A night at Harry’s

After a long day arting we decided to loosen our brains with a spot of shopping and headed for Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussmann and on the way take a detour to Harry’s Bar in Rue Daunou.

It was here that on an August evening Delarue first encountered Ernest Hemingway – Mathieu had spent the day with his cousins who’d been visiting from Nice, they were great jazz fans and when they saw Harry’s New York Bar they had to go in. It was crowded  so they ordered their drinks standing at the bar – a large drunken sailor turned to Mathieu and bellowed something at him (Delarue didn’t speak much English – especially when delivered in a drunken southern drawl). The sailor bellowed again this time pushing him and spilling his drink.

Delarue protested but the sailor continued to harass. This carried on for some time with sailor getting more angry and physical as Delarue tried to calm the situation in his limited English – the sailor lost his reason and took a swing, Mathieu managed to duck, another swing, but this time it was stopped by a large bearded man who caught the sailor’s fist turned him around and kicked him through the door onto the street, he introduced himself as Ernest Miller Hemingway.

Delarue drank through that night, unfortunately our wallets wouldn’t run to that, but we did attempt the old artist’s trick – a drawing for another drink?