Hemingway visited Gertrude Stein and listened to her talk about arts and letters. She had those magnificent Picassos. Alice B. Toklas served flavored liqueurs that burned the tongue and tasted like the fruits they were made from.

Hemingway had a method, or trick. A gimmick. He would leave off writing for the day when he knew what he was going to write next. That way, the next day, he would have a place to start.

He was superstitious, like a ballplayer. He was afraid it might not come. So I guess he did have a fear. The fear of the writing not being there.

At the time he wrote this he was having trouble finishing his book. He was writing about the early days. But in his dotage. The spring in his step was no longer there. The boundless energy. The freshness.

The magic. Also, he rewrote. He took out. He judged a piece of writing by the quality of what he omitted. Miss Stein overwrote. She did not edit herself. She was sloppy. Lazy.

To write about Paris just write one true sketch after another. One true vignette. They will grow. One will follow another.

Also, he says, he learned that, once he stopped for the day, not to think about it until the next day. Let it percolate.

Hemingway had shown Miss Stein some stories he had written. They disagreed about one. "Up in Michigan." She said it was inaccrochable, and he should not write stories that were inaccrochable. It was silly. It was wrong.

He didn't argue with her, but he thought he was pushing the envelope. He thought he was using the speech men actually use, and, if you didn't use it, it would be false. And the only way to move the bar was to move it. Somebody has to do the heavy lifting.

Then she instructed him about sex.

Male homosexuals are disgusted by their acts, and ashamed, afterwards, but what women do is not disgusting, so they aren't embarrassed afterwards.

Hemingway kept his own counsel on this, too. As a boy he had carried a knife, so he could kill any wolf who tried to interfere with him.

I beg your pardon?

That's what he said. He would kill any wolf who came after his one eye.

Hemingway didn't think much of The Making of Americans, but he got Ford Madox Ford to publish it, serially, in The Transatlantic Review, which Ford let him edit.

That was Ford's mistake. Hemingway turned on anyone who helped him.

One piece of practical advice Miss Stein gave Hemingway was he could buy paintings of young painters his age just starting out if he didn't waste money on clothes, particularly women's clothes, so he didn't waste money on clothes for Hadley.

One painting he bought, and presented to Hadley, Joan Miró's The Farm, he later borrowed, and never returned.

That is, he fucked her out of it. He was cheesy about money.

Except when it came to himself. He was more generous with himself.