A Good Cafe on the Place St.-Michel Summary and Analysis

Hemingway opens the chapter with the phrase, "Then there was the bad weather," (p.3) as if continuing a tale that had started before the opening of the book. He describes the cold weather that comes to Paris in the winter, with wind and rain. The weather drives people indoors and requires them to shut their windows at night.

At the Cafe des Amateurs, the windows fog over from the crowd that comes there to escape the weather. It is an "evilly run" place, crowded with drunks, and Hemingway avoids it because of the foul smell.

The city is transformed by the cold weather, becoming sad and dark. Hemingway rents a small room on the top floor of a hotel where he writes. It is heated by a...