Free Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway

at the wrong
time of year." At lunch Catherine said, "We'll go back to la Napoule.
There is no one there and we'll be quiet and good and work and take care of
each other. We can drive to Aix too and see all the Cezanne country. We didn't
stay there long enough before." "We'll have a lovely time."
"It isn't too soon for you to start to work again is it?" "No.
It would be good to start now. I'm sure. "That will be wonderful and I'll
study Spanish really for when we come back. And I have so much I have to
read." "We have lots to do." 'We'll do it too."
     
     

Book Three
     

–9–
     
     
    THE
NEW PLAN lasted a little more than a month. They had three rooms at the end of
the long low rose-colored Provencal house where they had stayed before. It was
in the pines on the Estérel side of la Napoule. Out of the windows there was
the sea and from the garden in front of the long house where they ate under the
trees they could see the empty beaches, the high papyrus grass at the delta of
the small river and across the bay was the white curve of Cannes with the hills
and the far mountains behind. There was no one staying at the long house now in
summer and the proprietor and his wife were pleased to have them back.
     
    Their
bedroom was the big room at the end. It had windows on three sides and was cool
that summer. At night they smelled the pines and the sea. David worked in a
room at the further end. He started early each morning and when he was finished
he would find Catherine and they would go to a cove in the rocks where there
was a sand beach to sun and to swim. Sometimes Catherine was gone with the car
and he would wait for her and have a drink out on the terrace after his work.
It was impossible to drink pastis after absinthe and he had taken to drinking
whiskey and Perrier water. This pleased the proprietor, who was now doing a
good defensive summer business with the presence of the two Bournes in the dead
summer season. He had not hired a cook and his wife was doing the cooking. One
maid servant looked after the rooms and a nephew, who was an apprentice waiter,
served at table.
     
    Catherine
enjoyed driving the small car and went on buying and collecting trips to Cannes
and to Nice. The big winter season shops were closed but she found
extravagances to eat and solid values to drink and located the places where she
could buy books and magazines.
     
    David
had worked very hard for four days. They had spent all the afternoon in the sun
on the sand of a new cove they had found and they had been in the water until
they were both tired and then come home in the evening with salt dried on their
backs and in their hair to have a drink and take showers and change.
     
    In
bed the breeze came in from the sea. It was cool and they lay side by side in
the dark with the sheet over them and Catherine said, "You said I was to
tell you."
     
    "I
know."
     
    She
leaned over him and held his head in her hands and kissed him. "I want to
so much. Can I? May I?"
     
    "Sure."
     
    "I'm
so happy. I've made a lot of plans," she said. "And this time I'm not
going to start so bad and wild."
     
    "V/hat
sort of plans?"
     
    "I
can tell but it would be better to show it. We could do it tomorrow. Will you
go in with me?"
     
    "Where?"
     
    "To
Cannes where I went when we were here before. He's a very good coiffeur. We're
friends and he's better than the one in Biarritz because he understood right
away. 'What have you been doing?" "I went to see him this morning
while you were working and I explained and he studied it and understood and
thought it would be fine. I told him I hadn't decided but that if I did I'd try
to get you to have yours cut the same way. "How is it cut?"
"You'll see. We'll go together. It's sort of bevelled back from the
natural line. He's very enthusiastic. I think it's because he's crazy about the
Bugatti. Are you afraid?"
     
    "I
can't wait. He wants to lighten it really but we were afraid you might not like
it." "The sun and