It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference.
It was the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all and nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nothing.
No one does despair like Hemingway.
This was featured on selected shorts (I'm addicted to NPR podcasts lately) and the host introduced it as follows:
"The stories I have chosen all employ a plainness of language. So to set that up, in this my introduction, I will use up your tolerance for cake and make you long for bread. And then we shall have bread!
You stare into the fire and all the contents of your days' cargo display themselves in the flames. The junk and the diamonds. The smoke of lust and the rough knotted rope of grief. A montage in the fire. An overwhelming montage. And a feeling of despair. And hope. Despair says 'I will drown and I will never understand anything.' But hope says, 'Wait.' When the day is done and we are left to ourselves, when the fire punches a circle in the dark, it's the soul that sees gods in the constellations."
