But for a long time it was enough just to be back in our part of Paris and away from the track and to bet on our own life and work, and on the painters that you knew and not try to make your living gambling and call it by some other name. I have started many stories about bicycle racing but have never written one that is as good as the races are both on the indoor and outdoor tracks and on the roads.
But I will get the Vélodrome d’Hiver with the smoky light of the afternoon and the high-banked wooden track and the whirring sound the tires made on the wood as the riders passed, the effort and the tactics as the riders climbed and plunged, each one a part of his machine; I will get the magic of the demi-fond, the noise of the motors with their rollers set out behind them that the entraîneurs rode, wearing their heavy crash helmets and leaning backward in their ponderous leather suits, to shelter the riders who followed them from the air resistance, the riders in their lighter crash helmets bent low over their handlebars their legs turning the huge gear sprockets and the small front wheels touching the roller behind the machine that gave them shelter to ride in, and the duels that were more exciting than anything, the put-puting of the motorcycles and the riders elbow to elbow and wheel to wheel up and down and around at deadly speed until one man could not hold the pace and broke away and the solid wall of air that he had been sheltered against hit him.
There were so many kinds of racing. The straight sprints raced in heats or in match races where the two riders would balance for long seconds on their machines for the advantage of making the other rider take the lead and then the slow circling and the final plunge into the driving purity of speed. There were the programs of the team races of two hours, with a series of pure sprints in their heats to fill the afternoon, the lonely absolute speed events of one man racing an hour against the clock, the terribly dangerous and beautiful races of one hundred kilometers on the big banked wooden five-hundred-meter bowl of the Stade Buffalo, the outdoor stadium at Montrouge where they raced behind big motorcycles, Linart, the great Belgian champion that they called “the Sioux” for his profile, dropping his head to suck up cherry brandy from a rubber tube that connected with a hot water bottle under his racing shirt when he needed it toward the end as he increased his savage speed, and the championships of France behind big motors of the six-hundred-and-sixty-meter cement track of the Parc du Prince near Auteuil, the wickedest track of all where we saw that great rider Ganay fall and heard his skull crumple under the crash helmet as you crack an hard-boiled egg against a stone to peel it on a picnic. I must write the strange world of the six-day races and the marvels of the road-racing in the mountains. French is the only language it has ever been written in properly and the terms are all French and that is what makes it hard to write. Mike was right about it, there is no need to bet. But that comes at another time in Paris.
Hunger Was Good Discipline
You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. When you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in America would buy, explaining at home that you were lunching out with someone, the best place to go was the Luxembourg gardens where you saw and smelled nothing to eat all the way from the Place de l’Observatoire to the rue de Vaugirard. There you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry.
I learned to understand Cézanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry. Later I thought Cézanne was probably hungry in a different way.
After you came out of the Luxembourg you could walk down the narrow rue Férou to the Place St.-Sulpice and there were still no restaurants, only the quiet square with its benches and trees. There was a fountain with lions, and pigeons walked on the pavement and perched on the statues of the bishops. There was the church and there were shops selling religious objects and vestments on the north side of the square.
From this square you could not go further toward the river without passing shops selling fruits, vegetables, wines, or bakery and pastry shops. But by choosing your way carefully you could work to your right around the grey and white stone church and reach the rue de l’Odéon and turn up to your right toward Sylvia Beach’s bookshop and on your way you did not pass too many places where things to eat were sold. The rue de l’Odéon was bare of eating places until you reached the square where there were three restaurants.
By the time you reached 12 rue de l’Odéon your hunger was contained but all of your perceptions were heightened again. The photographs looked different and you saw books that you had never seen before.
“You’re too thin, Hemingway,” Sylvia would say. “Are you eating enough?”
“Sure.”
“What did you eat for lunch?”
My stomach would turn over and I would say, “I’m going home for lunch now.”
“At three o’clock?”
“I didn’t know it was that late.”
“Adrienne said the other night she wanted to have you and Hadley for dinner. We’d ask Fargue. You like Fargue, don’t you? Or Larbaud. You like him. I know you like him. Or anyone you really like. Will you speak to Hadley?”
“I know she’d love to come.”
“I’ll send her a pneu. Don’t you work so hard now that you don’t eat properly.”
“I won’t.”
“Get home now before it’s too late for lunch.”
“They’ll save it.”
“Don’t eat cold food either. Eat a good hot lunch.”
“Did I have any mail?”
“I don’t think so. But let me look.”
She looked and found a note and looked up happily and then opened a closed door in her desk.
“This came while I was out,” she said. It was a letter and it felt as though it had money in it. “Wedderkop,” Sylvia said.
“It must be from Der Querschnitt. Did you see Wedderkop?”
“No. But he was here with George. He’ll see you. Don’t worry. Perhaps he wanted to pay you first.”
“It’s six hundred francs. He says there will be more.”
“I’m awfully glad you reminded me to look. Dear Mr. Awfully Nice.”
“It’s damned funny that Germany is the only place I can sell anything. To him and the Frankfurter Zeitung.”
“Isn’t it? But don’t you worry ever. You can sell stories to Ford,” she teased me.
“Thirty francs a page. Say one story every three months in The Transatlantic. Story five pages long makes one hundred and fifty francs a quarter. Six hundred francs a year.”
“But, Hemingway, don’t worry about what they bring now. The point is that you can write them.”
“I know. I can write them. But nobody will buy them. There is no money coming in since I quit journalism.”
“They will sell. Look. You have the money for one right there.”
“I’m sorry, Sylvia. Forgive me for speaking about it.”
“Forgive you for what? Always talk about it or about anything. Don’t you know all writers ever talk about is their troubles? But promise me you won’t worry and that you’ll eat enough.”
“I promise.”
“Then get home now and have lunch.”
Outside on the rue de l’Odéon I was disgusted with myself for having complained about things. I was doing what I did of my own free will and I was doing it stupidly. I should have bought a large piece of bread and eaten it instead of skipping a meal. I could taste the brown lovely crust. But it is dry in your mouth without something to drink. You God damn complainer. You dirty phony saint and martyr, I said to myself. You quit journalism of your own accord. You have credit and Sylvia would have loaned you money. She has plenty of times. Sure. And then the next thing you would be compromising on something else. Hunger is healthy and the pictures do look better when you are hungry. Eating is wonderful too and do you know where you are going to eat right now?
Lipp’s is where you are going to eat and drink too.
It was a quick walk to Lipp’s and every place I passed that my stomach noticed as quickly as my eyes or my nose made the walk an added pleasure. There were few people in the brasserie and when I sat down on the bench against the wall with the mirror in back and a table in front and the waiter asked if I wanted beer I asked for a distingué, the big glass mug that held a liter, and for potato salad.
The beer was very cold and wonderful to drink. The pommes à l’huile were
