Shadows in Early Afternoon - flipside B

Shadows in Early Afternoon

In the winter it was cold in Paris, even in the early afternoon and the sunlight never warmed the pavement and you had to blow on your hands to keep them warm because you had no gloves as you walked up the Boulevard Montparnasse to have a drink. There were many places to but a drink near the Boulevard but the best place to buy a brandy to keep you warm on an early afternoon in winter was the Dingo on the Rue Delambre.

I had worked hard in the morning but it was cold in the sawmill because we were saving money by saving fuel for the stove and I walked to the Dingo which was warm and I could drink a brandy and thaw my fingers.

I turned left on the Rue Delambre and crossed to the right side of the street and the sun moved west and refused to heat the Paris air and the shadows of the building tilted into the street.

A long and wide and expensive car that was more like a coach was parked next to the Dingo in front of the small bookshop owned by Edward Titus, at the sign of the Black Manikin. The sign was a poised and delicate man with a sword in hand and Titus stood outside the door without his hat or his coat. His face was gently formed with his hair receding in graceful arches above his temples. His thin lips suited his words and his attitude which was calm and disciplined and he expected discipline and decorum from all who entered his shop.

Madame Rubinstein also stood in the shadow of the black Manikin and she was smaller and rounder than Titus and she wore a fur coat with a collar that covered her ears. Her lips were very red and the skin above her eyes boasted a strange and unnatural blue that she thought made women beautiful and she'd built an empire convincing others that color was beauty. Neither of them noticed me as I walked up to the Dingo.

"You want more money," she said.

"For books."

"For more words that no one can afford to buy. You don't want to sell the books anyway. You only want to read them."

"One at a time."

"Your shop doesn't make any money."

"It isn't here for money. It is here for the books and the people who read them."

Madame Rubenstein began to turn red that was nothing like the color of her lips and she started to strongly resemble a rooster. I thought that Madame Rubenstein showed a serious lack of Bel Esprit and I began to think Titus wouldn't get any money from her.

"I won't finance the dregs of Montparnasse, but I can't stand to see you hungry. I'll send you money later today."

"Thank you for the books Helena."

"This money isn't for books. I won't have you starving like the other wasters in Montparnasse."

"I'll never starve, but I don't mind being hungry."

"Goodbye Edward. I'll send the chauffer back with money."

Madame mounted her palanquin and arranged herself on the seat. She waved her fingers in the rearview mirror and the car pulled away from the curb.

Titus stepped into the street and the sunlight fell in a sharp line across his shoulders but his face was in the light and his nose was beautiful and thin and I thought of an eagle as he stood in the street. He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets and turned to his shop.

It was easier to be poor because money can't come between two people when you don't have any. I no longer wanted a brandy and the cold didn't seem as important. I hadn't eaten lunch but I decided to go back to the apartment while I had the edge. Hadley would be home and she would carefully feed the stove to make it give the most heat for the least fuel and she would cook something for dinner and it would be hot and delicious.

The tops of my ears were numb and I rubbed them to bring back the heat as I walked along the Boulevard Montparnasse to home.

1989

Thoughts and Comments

Published under my maiden name: Barbara Muller

A Moveable Feast: One More Bite
A Publication of the Expatriate Lit Class, Spring '89
University of the Pacific
Stockton, CA

I wrote this for an assignment in a Special Topics Class: Expatriates of the 1920's taught by Arlen Hansen. It was one of the most demanding assignments I've tackled in the most challenging class I took in college (see the assignment below.)

The Assignment

A Moveable Feast essays.

THE RULES

The essay is to be so indistinguishable--in style and content--from the chapters in A Moveable Feast that it could be slipped into the book and no one would know.

Which means: you must use details, names, facts, descriptions (realistic), and other particulars that pertain to Paris of the '20s--as if you had been there.

The ten best essays will be collected and photocopied. Everybody in this year's class will get a copy of the volume (A Moveable Feast: A Few More Bites). The course will be offered, I hope, again in 1991. Everyone in that class will get a copy of the volume, showing them just how good this year's class was.

TECHNICAL STUFF:

Write 2 and 1/2 pages. Exactly. Two-and-a-half. No more, no less.

Type your manuscript.

Start halfway down the first page. Put your title there. The top half of your first page will be blank. Put your name just below your title. Skip three lines and begin your final draft.

Did you notice I said "title"? I said title. Hemingway's chapters have titles. Yours must too. Remember, you want yours to look and sound like his.

Do not make any typographical errors. Errors of grammar, syntax, or punctuation will make you look stupid. Typos make you look careless. (I will not proofread or alter your final draft.)

The essays must be handed in Friday, April 7.

I (Hansen) will determine which are the best ten. No sniveling.

I am possibly more proud of this piece than anything else I've ever written. Dr. Hansen was terribly ill that semester which added to the intensity of the class already amplified by Dr. Hansen himself and by the 27 brilliant people studying with him that semester.

We pushed and pushed and worked; I had never worked so hard in a class, memorized so much, discussed so many things. The class shaped many of our lives. A number of us are still in touch. 'Tis not possible to describe the synergy of that time...we were aware, even as it was happening, that it was a pinnacle experience in our lives.

To have done it at all was a blessing, to have done it well...therein lies my pride.

Dr. Hansen's Comments

Barbara...

Good details, and a nice presentation of the contrasting attitudes of Rubenstein and Titus, which are in turn contrasted with Hemingway's attitude. And you put all of that into a controlling "heat/cold" metaphor. (Rubenstein has warm clothes, yet she is oddly cold in her brusqueness; Titus is in shirt sleeves, yet he steps into the sun.) As the title suggests, you are really defining shades (shadows) of different attitudes.

I really liked the line about how money can't come between two people when they don't have any (the narrator implies that he's talking about himself and Hadley). The line is substantive typical of early Hemingway (I'd almost swear I read it in his prose somewhere--that's how "true to Hemingway" it is). And also it's got the rhythms and sounds of a Hemingway line. Nice one.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the theme is the implication about "heat thyself"--or, somehow, the importance of conserving heat, not squandering it, and being able to generate your own heat (having not wasted it foolishly). This aspect is, of course, perfectly in line with Hemingway's emphasis throughout AMF. Good job!