U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [308]
-361-When he asked her what her name was, she shook her head and smiled, "Qu'est- ce que ça vous fait?"
"L'homme sans nom et la femme sans nom, vont faire l'amour a l'hotel du néant," he said. "Oh qu'il est rigolo, celui-là," she giggled. "Dis, tu n'est pas malade?" He shook his head. "Moi non plus," she said, and started rub-bing up against him like a kitten. When they left the hotel they roamed around the dark streets until they found an earlymorning coffeebar. They ate coffee and croissants together in drowsy intimate quiet, leaning very close to each other as they stood against the bar. She left him to go up the hil towards Montmartre. He asked her if he couldn't see her again sometime. She shrugged her shoulders. He gave her thirty francs and kissed her and whispered in her ear a parody of his little rhyme:
Les petites marionettes font font font
Un p'tit peu d'amour et puis s'en vont
She laughed and pinched his cheek and the last he heard of her was her gruff giggle and
"Oh qu'il est rigolo, celui-là."
He went back to his room feeling happy and sleepy and saying to himself: what's the matter with my life is I haven't got a woman of my own. He had just time to wash and shave and put on a clean shirt and to rush down to headquarters in order to be there when Colonel Edge-combe, who was a damnably early riser, got in. He found orders to leave for Rome that night.
By the time he got on the train his eyes were stinging with sleepiness. He and the sergeant who went with him had a compartment reserved at the end of a first class coach marked Paris-Brindisi. Outside of their compart-ment the train was packed; people were standing in the aisles. Dick had taken off his coat and Sam Browne belt and was loosening his puttees, planning to stretch out on
-362-one of the seats and go to sleep even before the train left, when he saw a skinny American face in the door of the compartment. "I beg your pardon, is this Ca-ca-captain Savage?" Dick sat up and nodded yawning. " CaptainSav-age, my name is Barrow, G. H. Barrow, attached to the American delegation. . . . I have to go to Rome tonight and there's not a seat on the train. The transport officer in the station very kindly said that . . . er . . . er although it wasn't according to Hoyle you might stretch a point and al ow us to ride with you . . . I have with me a very charming young lady member of the Near East Relief . . ."" CaptainSavage, it certainly is mighty nice of you to let us ride with you," came a drawling Texas voice, and a pinkcheeked girl in a dark grey uniform brushed past the man who said his name was Barrow and climbed up into the car. Mr. Barrow, who was shaped like a string bean and had a prominent twitching Adam's apple and popeyes, began tossing up satchels and suitcases. Dick was sore and began to say stiffly, "I suppose you know that it's entirely against my orders . . ." but he heard his own voice saying it and suddenly grinned and said, "Al right, Sergeant Wilson and I wil probably be shot at sunrise, but go ahead." At that moment the train started. Dick reluctantly scraped his things together into one corner and settled down there and immediately closed his eyes. He was much too sleepy to make the effort of talk-ing to any damn relievers. The sergeant sat in the other corner and Mr. Barrow and the girl occupied the other seat. Through his doze Dick could hear Mr. Barrow's voice chugging along, now and then drowned out by the rattle of the express train. He had a stuttery way of talk-ing like a badly running motorboat engine. The girl didn't say much except, "Oh my," and "I declare," now and then. It was the European situation: President Wilson says
. . . new diplomacy . . . new Europe . . . permanent peace without annexations or indemnities. President Wilson
-363-says . . . new understanding between capital and labor
. . . President Wilson appeals to . . . industrial democ-racy . . . plain people al over the world behind the president. Covenant. League of Nations . . . Dick was asleep dreaming of a girl rubbing her breasts against him purring like a kitten, of a popeyed man making a speech, of Wil iam Jennings Wilson speaking before the Baltimore conflagration, of industrial democracy in a bathhouse on