U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [318]
"My, you look handsome in that suit, Paul . . . I never saw you in civilian clothes before." Paul blushed and put his hands uneasily into his pock-ets, "Lord, I'l be glad to get into civvies for keeps," he said seriously. "Even though it'l mean me goin' back to work . . . I can't get a darn thing out of these Sorbonne lectures . . . everybody's too darn restless, I guess . . . and I'm sick of hearing what bums the boche are, that's al the frog profs seem to be able to talk about."
"Wel , go out and read a book and I'l get up. . . . Did you notice if the old woman across the way had coffee out?"
"Yare, she did," cal ed Paul from the salon to which he'd retreated when Eveline stuck her toes out from
-322-under the bedclothes. "Shal I go out and bring some in?"
"That's a darling, do. . . . I've got brioches and but-ter here . . . take that enamel ed milkcan out of the kitchen."
Eveline looked at herself in the mirror before she
started dressing. She had shadows under her eyes and faint beginnings of crowsfeet. Chil ier than the damp Paris room came the thought of growing old. It was so horribly actual that she suddenly burst into tears. An old hag's tearsmeared face looked at her bitterly out of the mirror. She pressed the palms of her hands hard over her eyes.
"Oh, I lead such a sil y life," she whispered aloud. Paul was back. She could hear him moving around
awkwardly in the salon. "I forgot to tel you . . . Don says Anatole France is going to march with the mutilays of la guerre. . . . I've got the cafay o lay whenever you're ready."
"Just a minute," she cal ed from the basin where she was splashing cold water on her face. "How old are you, Paul?" she asked him when she came out of her bedroom al dressed, smiling, feeling that she was looking her best.
"Free, white and twenty one . . . we'd better drink up this coffee before it gets cold." "You don't look as old as that." "Oh, I'm old enough to know better," said Paul, getting very red in the face. "I'm five years older than that," said Eveline. "Oh, how I hate growing old."
"Five years don't mean anything," stammered Paul.
He was so nervous he spilt a lot of coffee over his trouserleg. "Oh, hel , that's a dumb thing to do," he growled. "I'l get it out in a second," said Eveline, run-ning for a towel. She made him sit in a chair and kneeled down in front of him and scrubbed at the inside of his thigh with the towel. Paul sat there stiff, red as a beet, with his lips pressod together. He jumped to his feet before she'd fin--323-ished. "Wel , let's go out and see what's happening. I wish I knew more about what it's al about."
"Wel , you might at least say thank you," said Eveline, looking up at him.
"Thanks, gosh, it's awful nice of you, Eveline." Outside it was like Sunday. A few stores were open
on the side streets but they had their iron shutters half-way down. It was a grey day; they walked up the Boule-vard St. Germain, passing many people out strol ing in their best clothes. It wasn't until a squadron of the Guarde Republicaine clattered past them in their shiny helmets and their tricolor plumes that they had any inkling of tenseness in the air. Over on the other side of the Seine there were more people and little groups of gendarmes standing around. At the crossing of several streets they saw a cluster of old men in workclothes with a red flag and a
sign, LUMON DES TRAVAILLEURS FERA LA
PAIX DU MONDE. A cordon of republican guards
rode down on them with their sabres drawn, the sun flash-ing on their helmets. The old men ran or flattened them-selves in doorways. On the Grands Boulevards there were companies of
poilus in tin hats and grimy blue uniforms standing round their stacked rifles. The crowds on the streets cheered them as they surged past, everything seemed goodna-tured and jol y. Eveline and Paul began to get tired; they'd been walking al morning. They began to wonder where they'd get any