A Moveable Feast

by Ernest Hemingway

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.

Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.

Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary,