The Sun Also Rises Read Online Free Page B

made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after everyone else’s eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.

    â€œAnd there’s not a damn thing we could do,” I said.

    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to go through that hell again.”

    â€œWe’d better keep away from each other.”

    â€œBut, darling, I have to see you. It isn’t all that you know.”

    â€œNo, but it always gets to be.”

    â€œThat’s my fault. Don’t we pay for all the things we do, though?”

    She had been looking into my eyes all the time. Her eyes had different depths, sometimes they seemed perfectly flat. Now you could see all the way into them.

    â€œWhen I think of the hell I’ve put chaps through. I’m paying for it all now.”

    â€œDon’t talk like a fool,” I said. “Besides, what happened to me is supposed to be funny. I never think about it.”

    â€œOh, no. I’ll lay you don’t.”

    â€œWell, let’s shut up about it.”

    â€œI laughed about it too, myself, once.” She wasn’t looking at me. “A friend of my brother’s came home that way from Mons. It seemed like a hell of a joke. Chaps never know anything, do they?”

    â€œNo,” I said. “Nobody ever knows anything.”

    I was pretty well through with the subject. At one time or another I had probably considered it from most of its various angles, including the one that certain injuries or imperfections are a subject of merriment while remaining quite serious for the person possessing them.

    â€œIt’s funny,” I said. “It’s very funny. And it’s a lot of fun, too, to be in love.”

    â€œDo you think so?” her eyes looked flat again.

    â€œI don’t mean fun that way. In a way it’s an enjoyable feeling.”

    â€œNo,” she said. “I think it’s hell on earth.”

    â€œIt’s good to see each other.”

    â€œNo. I don’t think it is.”

    â€œDon’t you want to?”

    â€œI have to.”

    We were sitting now like two strangers. On the right was the Pare Montsouris. The restaurant where they have the pool of live trout and where you can sit and look out over the park was closed and dark. The driver leaned his head around.

    â€œWhere do you want to go?” I asked. Brett turned her head away.

    â€œOh, go to the Select.”

    â€œCafé Select,” I told the driver. “Boulevard Montparnasse.” We drove straight down, turning around the Lion de Belfort that guards the passing Montrouge trams. Brett looked straight ahead. On the Boulevard Raspail, with the lights of Montparnasse in sight, Brett said; “Would you mind very much if I asked you to do something?”

    â€œDon’t be silly.”

    â€œKiss me just once more before we get there.”

    When the taxi stopped I got out and paid. Brett came out putting on her hat. She gave me her hand as she stepped down. Her hand was shaky. “I say, do I look too much of a mess?” She pulled her man’s felt hat down and started in for the bar. Inside, against the bar and at tables, were most of the crowd who had been at the dance.

    â€œHello, you chaps,” Brett said. “I’m going to have a drink.”

    â€œOh, Brett! Brett!” the little Greek portrait painter, who called himself a duke, and whom everybody called Zizi, pushed up to her. “I got something fine to tell you.”

    â€œHello, Zizi,” Brett said.

    â€œI want you to meet a friend,” Zizi said. A fat man came up.

    â€œCount Mippipopolous, meet my friend Lady Ashley.”

    â€œHow do you do?” said Brett.

    â€œWell, does your Ladyship have a good time here in