"What's the matter?" I said. "Didn't you like Bryan?"
"I loved Bryan," said Bill. "We were like brothers."
"Where did you know him?"
"He and Mencken and I all went to Holy Cross together."
"And Frankie Fritsch."
"It's a lie. Frankie Fritsch went to Fordham."
"Well," I said, "I went to Loyola with Bishop Manning."
"It's a lie," Bill said. "I went to Loyola with Bishop Manning myself."
"You're cock-eyed," I said.
"On wine?"
"Why not?"
"It's the humidity," Bill said. "They ought to take this damn humidity away."
"Have another shot."
"Is this all we've got?"
"Only the two bottles."
"Do you know what you are?" Bill looked at the bottle affectionately.
"No," I said.
"You're in the pay of the Anti-Saloon League."
"I went to Notre Dame with Wayne B. Wheeler."
"It's a lie," said Bill. "I went to Austin Business College with Wayne B. Wheeler. He was class president."
"Well," I said, "the saloon must go."
"You're right there, old classmate," Bill said. "The saloon must go, and I will take it with me."
"You're cock-eyed."
"On wine?"
"On wine."
"Well, maybe I am."
"Want to take a nap?"
"All right."
We lay with our heads in the shade and looked up into the trees.
"You asleep?"
"No," Bill said. "I was thinking."
I shut my eyes. It felt good lying on the ground.
"Say," Bill said, "what about this Brett business?"
"What about it?"
"Were you ever in love with her?"
"Sure."
"For how long?"
"Off and on for a hell of a long time."