U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [323]
"But, Anne Elizabeth, do be reasonable . . . Can't we go on being friends? I've just been offered a very fine position when I get out of the service, but I can't take a wife and child at this stage of the game, you must under-stand that . . . and if you want to get married there are plenty of fel ows who'd give their eyeteeth to marry you . . . You know how popular you are . . . I don't think marriage means anything anyway." She sat down in a chair and immediately got up again. She was laughing: "If Dad or Buster was here it would be a shotgun wedding, I guess . . . but that wouldn't help
-395-much." Her hysterical laugh got on his nerves; he was shaking from the effort to control himself and talk rea-sonably.
"Why not G. H. Barrow? He's a prominent man and has money . . . He's crazy about you, told me so himself when I met him at the Cril on the other day . . . After al , we have to be sensible about things . . . It's no more my fault than it is yours . . . if you'd taken proper pre-cautions. . . ." She took her hat off and smoothed her hair in the mirror. Then she poured some water out in his washbasin, washed her face and smoothed her hair again. Dick was hoping she'd go, everything she did drove him crazy. There were tears in her eyes when che came up to him. "Give me a kiss, Dick . . . don't worry about me . . . I'l work things out somehow."
"I'm sure it's not too late for an operation," said Dick.
"I'l find out an address tomorrow and drop you a line to the Continental . . . Anne Elizabeth . . . it's splen-did of you to be so splendid about this." She shook her head, whispered goodby and hurried out of the room.
"Wel , that's that, " said Dick aloud to himself. He felt terribly sorry about Anne Elizabeth. Gee, I'm glad I'm not a girl, he kept thinking. He had a splitting headache. He locked his door, got undressed and put out the light. When he opened the window a gust of raw rainy air came into the room and made him feel better. It was just like Ed said, you couldn't do anything without making other people miserable. A hel of a rotten world. The streets in front of the Gare St. Lazare shone like canals where the streetlamps were reflected in them. There were stil peo-ple on the pavements, a man cal ing I'nTRANsigeant, twangy honk of taxicabs. He thought of Anne Elizabeth going home alone in a taxicab through the wet streets. He wished he had a great many lives so that he might have
-396-spent one of them with Anne Elizabeth. Might write a poem about that and send it to her. And the smel of the little cyclamens. In the café opposite the waiters were turning the chairs upside down and setting them on the tables. He wished he had a great many lives so that he might be a waiter in a café turning the chairs upside down. The iron shutters clanked as they came down. Now was the time the women came out on the streets, walking back and forth, stopping, loitering, walking back and forth, and those young toughs with skin the color of mushrooms. He began to shiver. He got into bed, the sheets had a clammy glaze on them. Al the same Paris was no place to go to bed alone, no place to go home alone in a honking taxi, in the heartbreak of honking taxis. Poor Anne Eliza-beth. Poor Dick. He lay shivering between the clammy sheets, his eyes were pinned open with safetypins.
Gradual y he got warmer. Tomorrow. Seventhirty:
shave, buckle puttees . . . café au lait, brioches, beurre. He'd be hungry, hadn't had any supper . . . deux oeux sur le plat. Bonjour m'ssieurs mesdames. Jingling spurs to the office, Sergeant Ames, at ease. Day dragged out in khaki; twilight tea at Eleanor's, make her talk to Moore-house to clinch job after the signing of the peace, tel her about the late General El sworth, they'l laugh about it together. Dragged out khaki days until after the signing of the peace. Dun, drab, khaki. Poor Dick got to go to work after the signing of the peace. Poor Tom's cold. Poor Dickyboy . . . Richard . . . He brought his feet up to where he could rub them. Poor Richard's feet. After the Signing of the Peace. By the time his feet were warm he'd fal en asleep.