The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Read Free Book Online Page B

anybody.”

    â€œNo, I don’t believe it. And I’m fond of him, too. And I’d like to have children. I always thought we’d have children.”

    She looked at me very brightly. “I never liked children much, but I don’t want to think I’ll never have them. I always thought I’d have them and then like them.”

    â€œHe’s got children.”

    â€œOh, yes. He’s got children, and he’s got money, and he’s got a rich mother, and he’s written a book, and nobody will publish my stuff, nobody at all. It isn’t bad, either. And I haven’t got any money at all. I could have had alimony, but I got the divorce the quickest way.”

    She looked at me again very brightly.

    â€œIt isn’t right. It’s my own fault and it’s not, too. I ought to have known better. And when I tell him he just cries and says he can’t marry. Why can’t he marry? I’d be a good wife. I’m easy to get along with. I leave him alone. It doesn’t do any good.”

    â€œIt’s a rotten shame.”

    â€œYes, it is a rotten shame. But there’s no use talking about it, is there? Come on, let’s go back to the café.”

    â€œAnd of course there isn’t anything I can do.”

    â€œNo. Just don’t let him know I talked to you. I know what he wants.” Now for the first time she dropped her bright, terribly cheerful manner. “He wants to go back to New York alone, and be there when his book comes out so when a lot of little chickens like it. That’s what he wants.”

    â€œMaybe they won’t like it. I don’t think he’s that way. Really.”

    â€œYou don’t know him like I do, Jake. That’s what he wants to do. I know it. I know it. That’s why he doesn’t want to marry. He wants to have a big triumph this fall all by himself.”

    â€œWant to go back to the café?”

    â€œYes. Come on.”

    We got up from the table—they had never brought us a drink—and started across the street toward the Select, where Cohn sat
smiling at us from behind the marble-topped table.

    â€œWell, what are you smiling at?” Frances asked him. “Feel pretty happy?”

    â€œI was smiling at you and Jake with your secrets.”

    â€œOh, what I’ve told Jake isn’t any secret. Everybody will know it soon enough. I only wanted to give Jake a decent version.”

    â€œWhat was it? About your going to England?”

    â€œYes, about my going to England. Oh, Jake! I forgot to tell you. I’m going to England.”

    â€œIsn’t that fine!”

    â€œYes, that’s the way it’s done in the very best families. Robert’s sending me. He’s going to give me two hundred pounds and then I’m going to visit friends. Won’t it be lovely? The friends don’t know about it, yet.”

    She turned to Cohn and smiled at him. He was not smiling now.

    â€œYou were only going to give me a hundred pounds, weren’t you, Robert? But I made him give me two hundred. He’s really very generous. Aren’t you, Robert?”

    I do not know how people could say such terrible things to Robert Cohn. There are people to whom you could not say insulting things. They give you a feeling that the world would be destroyed, would actually be destroyed before your eyes, if you said certain things. But here was Cohn taking it all. Here it was, all going on right before me, and I did not even feel an impulse to try and stop it. And this was friendly joking to what went on later.

    â€œHow can you say such things, Frances?” Cohn interrupted.

    â€œListen to him. I’m going to England. I’m going to visit friends. Ever visit friends that didn’t want you? Oh, they’ll have to take me, all right. ‘How do you do, my dear? Such a long time since we’ve seen you. And how is your dear mother?’