At home in our two-room flat that had no hot water and no inside toilet facilities except an antiseptic portable container that was not uncomfortable to anyone who was used to a Michigan outhouse, but which was a cheerful gay flat with a fine view and a good mattress and springs for a comfortable bed on the floor, well and tastefully covered, and pictures that we liked on the walls, I told my wife about the wonderful place I had found.
“But Tatie, you must go by this afternoon and pay,” she said.
“Sure I will,” I said. “We’ll both go. And then we’ll walk down by the river and along the quais.”
“Let’s walk down the rue de Seine and look in all the galleries and in the windows of the shops.”
“Sure. We can walk anywhere and we can stop at some new café where we don’t know anyone and nobody knows us and have a drink.”
“We can have two drinks.”
“Then we can eat somewhere.”
“No. Don’t forget we have to pay the library.”
“We’ll come home and eat here and we’ll have a lovely meal and drink Beaune from the co-operative you can see right out of the window there with the price of the Beaune on the window. And afterwards we’ll read and then go to bed and make love.”
“And we’ll never love anyone else but each other.”
“No. Never.”
--"A Moveable Feast" by Earnest Hemingway
