NEWSREEL XXX 6 страница

"Let me think," said Eleanor, tapping her chin with

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the sharp pointed nail of a white forefinger, "I'll tell you
what we'll do, darlings, you two go out on the poky old
train as you're ready and I'll run out as soon as I'm
dressed and call up J.W. at the Crillon and see if he
won't drive me out. Then we can all come back together.
How's that?"

"That would be lovely, Eleanor dear," said Eveline in
a singsong voice. "Splendid, oh, I knew you'd come . . .
well, we've got to be off. If we miss each other we'll be
in front of the cathedral at noon . . . Is that all right?"
Eveline went downstairs in a daze. All the way out to
Chartres Freddy was accusing her bitterly of being ab-
sentminded and not liking her old friends any more.

By the time they got to Chartres it was raining hard.
They spent a gloomy day there. The stained glass that
had been taken away for safety during the war hadn't been
put back yet. The tall twelfthcentury saints had a wet,
slimy look in the driving rain. Freddy said that the sight
of the black virgin surrounded by candles in the crypt
was worth all the trouble of the trip for him, but it wasn't
for Eveline. Eleanor and J.W. didn't turn up; "Of course
not in this rain," said Freddy. It was a kind of relief to
Eveline to find that she'd caught cold and would have to
go to bed as soon as she got home. Freddy took her to
her door in a taxi but she wouldn't let him come up for
fear he'd find Don there.

Don was there, and was very sympathetic about her
cold and tucked her in bed and made her a hot lemonade
with cognac in it. He had his pockets full of money, as
held just sold some articles, and had gotten a job to go to
Vienna for the Daily Herald of London. He was pulling
out as soon after May 1 as he could . . . "unless some-
thing breaks here," he said impressively. He went away
that evening to a hotel, thanking her for putting him up
like a good comrade even if she didn't love him any more.
The place felt empty after he'd gone. She almost wished

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she'd made him stay. She lay in bed feeling feverishly
miserable, and finally went to sleep feeling sick and scared
and lonely.

The morning of the first of May, Paul Johnson came
around before she was up. He was in civilian clothes and
looked young and slender and nice and lighthaired and
handsome. He said Don Stevens had gotten him all
wrought up about what was going to happen what with
the general strike and all that; he'd come to stick around
if Eveline didn't mind. "I thought I'd better not be in
uniform, so I borrowed this suit from a feller," he said.
"I think I'll strike too," said Eveline. "I'm so sick of that
Red Cross office I could scream."

"Gee, that ud be wonderful, Eveline. We can walk
around and see the excitement. . . . It'll be all right if
you're with me. . . I mean I'll be easier in my mind if
I know where you are if there's trouble. . . You're
awful reckless, Eveline."

"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'll be glad to get into civvies for keeps," he
said seriously. "Even though it'll 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 all
the frog profs seem to be able to talk about."

"Well, go out and read a book and I'll get up. . . .
Did you notice if the old woman across the way had coffee
out?"

"Yare, she did," called Paul from the salon to which
he'd retreated when Eveline stuck her toes out from

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under the bedclothes. "Shall I go out and bring some
in?"

"That's a darling, do. . . . I've got brioches and but-
ter here . . . take that enamelled 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. Chillier 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 silly life," she whispered aloud.

Paul was back. She could hear him moving around
awkwardly in the salon. "I forgot to tell 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 called 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
all 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, hell, that's a dumb thing to do," he
growled. "I'll 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-

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ished. "Well, let's go out and see what's happening. I
wish I knew more about what it's all about."
"Well, 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 strolling 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 jolly. Eveline and Paul began to get tired;
they'd been walking all morning. They began to wonder
where they'd get any lunch. Then too it was starting to
rain.

Passing the Bourse they met Don Stevens, who had
just come out of the telegraph office. He was sore and
tired. He'd been up since five o'clock. "If they're going
to have a riot why the hell can't they have it in time to
make the cables. . . Well, I saw Anatole France dis-
persed on the, Place d'Alma. Ought to be a story in that

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except for all this damned censorship. Things are pretty
serious in Germany . . . I think something's going to
happen there."

