U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [218]
She went down to her cabin and started reading Bar-busse's Le Feu that Don had sent her. She fel asleep, and when the greyhaired skinny woman who was her cabinmate woke her up bustling around, the first thing she felt was the trembling pound of the ship's engines.
"Wel , you missed dinner," said the greyhaired woman. Her name was Miss Eliza Felton and she was an
il ustrator of children's books. She was going to France to drive a truck. At first Eveline thought she was just too tiresome, but as the warm quiet days of the crossing wore on she got to like her. Miss Felton had a great crush on
-133-Eveline and was a nuisance, but she was fond of wine and knew a great deal about France, where she'd lived for many years. In fact she'd studied painting at Fontainebleau in the old days of the impressionists. She was bitter against the Huns on account of Rheims and Louvain and the poor little Belgian babies with their hands cut off, but she didn't have much use for any male government, cal ed Wilson a coward, Clemenceau a bul y and Lloyd George a sneak. She laughed at the precautions against submarine attack and said she knew the French line was perfectly safe because al the German spies travel ed by it. When they landed in Bordeaux she was a great help to Eveline. They stayed over a day to see the town instead of going up to Paris with al the other Red Cross people and Re-lief workers. The rows of grey eighteenth century houses were too lovely in the endless rosy summer twilight, and the flowers for sale and the polite people in the shops and the delicate patterns of the ironwork, and the fine dinner they had at the Chapon Fin.
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.