U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [219]
"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 the silence and the few shadowy people and the old gaunt houses with their wide inky doorways. She came out on a boulevard at last where there were men and women strol ing, voices and an occa-sional automobile with blue lights running silently over the asphalt. Suddenly the nightmare scream of a siren started up in the distance, then another and another. Some-where lost in the sky was a faint humming like a bee,
-136-louder then fainter, then louder again. Eveline looked at the people around her. Nobody seemed alarmed or to
hurry their strol ing pace.
"Les avions . . . les boches . . . "she heard people saying in unstartled tones. She found herself standing at the curb staring up into the milky sky that was fast be-coming rayed with searchlights. Next to her was a fatherly-looking French officer with al kinds of lace on his kepi and drooping moustaches. The sky overhead began to
sparkle like with mica; it was beautiful and far away like fireworks seen across the lake on the Fourth. Involuntarily she said aloud, "What's that?" "C'est le shrapnel, mademoisel e. It is ourr ahnt-aircrahft cannons," he said careful y in English, and then gave her his arm and offered to take her home. She noticed that he smelt rather strongly of cognac but he was very nice and paternal in his manner and made funny gestures of things coming down on their heads and said they must get under cover. She said please to go to the hôtel du Quai Voltaire as she'd lost her way.
"Ah charmant, charmant," said the elderly French officer. While they had stood there talking everybody else on the street had melted out of sight. Guns were barking in every direction now. They were going down through the narrow streets again, keeping close to the wal . Once he pul ed her suddenly into a doorway and something landed whang on the pavement opposite. "It is the fragments of shrapnel, not good," he said, tapping himself on the top of the kepi. He laughed and Eveline laughed and they got along famously. They had come out on the riverbank. It seemed safe for some reason under the thickfoliaged trees. From the door of the hotel he suddenly pointed into the sky, "Look, c'est les fokkers, ils s'en fichent de nous." As he spoke the Boche planes wheeled overhead so that their wings caught the moonlight. For a second they were like seven tiny silver dragonflies, then they'd vanished.