"Will anything happen here in Paris, Don?" asked
Paul.

"Damned if I know some kids busted up those
gratings around the trees and threw them at the cops on
the avenue Magenta. . . . Burnham in there says there
are barricades at the end of the place de la Bastille, but
I'm damned if I'm going over till I get something to
eat . . . I don't believe it anyway . . . I'm about foun-
dered. What are you two bourgeois doing out a day like
this?"

"Hey, fellowworker, don't shoot," said Paul, throwing
up his hands. "Wait till we get something to eat," Eveline
laughed. She thought how much better she liked Paul
than she liked Don.

They walked around a lot of back streets in the driz-
zling rain and at last found a little restaurant from which
came voices and a smell of food. They ducked in under
the iron shutter of the door. It was dark and crowded
with taxidrivers and workingmen. They squeezed into the
end of a marble table where two old men were playing
chess. Eveline's leg was pressed against Paul's. She didn't
move; then he began to get red and moved his chair a
little. "Excuse me," he said.

They all ate liver and onions and Don got to talking
with the old men in his fluent bad French. They said the
youngsters weren't good for anything nowadays, in the
old days when they descended into the street they tore up
the pavings and grabbed the cops by the legs and pulled
them off their horses. Today was supposed to be a gen-
eral strike and what had they done? . . . nothing . . .
a few urchins had thrown some stones and one café win-
dow had been broken. It wasn't like that that liberty de-
fended itself and the dignity of labor. The old men went

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back to their chess. Don set them up to a bottle of wine.
Eveline was sitting back halflistening, wondering if
she'd go around to see J.W. in the afternoon. She hadn't
seen him or Eleanor since that Sunday morning; she
didn't care anyway. She wondered if Paul would marry
her, how it would be to have a lot of little babies that
would have the same young coltish fuzzy look he had.
She liked it in this little dark restaurant that smelt of
food and wine and caporal ordinaire, sitting back and let-
ting Don lay down the law to Paul about the revolu-
tion. "When I get back home I guess I'll bum around
the country a little, get a job as a harvest hand and stuff
like that and find out about those things," Paul said
finally. "Now I don't know a darn thing, just what I hear
people say."

After they had eaten they were sitting over some glasses
of wine, when they heard an American voice. Two M.P.'s
had come in and were having a drink at the zinc bar.
"Don't talk English," whispered Paul. They sat there
stiffly trying to look as French as possible until the two
khaki uniforms disappeared, then Paul said, "Whee, I was
scared . . . they'd picked me up sure as hell if they'd
found me without my uniform. . . . Then it'd have been
the Roo Saint Anne and goodby Paree." "Why, you poor
kid, they'd have shot you at sunrise," said Eveline. "You
go right home and change your clothes at once . . . I'm
going to the Red Cross for a while anyway."

Don walked over to the rue de Rivoli with her. Paul
shot off down another street to go to his room and get
his uniform. "I think Paul Johnson's an awfully nice boy,
where did you collect him, Don?" Eveline said in a casual
tone. "He's kinder simple . . . unlicked cub kind of a
kid . . . I guess he's all right . . . I got to know him
when the transport section he was in was billeted near us
up in the Marne . . . Then he got this cush job in the
Post Despatch Service and now he's studying at the Sor-

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bonne. . . . By God, he needs it . . . no social ideas
. . . Paul still thinks it was the stork."

"He must come from near where you came from . . .
back home, I mean."

