Free A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway Page A

criticism?'
    'Do you think I should?'
    'It would be fine,' I told him. 'Then you can always write. You won't ever have to worry about it not coming nor being mute and silent. People will read it and respect it.'
    'Do you think I could be a good critic?'
    'I don't know how good. But you could be a critic. There will always be people who will help you and you can help your own people.'
    'What do you mean, my own people?'
    'The ones you go around with.'
    'Oh them. They have their critics.'
    'You don't have to criticize books,' I said. 'There's pictures, plays, ballet, the cinema
    —'
    'You make it sound fascinating, Hem. Thank you so much. It's so exciting. It's creative too.'
    'Creation's probably overrated. After all, God made the world in only six days and rested on the seventh.'
    'Of course there's nothing to prevent me doing creative writing too.'
    'Not a thing. Except you may set yourself impossibly high standards by your criticism.'
    'They'll be high. You can count on that.'
    'I'm sure they will be.'
    He was a critic already, so I asked him if he would have a drink and he accepted.
    'Hem,' he said, and I knew he was a critic now since, in conversation, they put your name at the beginning of a sentence rather than at the end, 'I have to tell you I find your work just a little too stark.'

    'Too bad,' I said.
    'Hem, it's too stripped, too lean.'
    'Bad luck.'
    'Hem, too stark, too stripped, too lean, too sinewy.'
    I felt the rabbit's foot in my pocket guiltily. 'I'll try to fatten it up a little.'
    'Mind, I don't want it obese.'
    'Hal,' I said, practising speaking like a critic, 'I'll avoid that as long as I can.'
    'Glad we see eye to eye,' he said manfully.
    'You'll remember about not coming here when I'm working?'
    'Naturally, Hem. Of course. I'll have my own cafe now.'
    'You're very kind.'
    'I try to be,' he said.
    It would be interesting and instructive if the young man had turned out to be a famous critic, but it did not turn out that way although I had high hopes for a while.
    I did not think that he would come back the next day but I did not want to take chances and I decided to give the Closerie a day's rest. So the next morning I woke early, boiled the rubber nipples and the bottles, made the formula, finished the bottling, gave Mr Bumby a bottle and worked on the dining-room table before anyone but he, F. Puss the cat, and I were awake. The two of them were quiet and good company and I worked better than I had ever done. In those days you did not really need anything, not even the rabbit's foot, but it was good to feel it in your pocket.
    11 With Pascin at the Dome
    It was a lovely evening and I had worked hard all day and left the flat over the sawmill and walked out through the courtyard with the stacked lumber, closed the door, crossed the street and went into the back door of the bakery that fronted on the Boulevard Montparnasse and out through the good bread smells of the ovens and the shop to the street. The lights were on in the bakery and outside it was the end of the day and I walked in the early dusk up the street and stopped outside the terrace of the Negre de Toulouse restaurant where our red and white checkered napkins were in the wooden napkin rings in the napkin rack waiting for us to come to dinner. I read the menu mimeographed in purple ink and saw that the plat du jour was cassoulet. It made me hungry to read the name.
    Mr Lavigne, the proprietor, asked me how my work had gone and I said it had gone very well. He said he had seen me working on the terrace of the Closerie des Lilas early in the morning but he had not spoken to me because I was so occupied.
    'You had the air of a man alone in the jungle,' he said.
    'I am like a blind pig when I work.'
    'But were you not in the jungle, Monsieur?'
    'In the bush,' I said.
    I went on up the street looking in the windows and happy with the spring evening and the people coming past. In the three principal cafes I saw people that I knew by sight and others