23
Are modern paintings—and poetry—Art? Yes and No.
Take Picasso. Have tramps codes of conduct? Send your
mind adventuring.
There is Romance everywhere. Forum writers talk to
the point, are possessed of humor and wit. But they do not
try to be smart and are never long winded.
Live the full life of the mind exhilarated by new ideas,
intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.
And meanwhile stretched flat on a bed in a darkened
room in his house in Triana, Manuel Garcia Maera lay
with a tube in each lung drowning with the pneumonia. All
the papers in Andalucia devoted special supplements to his
death which had been expected for some days. Men and
boys bought full length colored pictures of him to remem
ber him by and lost the picture they had of him in their
memories by looking at the lithographs. Bull fighters were
very relieved he was dead because he did always in the bull
ring the things they could only do sometimes. They all
marched in the rain behind his coffin and there were one
hundred and forty-seven bull fighters followed him out to
the cemetery where they buried him in the tomb next to
Joselito. After the funeral everyone sat in the cafes out
of the rain and many colored pictures of Maera were sold
to men who rolled them up and put them away in their
pockets.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
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