"Yare, his dad owns a grain elevator in some little
tank town or other . . . petit bourgeois . . . bum en-
vironment . . . He's not a bad kid in spite of it . . .
Damn shame he hasn't read Marx, something to stiffen his
ideas up." Don made a funny face. "That goes with you
too, Eveline, but I gave you up as hopeless long ago.
Ornamental but not useful." They'd stopped and were
talking on the streetcorner under the arcade. "Oh, Don,
I think your ideas are just too tiresome," she began. He
interrupted, "Well, solong, here comes a bus . . . I
oughtn't to ride on a scab bus but it's too damn far to
walk all the way to the Bastille." He gave her a kiss.
"Don't be sore at me." Eveline waved her hand, "Have a
good time in Vienna, Don." He jumped on the platform
of the bus as it rumbled past. The last Eveline saw the
woman conductor was trying to push him off because the
bus was complet.

She went up to her office and tried to look as if she'd
been there all day. At a little before six she walked up the
street to the Crillon and went up to see J.W. Everything
was as usual there, Miss Williams looking chilly and
yellowhaired at her desk, Morton stealthily handing
around tea and petit fours, J.W. deep in talk with a
personage in a cutaway in the embrasure of the window,
halfhidden by the heavy champagnecolored drapes,
Eleanor in a pearlgrey afternoon dress Eveline had never
seen before, chatting chirpily with three young staffofficers
in front of the fireplace. Eveline had a cup of tea and
talked about something or other with Eleanor for a mo-
ment, then she said she had an engagement and left.

In the anteroom she caught Miss Williams' eye as she

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passed. She stopped by her desk a momen: "Busy as ever,
Miss Williams," she said.

"It's better to be busy," she said. "It keeps a person out
of mischief . . . It seems to me that in Paris they waste
a great, deal of time . . . I never imagined that there
could be a place where people could sit around idle so
much of the time."

"The French value their leisure more than anything."

"Leisure's all right if you have something to do with
it . . . but this social life wastes so much of our time . . .
People come to lunch and stay all afternoon, I don't know
what we can do about it . . . it makes a very difficult situa-
tion." Miss Williams looked hard at Eveline. "I don't
suppose you have much to do down at the Red Cross any
more, do you, Miss Hutchins?"

Eveline smiled sweetly. "No, we just live for our leisure
like the French."

She walked across the wide asphalt spaces of the place
de la Concorde, without knowing quite what to do with
herself, and turned up the Champs Elysées where the
horsechestnuts were just coming into flower. The general
strike seemed to be about over, because there were a few
cabs on the streets. She sat down on a bench and a cadaver-
ous looking individual in a frock coat sat down beside her
and tried to pick her up. She got up and walked as fast as
she could. At the Rond Point she had to stop to wait for
a bunch of French mounted artillery and two seventyfives
to go past before she could cross the street. The cadaver-
ous man was beside her; he turned and held out his
hand, tipping his hat as he did so, as if he was an old
friend. She muttered, "Oh, it's just too tiresome," and
got into a horsecab that was standing by the curb. She
almost thought the man was going to get in too, but he
just stood looking after her scowling as the cab drove off
following the guns as if she was part of the regiment.

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Once at home she made herself some cocoa on the gasstove
and went lonely to bed with a book.

Next evening when she got back to her apartment Paul
was waiting for her, wearing a new uniform and with a
resplendent shine on his knobtoed shoes. "Why, Paul, you
look as if you'd been through a washing machine." "A
friend of mine's a sergeant in the quartermaster's stores
. . . coughed up a new outfit." "You look too beautiful
for words." "You mean you do, Eveline."

They went over to the boulevards and had dinner on
the salmoncolored plush seats among the Pompeian col-
umns at Noël Peters' to the accompaniment of slithery
violinmusic. Paul had his month's pay and commutation
of rations in his pocket and felt fine. They talked about
what they'd do when they got back to America. Paul
said his dad wanted him to go into a grain broker's office
in Minneapolis, but he wanted to try his luck in New
York. He thought a young feller ought to try a lot of
things before he settled down at a business so that he
could find out what he was fitted for. Eveline said she
didn't know what she wanted to do. She didn't want to
do anything she'd done before, she knew that, maybe she'd
like to live in Paris.

