U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [289]
As soon as Eveline got her bag down they started off at sixty miles an hour. The chauffeur drove like a fiend through a howling north wind that increased as they went down the coast. They were in Marseil es stiff and dust-caked in time for a late lunch at a fish restaurant on the edge of the old harbor. Eveline's head was whirling again, with speed and lashing wind and dust and vines and olive-trees and grey rock mountains whirling past and now and then a piece of slateblue sea cut out with a jigsaw.
"After al , J.W., the war was terrible," said Eveline.
"But it's a great time to be alive. Things are happening at last." J.W. muttered something about a surge of idealism between his teeth and went on eating his bouil abaisse. He
-314-didn't seem to be very talkative today. "Now at home," he said, "they wouldn't have left al the bones in the fish this way." "Wel , what do you think is going to happen about the oil situation?" Eveline started again. "Blamed if I know," said J.W. "We'd better be starting if we're going to make that place before nightfal ."
J.W. had sent the chauffeur to buy an extra rug and they wrapped themselves up tight under the little hood in the back of the car. J.W. put his arm around Eveline and tucked her in. "Now we're snug as a bug in a rug," he said. They giggled cosily together. The mistral got so strong the poplars were al bent double on the dusty plains before the car started to climb the winding road to Les Baux. Bucking the wind cut down their speed. It was dark when they got into the ruined town.
They were the only people in the hotel. It was cold there and the knots of olivewood burning in the grates didn't give any heat, only puffs of grey smoke when a gust of wind came down the chimney, but they had an excel ent dinner and hot spiced wine that made them feel much better. They had to put on their overcoats to go up to their bedroom. Climbing the stairs J.W. kissed her under the ear and whispered, "Eveline, dear little girl, you make me feel like a boy again."
Long after J.W. had gone to sleep Eveline lay awake beside him listening to the wind rattling the shutters, yel -ing around the corners of the roof, howling over the desert plain far below. The house smelt of dry dusty coldness. No matter how much she cuddled against him, she couldn't get to feel real y warm. The same creaky carrousel of faces, plans, scraps of talk kept going round and round in her head, keeping her from thinking consecutively, keeping her from going to sleep.
Next morning when J.W. found he had to bathe out of
-315-a basin he made a face and said, "I hope you don't mind roughing it this way, dear little girl."
They went over across the Rhone to Nîmes for lunch
riding through Arles and Avignon on the way, then they turned back to the Rhone and got into Lyons late at night. They had supper sent up to their room in the hotel and took hot baths and drank hot wine again. When the waiter had taken away the tray Eveline threw herself on J.W.'s lap and began to kiss him. It was a long time before she'd let him go to sleep.
Next morning it was raining hard. They waited around a couple of hours hoping it would stop. J.W. was preoccu-pied and tried to get Paris on the phone, but without any luck. Eveline sat in the dreary hotel salon reading old copies of l'Illustration. She wished she was back in Paris too. Final y they decided to start.
The rain went down to a drizzle but the roads were
in bad shape and by dark they hadn't gotten any further than Nevers. J.W. was getting the sniffles and started taking quinine to ward off a cold. He got adjoining rooms with a bath between in the hotel at Nevers, so that night they slept in separate beds. At supper Eveline tried to get him talking about the peace conference, but he said, "Why talk shop, we'l be back there soon enough, why not talk about ourselves and each other." When they got near Paris, J.W. began to get nervous. His nose had begun to run. At Fontainebleau they had a fine lunch. J.W. went in from there on the train, leaving the chauffeur to take Eveline home to the rue de Bussy and then deliver his baggage at the Cril on afterward. Eveline felt pretty forlorn riding in al alone through the suburbs of Paris. She was remembering how excited she'd been when they'd al been seeing her off at the Gare de Lyons a few days before and decided she was very un-happy indeed. Next day she went around to the Cril on at about the