Hemingway prefaces the novel with the quote, “If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact” (3). He describes what is and what is not included in A Moveable Feast, writing that the “people, places, observations, and impressions” left out of this book are both secrets known by none and secrets known by all (3).

A storm descends on the Place Contrescarpe at the end of fall. Hemingway and many others take shelter in Café des Amateurs, a bar where drunkards crowded. The Café is the cesspool of the rue Mouffetards, the crowded market situated at the entrance of the Place Contrescarpe. Hemingway recalls that, in the summertime, one could hear the pumping of the waste into horse-drawn tank wagons and the accompanying odor. Yet, the Café des Amateurs was never emptied. Instead, it smelled of the waste from the cesspool and from the drunkards.

Hemingway recalls the sadness which fell over the city in winter: “there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed door of the small shops” (4).