"I didn't like it much in Paris before," Paul said, "but
like this, goin' out with you, I like it fine." Eveline teased
him, "Oh, I don't think you like me much, you never act
as if you did." "But jeeze, Eveline, you know so much and
you've been around so much. It's mighty nice of you to
let me come around at all, honestly I'll appreciate it all
my life."

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't be like that . . . I hate
people to be humble," Eveline broke out angrily.

They went on eating in silence. They were eating as-
paragus with grated cheese on it. Paul took several gulps
of wine and looked at her in a hurt dumb way she hated.
"Oh, I feel like a party tonight," she said a little later.

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"I've been so miserable all day, Paul . . . I'll tell you
about it sometime . . . you know the kind of feeling
when everything you've wanted crumbles in your fingers
as you grasp it." "All right, Eveline," Paul said, banging
with his fist on the table, "let's cheer up and have a big
time."

When they were drinking coffee the orchestra began
to play polkas and people began to dance among the tables
encouraged by cries of Ah Polkaah aaah from the violinist.
It was a fine sight to see the middleaged diners whirling
around under the beaming eyes of the stout Italian head-
waiter who seemed to feel that la gaité was coming back
to Paree at last. Paul and Eveline forgot themselves and
tried to dance it too. Paul was very awkward, but having
his arms around her made her feel better somehow, made
her forget the scaring loneliness she felt.

When the polka had subsided a little Paul paid the fat
check and they went out arm in arm, pressing close against
each other like all the Paris lovers, to stroll on the boule-
vards in the May evening that smelt of wine and hot rolls
and wild strawberries. They felt lightheaded. Eveline
kept smiling. "Come on, let's have a big time," whispered
Paul occasionally as if to keep his courage up. "I was just
thinking what my friends ud think if they saw me walking
up the Boulevard arm in arm with a drunken dough-
boy," Eveline said. "No, honest, I'm not drunk," said
Paul. "I can drink a lot more than you think. And I
won't be in the army much longer, not if this peace treaty
goes through." "Oh, I don't care," said Eveline, "I don't
care what happens."

They heard music in another café and saw the shadows
of dancers passing across the windows upstairs. "Let's go
up there," said Eveline. They went in and upstairs to
the dancehall that was a long room full of mirrors. There
Eveline said she wanted to drink some Rhine wine. They
studied the card a long while and finally with a funny

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sideways look at Paul, she suggested liebefraumilch. Paul
got red, "I wish I had a liebe frau," he said. "Why, prob-
ably you have . . . one in every port," said Eveline. He
shook his head.

Next time they danced he held her very tight. He
didn't seem so awkward as he had before. "I feel pretty
lonely myself, these days," said Eveline when they sat
down again. "You, lonely . . . with the whole of the
Peace Conference running after you, and the A.E.F.
too . . . Why, Don told me you're a dangerous woman."
She shrugged her shoulders, "When did Don find that
out? Maybe you could be dangerous too, Paul."

Next time they danced she put her cheek against his.
When the music stopped he looked as if he was going to
kiss her, but he didn't. "This is the most wonderful eve-
ning I ever had in my life," he said, "I wish I was the
kind of guy you really wanted to have take you out."
"Maybe you could get to be, Paul . . . you seem to be
learning fast. . . . No, but we're acting silly . . . I hate
ogling and flirting around . . . I guess I want the moon
. . . maybe I want to get married and have a baby."
Paul was embarrassed. They sat silent watching the other
dancers. Eveline saw a young French soldier lean over and
kiss the little girl he was dancing with on the lips; kissing,
they kept on dancing. Eveline wished she was that girl.
"Let's have a little more wine," she said to Paul. "Do you
think we'd better? All right, what the hec, we're having a
big time."

Getting in the taxicab Paul was pretty drunk, laughing
and hugging her. As soon as they were in the darkness of
the back of the taxi they started kissing. Eveline held Paul
off for a minute, "Let's go to your place instead of mine,"
she said. "I'm afraid of my concièrge." "All right . . .
it's awful little," said Paul, giggling. "But ish gebibbel,
we should worry get a wrinkle."

