Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway

coiffeur
looked at Catherine. "Go ahead and do it," she said.
     
     

–10–
     
     
    THE
PATRON WAS SITTING at one of his tables on the terrace of the long house with a
bottle of wine, a glass and an empty coffee cup reading the Eclaireur de Nice
when the blue car came up in a rush on the gravel and Catherine and David got
out and came walking down the flagstones to the terrace. He had not expected
them back so soon and he was nearly asleep but he stood up and said the first
thing that came in his head as they were opposite him.
     
    "Madame
et Monsieur ont fait décolorer les cheveux. C'est bien."
     
    "Merci
Monsieur. On le fait toujours dans le mois d'août."
     
    "C'est
bien. C'est trés bien."
     
    'That's
nice," said Catherine to David. "We're good clients. What the good
client does is tres bien. You're trés bien. My God you are."
     
    In
their room a good sailing breeze was blowing in from the sea and the room was
cold.
     
    "I
love that blue shirt," David said. "Stand there like that in it.
     
    "It's
the color of the car," she said. "Would it look nicer without a
skirt?"
     
    "Everything
on you looks nicer without a skirt," he said. "I'm going out and see
that old goat and be an even better client."
     
    He
came back with a bucket of ice and a bottle of the champagne that the
proprietor had ordered for them and that they had drunk so seldom and he held
two glasses on a small tray in his other hand.
     
    "This
ought to be fair warning for them," he said.
     
    "We
didn't need it," Catherine said.
     
    "We
can just try it. It won't take fifteen minutes to cool."
     
    "Don't
tease. Please come to bed and let me see you and feel you.
     
    She
was taking his shirt up over his head and he stood up and helped her.
     
    After
she was asleep David got up and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He
picked up a brush and brushed his hair. There was no other way to brush it but
the way it had been cut. It would disarrange and muss but it had to fall that
way and the color was the same as Catherine's. He went to the door and looked
at her on the bed. Then he came back and picked up her big hand mirror.
     
    "So
that's how it is," he said to himself. "You've done that to your hair
and had it cut the same as your girl's and how do you feel?" He asked the
mirror. "How do you feel? Say it.
     
    "You
like it," he said.
     
    He
looked at the mirror and it was someone else he saw but it was less strange
now.
     
    "All
right. You like it," he said. "Now go through with the rest of it
whatever it is and don't ever say anyone tempted you or that anyone bitched
you."
     
    He
looked at the face that was no longer strange to him at all but was his face
now and said, "You like it. Remember that. Keep that straight. You know
exactly how you look now and how you are.
     
    Of
course he did not know exactly how he was. But he made an effort aided by what
he had seen in the mirror.
     
    They
ate dinner on the terrace in front of the long house that night and were very
excited and quiet and enjoyed looking at each other in the shaded light on the
table. After dinner Catherine said to the boy who had brought their coffee,
"Find the pail for the champagne in our room and ice a new bottle
please."
     
    "Do
we want another?" David asked.
     
    "I
think so. Don't you?"
     
    "Sure."
     
    "You
don't have to."
     
    "Do
you want a fine?"
     
    "No.
I'd rather drink the wine. Do you have to work tomorrow?"
     
    "We'll
see.
     
    "Please
work if you feel like it."
     
    "And
tonight?"
     
    "We'll
see about tonight. It's been such an arduous day."
     
    In
the night it was very dark and the wind had risen and they could hear it in the
pines.
     
    "David?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "How
are you girl?"
     
    "I'm
fine."
     
    "Let
me feel your hair girl. Who cut it? Was it Jean? It's cut so full and has so
much body and it's the same as mine. Let me kiss you girl. Oh you have lovely
lips. Shut your eyes girl."
     
    He
did not shut his eyes but it was dark in the room and