U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [237]
The only trouble with going around with Eliza Felton was that she kept al the men away. They went up to Paris on the day train next day and Eveline could hardly keep from tears at the beauty of the country and the houses and the vines and the tal ranks of poplars. There were little soldiers in pale blue at every station and the elderly and deferential conductor looked like a col egeprofessor. When the train final y slid smoothly through the tunnel and into the Orleans station her throat was so tight she could hardly speak. It was as if she'd never been to Paris before.
"Now where are you going, dear? You see we have to carry our own traps," said Eliza Felton in a businesslike way.
"Wel , I suppose I should go to the Red Cross and report."
"Too late for tonight, I can tel you that."
-134-"Wel , I might try to cal up Eleanor."
"Might as wel try to wake the dead as try to use the Paris telephone in wartime . . . what you'd better do, dear, is come with me to a little hotel I know on the Quai and sign up with the Red Cross in the morning; that's what I'm going to do."
"I'd hate to get sent back home."
"They won't know you're here for weeks. . . . I know those dumbbel s." So Eveline waited with their traps while Eliza Felton fetched a little truck. They piled their bags on it and rol ed them out of the station and through the empty streets in the last faint mauve of twilight to the hotel. There were very few lights and they were blue and hooded with tin hats so that they couldn't be seen from above. The Seine, the old bridges, and the long bulk of the Louvre opposite looked faint and unreal; it was like walking through a Whistler.
"We must hurry and get something to eat before every-thing closes up. . . . I'l take you to Adrienne's," said Miss Felton.
They left their bags to be taken up to their rooms at the hôtel du Quai Voltaire and walked fast through a lot of narrow crisscross fastdarkening streets. They ducked into the door of the little restaurant just as some one was starting to pul the heavy iron shutter down.
"Tiens, c'est Mademoisel e Elise," cried a woman's voice from the back of the heavily upholstered little room. A short French-woman with a very large head and very large popeyes ran forward and hugged Miss Felton and kissed her a number of times. "This is Miss Hutchins," said Miss Felton in her dry voice. "Verry plised . . . she is so prretty . . . beautiful eyes, hem?" It made Eveline uncomfortable the way the woman looked at her, the way her big powdered face was set like an egg in a cup in the fril y highnecked blouse. She brought out some soup and cold veal and
-135-bread, with many apologies on account of not having butter or sugar, complaining in a singsong voice about how severe the police were and how the profiteers were hoarding food and how bad the military situation was. Then she suddenly stopped talking; al their eyes lit at the same moment on the sign on the wal : MEFIEZ VOUS LES OREILLES ENEMIES
VOUS ECOUTENT
"Enfin c'est la guerre," Adrienne said. She was sitting beside Miss Felton, patting Miss Felton's thin hand with her pudgy hand al covered with paste rings. She had made them coffee. They were drinking little glasses of Cointreau. She leaned over and patted Eveline on the neck. "Faut pas s'en faire, hein?" Then she threw back her head and let out a shril hysterical laugh. She kept pouring out more little glasses of Cointreau and Miss Felton seemed to be getting a little tipsy. Adrienne kept patting her hand. Eveline felt her own head swimming in the stuffy dark closedup little room. She got to her feet and said she was going back to the hotel, that she had a headache and was sleepy. They tried to coax her to stay but she ducked out under the shutter.
Half the street outside was lit up by moonlight, the other half was in pitchblack shadow. Al at once Eveline remembered that she didn't know the way back to the hotel, stil she couldn't go into that restaurant again and that woman gave her the horrors, so she walked along fast, keeping in the moonlight, scared of