When they had gotten past the bitter eyes that sized

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them up of the old man who kept the keys at Paul's hotel
they staggered up a long chilly winding stair and into a
little room that gave on a court. "It's a great life if you
don't weaken," said Paul, waving his arms after he'd
locked and bolted the door. It had started to rain again
and the rain made the sound of a waterfall on the glass
roof at the bottom of the court. Paul threw his hat and
tunic in the corner of the room and came towards her, his
eyes shining.

They'd hardly gotten to bed when he fell asleep with
his head on her shoulder. She slipped out of bed to turn
the light off and open the window and then snuggled shiv-
ering against his body that was warm and relaxed like a
child's. Outside the rain poured down on the glass roof.
There was a puppy shut up somewhere in the building
that whined and yelped desperately without stopping.
Eveline couldn't get to sleep. Something shut up inside
her was whining like the puppy. Through the window she
began to see the dark peak of a roof and chimneypots
against a fading purple sky. Finally she fell asleep.

Next day they spent together. She'd phoned in to the
Red Cross that she was sick as usual and Paul forgot about
the Sorbonne altogether. They sat all morning in the
faint sunshine at a café near the Madeleine making plans
about what they'd do. They'd get themselves sent back
home as soon as they possibly could and get jobs in New
York and get married. Paul was going to study engineer-
ing in his spare time. There was a firm of grain and feed
merchants in Jersey City, friends of his father's he knew
he could get a job with. Eveline could start up her dec-
orating business again. Paul was happy and confident and
had lost his apologetic manner. Eveline kept telling her-
self that Paul had stuff in him, that she was in love with
Paul, that something could be made out of Paul.

The rest of the month of May they were both a little
lightheaded all the time. They spent all their pay the first

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few days so that they had to eat at little table d'hoôte res-
taurants crowded with students and working people and
poor clerks where they bought books of tickets that gave
them a meal for two francs or two fifty. One Sunday in
June they went out to St. Germain and walked through
the forest. Eveline had spells of nausea and weakness
and had to lie down on the grass several times. Paul
looked worried sick. At last they got to a little settlement
on the bank of the Seine. The Seine flowed fast streaked
with green and lilac in the afternoon light, brimming the
low banks bordered by ranks of huge poplars. They
crossed a little ferry rowed by an old man that Eveline
called Father Time. Halfway over she said to Paul, "Do
you know what's the matter with me, Paul? I'm going to
have a baby."

Paul let his breath out in a whistle. "Well, I hadn't just
planned for that . . . I guess I've been a stinker not
to make you marry me before this. . . . We'll get mar-
ried right away. I'll find out what you have to do to get
permission to get married in the A.E.F. I guess it's all
right, Eveline . . . but, gee, it does change my plans."

They'd reached the other bank and walked up through
Conflans to the railroad station to get the train back to
Paris. Paul looked worried. "Well, don't you think it
changes my plans too?" said Eveline dryly. "It's going
over Niagara Falls in a barrel, that's what it is."

" Eveline," said Paul seriously with tears in his eyes,
"what can I ever do to make it up to you? . . . honest,
I'll do my best." The train whistled and rumbled into the
platform in front of them. They were so absorbed in their
thoughts they hardly saw it. When they'd climbed into a
third class compartment they sat silent bolt upright facing
each other, their knees touching, looking out of the win-
dow without seeing the suburbs of Paris, not saying any-
thing. At last Eveline said with a tight throat, "I want
to have the little brat, Paul, we have to go through every-

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thing in life." Paul nodded. Then she couldn't see his
face anymore. The train had gone into a tunnel.

NEWSREEL XXXIV

WHOLE WORLD IS SHORT OF PLATINUM

Il serait Criminel de Negliger Les Intérêts Français dans
les Balkans

KILLS SELF IN CELL

the quotation of United Cigar Stores made this month of
$.167 per share means $501 per share for the old stock upon
which present stockholders are receiving 27% per share as
formerly held. Through peace and war it has maintained and
increased its dividends