Ernest Hemingway - Garden of Eden

by ErnestHemingway

THEYWERE LIVING at le Grau du Roi then and the hotel was on a canal that ran fromthe walled city of Aigues Mortes straight down to the sea. They could see thetowers of Aigues Mortes across the low plain of the Camargue and they rodethere on their bicycles at some time of nearly every day along the white roadthat bordered the canal. In the evenings and the mornings when there was arising tide sea bass would come into it and they would see the mullet jumpingwildly to escape from the bass and watch the swelling bulge of the water as thebass attacked.

Ajetty ran out into the blue and pleasant sea and they fished from the jetty andswam on the beach and each day helped the fishermen haul in the long net thatbrought the fish up onto the long sloping beach. They drank aperitifs in thecafe on the corner facing the sea and watched the sails of the mackerel fishingboats out in the Gulf of Lions. It was late in the spring and the mackerel wererunning and fishing people of the port were very busy. It was a cheerful andfriendly town and the young couple liked the hotel, which had four roomsupstairs and a restaurant and two billiard tables downstairs facing the canaland the light house. The room they lived in looked like the painting of VanGogh's room at Arles except there was a double bed and two big windows and youcould look out across the water and the marsh and sea meadows to the white townand bright beach of Palavas.

Theywere always hungry but they ate very well. They were hungry for breakfast whichthey ate at the cafe, ordering brioche and cafe au lait and eggs, and the typeof preserve that they chose and the manner in which the eggs were to be cookedwas an excitement. They were always so hungry for breakfast that the girl oftenhad a headache until the coffee came. But the coffee took the headache away.She took her coffee without sugar and the young man was learning to rememberthat.

Onthis morning there was brioche and red raspberry preserve and the eggs wereboiled and there was a pat of butter that melted as they stirred them andsalted them lightly and ground pepper over them in the cups. They were big eggsand fresh and the girl's were not cooked quite as long as the young man's. Heremembered that easily and he was happy with his which he diced up with thespoon and ate with only the flow of the butter to moisten them and the freshearly morning texture and the bite of the coarsely ground pepper grains and thehot coffee and the chickory-fragrant bowl of cafe au lait.

Thefishing boats were well out. They had gone out in the dark with the firstrising of the breeze and the young man and the girl had wakened and heard themand then curled together under the sheet of the bed and slept again. They hadmade love when they were half awake with the light bright outside but the roomstill shadowed and then had lain together and been happy and tired and thenmade love again. Then they were so hungry that they did not think they wouldlive until breakfast and now they were in the cafe eating and watching the seaand the sails and it was a new day again.

"Whatare you thinking?" the girl asked.

"Nothing."

"Youhave to think something."

"Iwas just feeling."

"How?"

''Happy."

"ButI get so hungry," she said. "Is it normal do you think? Do you alwaysget so hungry when you make love?"

"Whenyou love somebody."

"Oh,you know too much about it," she said.

"Idon't care. I love it and we don't have to worry about anything do we?"

"Nothing."

"Whatdo you think we should do?"

"Idon't know," he said. "What do you?"

"Idon't care at all. If you'd like to fish I should write a letter or maybe twoand then we could swim before lunch."

"Tobe hungry?"

"Don'tsay it. I'm getting hungry already and we haven't finished breakfast."

"Wecan think about lunch."

"Andthen after lunch?"

"We'lltake a nap like good children."

"That'san absolutely new idea," she said. "Why have we never thought ofthat?"

"Ihave these flashes of intuition," he said. "I'm the inventive type.

"I'mthe destructive type," she said. "And I'm going to destroy you.They'll put a plaque up on the wall of the building outside the room. I'm goingto wake up in the night and do something to you that you've never even heard ofor imagined. I was going to last night but I was too sleepy."

"You'retoo sleepy to be dangerous."

"Don'tlull yourself into any false security. Oh darling let's have it hurry up and belunch time."

Theysat there in their striped fishermen's shirts and the shorts they had bought inthe store that sold marine supplies, and they were very tan and their hair wasstreaked and faded by the sun and the sea. Most people thought they werebrother and sister until they said they were married. Some did not believe thatthey were married and that pleased the girl very much.

Inthose years only a very few people had ever come to the Mediterranean in thesummer time and no one came to le Grau du Roi except a few people from Nimes.There was no casino and no entertainment and except in the hottest months whenpeople came to swim there was no one at the hotel. People did not wearfishermen's shirts then and this girl that he was married to was the first girlhe had ever seen wearing one. She had bought the shirts for them and then hadwashed them in the basin in their room at the hotel to take the stiffness outof them. They were stiff and built for hard wear but the washings softened themand now they were worn and softened enough so that when he looked at the girlnow her breasts showed beautifully against the worn cloth.

Noone wore shorts either around the village and the girl could not wear them whenthey rode their bicycles. But in the village it did not matter because thepeople were very friendly and only the local priest disapproved. But the girlwent to mass on Sunday wearing a skirt and a long-sleeved cashmere sweater withher hair covered with a scarf and the young man stood in the back of the churchwith the men. They gave twenty francs which was more than a dollar then andsince the priest took up the collection himself their attitude toward thechurch was known and the wearing of shorts in the village was regarded as aneccentricity by foreigners rather than an attempt against the morality of theports of the Camargue. The priest did not speak to them when they wore shortsbut he did not denounce them and when they wore trousers in the evening thethree of them bowed to each other. "I'll go up and write the letters,"the girl said and she got up and smiled at the waiter and went out of the cafe."Monsieur is going to fish?" the waiter asked when the young man,whose name was David Bourne, called him over and paid him. "I think so.How is the tide?" "This tide is very good," the waiter said."I have some bait if you want it." "I can get some along theroad." "No. Use this. They're sandworms and there are plenty.""Can you come out?" "I'm on duty now. But maybe I can come outand see how you do. You have your gear?" "It's at the hotel.""Stop by for the worms. At the hotel the young man wanted to go up to theroom and see the girl but instead he found the long, jointed bamboo pole andthe basket with his fishing gear behind the desk where the room keys hung andwent back out into the brightness of the road and on down to the cafe and outonto the glare of the jetty. The sun was hot but there was a fresh breeze andthe tide was just starting to ebb. He wished that he had brought a casting rodand spoons so that he might cast out across the flow of the water from thecanal over the rocks on the far side but instead he rigged his long pole withits cork and quill float and let a sandworm float gently along at a depth wherehe thought fish might be feeding. He fished for some time with no luck andwatched the mackerel boats tacking back and forth out on the blue sea and theshadows the high clouds made on the water. Then his float went under in a sharpdescent with the line angling stiffly and he brought the pole up against thepull of a fish that was strong and driving wildly and making the line hissthrough the water. He tried to hold it as lightly as he could and the long polewas bent to the breaking point of the line and trace by the fish which kepttrying to go toward the open sea. The young man walked with him on the jetty toease the strain but the fish kept pulling so that as he drove a quarter of therod was forced under water.