It was easy to get into the habit of stopping in at 27 rue de Fleurus late in the afternoon for the warmth and the great pictures and the conversation. Often Miss Stein would have no guests and she was always very friendly and for a long time she was affectionate.
When I had come back from trips that I had made to the different political conferences or to the Near East or Germany for the Canadian paper and the news services that I worked for she wanted me to tell her about all the amusing details. There were funny parts always and she liked them and also what the Germans call gallows-humour stories. She wanted to know the gay part of how the world was going; never the real, never the bad.
I was young and not gloomy and there were always strange and comic things that happened in the worst time and Miss Stein liked to hear these. The other things I did not talk of and wrote by myself.
When I had not come back from any trips and would stop in at the rue de Fleurus after working I would try sometimes to get Miss Stein to talk about books. When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written. If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing that you were writing before you could go on with it the next day. It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved. That was better than anything. But afterwards, when you were empty, it was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it again. I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
To keep my mind off writing sometimes after I had worked I would read writers who were writing then, such as Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence or any who had books published that I could get from Sylvia Beach's library or find along the quais.
'Huxley is a dead man,' Miss Stein said. 'Why do you want to read a dead man? Can't you see he is dead?'
I could not see, then, that he was a dead man and I said that his books amused me and kept me from thinking.
'You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.'
'I've been reading truly good books all winter and all last winter and I'll read them next winter, and I don't like frankly bad books.'
'Why do you read this trash? It is inflated trash, Hemingway. By a dead man.'
'I like to see what they are writing,' I said. 'And it keeps my mind off me doing it.'
'Who else do you read now?'
'D. H. Lawrence,' I said. 'He wrote some very good short stories, one called 'The Prussian Officer'.'
When I had come back from trips that I had made to the different political conferences or to the Near East or Germany for the Canadian paper and the news services that I worked for she wanted me to tell her about all the amusing details. There were funny parts always and she liked them and also what the Germans call gallows-humour stories. She wanted to know the gay part of how the world was going; never the real, never the bad.
I was young and not gloomy and there were always strange and comic things that happened in the worst time and Miss Stein liked to hear these. The other things I did not talk of and wrote by myself.
When I had not come back from any trips and would stop in at the rue de Fleurus after working I would try sometimes to get Miss Stein to talk about books. When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written. If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing that you were writing before you could go on with it the next day. It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved. That was better than anything. But afterwards, when you were empty, it was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it again. I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
To keep my mind off writing sometimes after I had worked I would read writers who were writing then, such as Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence or any who had books published that I could get from Sylvia Beach's library or find along the quais.
'Huxley is a dead man,' Miss Stein said. 'Why do you want to read a dead man? Can't you see he is dead?'
I could not see, then, that he was a dead man and I said that his books amused me and kept me from thinking.
'You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.'
'I've been reading truly good books all winter and all last winter and I'll read them next winter, and I don't like frankly bad books.'
'Why do you read this trash? It is inflated trash, Hemingway. By a dead man.'
'I like to see what they are writing,' I said. 'And it keeps my mind off me doing it.'
'Who else do you read now?'
'D. H. Lawrence,' I said. 'He wrote some very good short stories, one called 'The Prussian Officer'.'
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