The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

started on again down the Boulevard. A horse cab passed us. Bill looked at it.

    â€œSee that horse cab? Going to have that horse cab stuffed for you for Christmas. Going to give all my friends stuffed animals. I’m a nature-writer.”

    A taxi passed, someone in it waved, then banged for the driver to stop. The taxi backed up to the curb. In it was Brett.

    â€œBeautiful lady,” said Bill. “Going to kidnap us.”

    â€œHullo!” Brett said. “Hullo!”

    â€œThis is Bill Gorton. Lady Ashley.”

    Brett smiled at Bill. “I say I’m just back. Haven’t bathed even. Michael comes in tonight.”

    â€œGood. Come on and eat with us, and we’ll all go to meet him.”

    â€œMust clean myself.”

    â€œOh, rot! Come on.”

    â€œMust bathe. He doesn’t get in till nine.”

    â€œCome and have a drink, then, before you bathe.” “Might do that. Now you’re not talking rot.”

    We got in the taxi. The driver looked around. “Stop at the nearest bistro,” I said.

    â€œWe might as well go to the Closerie,” Brett said. “I can’t drink these rotten brandies.”

    â€œCloserie des Lilas.’ Brett turned to Bill.

    â€œHave you been in this pestilential city long?”

    â€œJust got in today from Budapest.”

    â€œHow was Budapest?”

    â€œWonderful. Budapest was wonderful.”

    â€œAsk him about Vienna.”

    â€œVienna,” said Bill, “is a strange city.”

    â€œVery much like Paris,” Brett smiled at him, wrinkling the corners of her eyes.

    â€œExactly,” Bill said. “Very much like Paris at this moment.”

    â€œYou
have
a good start.”

    Sitting out on the terraces of the Lilas Brett ordered a whiskey and soda, I took one, too, and Bill took another pernod.

    â€œHow are you, Jake?”

    â€œGreat,” I said. “I’ve had a good time.”

    Brett looked at me. “I was a fool to go away,” she said. “One’s an ass to leave Paris.”

    â€œDid you have a good time?”

    â€œOh, all right. Interesting. Not frightfully amusing.”

    â€œSee anybody?”

    â€œNo, hardly anybody. I never went out.”

    â€œDidn’t you swim?”

    â€œNo. Didn’t do a thing.”

    â€œSounds like Vienna,” Bill said.

    Brett wrinkled up the corners of her eyes at him. “So that’s the way it was in Vienna.”

    â€œIt was like everything in Vienna.”

    Brett smiled at him again.

    â€œYou’ve a nice friend, Jake.”

    â€œHe’s all right,” I said. “He’s a taxidermist.”

    â€œThat was in another country,” Bill said. “And besides all the animals were dead.”

    â€œOne more,” Brett said, “and I must run. Do send the waiter for a taxi.”

    â€œThere’s a line of them. Right out in front.”

    â€œGood.”

    We had the drink and put Brett into her taxi.

    â€œMind you’re at the Select around ten. Make him come. Michael will be there.”

    â€œWe’ll be there,” Bill said. The taxi started and Brett waved.

    â€œQuite a girl,” Bill said. “She’s damned nice. Who’s Michael?”

    â€œThe man she’s going to marry.”

    â€œWell, well,” Bill said. “That’s always just the stage I meet anybody. What’ll I send them? Think they’d like a couple of stuffed race horses?”

    â€œWe better eat.”

    â€œIs she really Lady something or other?” Bill asked in the taxi on our way down to the lIe Saint Louis.

    â€œOh, yes. In the studbook and everything.”

    â€œWell, well.”

    We ate dinner at Madame Lecomte’s restaurant on the far side of the island. It was crowded with Americans and we had to stand up and wait for a place. Someone had put it in the American Women’s Club list as a quaint