chapter01-02

It was eithersix or eight flights up to the top floor and it was very cold and I knew how muchit would cost for a bundle of small twigs, three wire-wrapped packets of short,half pencil

length pieces ofsplit pine to catch fire from the twigs, and then the bundle of halflengths ofhard wood that I must buy to make a fire that would warm the room. So I went tothe far side of the street to look up at the roof in the rain and see if anychimneys were going, and how the smoke blew. There was no smoke and I thoughtabout how the chimney would be cold and might not draw and of the room possiblyfilling with smoke, and the fuel wasted, and the money gone with it, and Iwalked on in the rain. I walked down past the Lycée Henri Quatre and theancient church of St.-Étienne-du-Mont and the windswept Place du Panthéon andcut in for shelter to the right and finally came out on the lee side of theBoulevard St.- Michel and worked on down it past the Cluny and the BoulevardSt.-Germain until I came to a good café that I knew on the Place St.-Michel.

It was apleasant café, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old waterproof on thecoat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above thebench and ordered a café au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out anotebook from the pocket of thecoat and a pencil and started to write. I waswriting about up in Michigan and since it was a wild, cold, blowing day it wasthat sort of day in the story. I had already seen the end of fall come throughboyhood, youth and young manhood, and in one place you could write about it betterthan in another. That was called transplanting yourself, I thought, and itcould be as necessary with people as with other sorts of growing things. But inthe story the boys were drinking and this made me thirsty and I ordered a rumSt. James. This tasted wonderful on the cold day and I kept on writing, feelingvery well and feeling the good Martinique rum warm me all through my body andmy spirit.

A girl came inthe café and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty witha face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh withrainfreshened skin, and her hair black as a crow’s wing and cut sharply anddiagonally across her cheek.

I looked at herand she disturbed me and made me very excited. I wished I could put her in thestory, or anywhere, but she had placed herself so she could watch the streetand the entry and I knew she was waiting for someone. So I went on writing.