Today's Super-Special Insomnia Report Guest Blogger: Ernest Hemingway!

...[F. Scott Fitzgerald] drank wine at the lunch but it did not affect him and he had not prepared for the lunch by drinking before it. We talked about our work and about people and he asked me about people that we had not seen lately. I knew that he was writing something good and that he was having great trouble with it for many reasons but that was not what he wanted to talk about. I kept waiting for it to come, the thing that I had to tell the absolute truth about; but he would not bring it up until the end of the meal, as though we were having a business lunch.

Finally when we were eating the cherry tart and had a last carafe of wine he said, "YOu know I never slep with anyone except Zelda."

"No, I didn't."

"I thought I had told you."

"No. You told me a lot of things but not that."

"That is what I have to ask you about."

"Good. Go on."

"Zelda said that the way I was built I could never make any woman happy and that was what upset her originally. She said it was a matter of measurements. I have never felt the same since she said that and I have to know truly."

"Come out to the office," I said.

"Where is the office?"

"Le water," I said.

We came back into the room and sat down at the table.

"You're perfectly fine," I said. "You are O.K. There's nothing wrong with you. You look at yourself from above and you look foreshortened. Go over to the Louvre and look at the people in the statues and then go home and look at yourself in the mirror in profile."

"Those statues may not be accurate."

"They are pretty good. Most people would settle for them."

"But why would she say it?"

"To put you out of business. That's the oldest way in the world of putting people out of business. Scott, you asked me to tell you the truth and I can tell you a lot more but this is the absolute truth and all you need. You could have gone to see a doct."

"I didn't want to. I wanted you to tell me truly."

"Now do you believe me?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Come on over to the Lourve," I said, "It's just down the street and across the river."

We went over to the Louvre and he looked at the statues but still he was doubtful about himself.
"It is not basically a question of the size in repose," I said. "It is the size that it becomes. It is also a question of angle." I explained to him about using a pillow and a few other things that might be helpful for him to know.

"There is one girl," he said, "who has been very nice to me. But after what Zelda said--"

"Forget what Zelda said," I told him. "Zelda is crazy. There's nothing wrong with you. Just have confidence and do what the girl wants. Zelda just wants to destroy you."

"You don't know anything about Zelda."

"All right," I said. "Let it go at that. But you came to lunch to ask me a question and I've tried to give you an honest answer."

[Excerpt from A Moveable Feast]