By hello
Passage: “The taxi stopped in front of the Rotonde. No matter what café in Montparnasse you ask a taxi-driver to bring you to … they always take you to the Rotonde.” (gutenberg.org) Founded in 1911 at the corner of Boulevard du Montparnasse and Boulevard Raspail, La Rotonde was already renowned as a meeting place for artists and writers. Hemingway uses that reputation economically: the joke about the taxi-driver makes the café stand for Montparnasse itself, a place so famous it has become the district’s default destination. That gives the scene both glamour and fatigue—the place is central, over-known, and therefore perfect for a novel about expatriate drift. (en.wikipedia.org)