John Passos - 1919

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 all 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 shrill 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. All at once Eveline remembered that she didn’t know the way back to the hotel, still 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 strolling, voices and an occasional 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. Somewhere lost in the sky was a faint humming like a bee, louder then fainter, then louder again. Eveline looked at the people around her. Nobody seemed alarmed or to hurry their strolling 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 becoming rayed with searchlights. Next to her was a fatherlylooking French officer with all 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, mademoiselle. It is ourr ahnt-aircrahft cannons,” he said carefully 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 wall. Once her pulled 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 to 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. At the same moment came the rending snort of a bomb from somewhere across the river. “Permettez, mademoiselle.” They went into the pitchblack hall of the hotel and felt their way down into the cellar. As he handed Eveline down the last step of the dusty wooden stairs the officer gravely saluted the mixed group of people in bathrobes or overcoats over their nightclothes who were grouped around a couple of candles. There was a waiter there and the officer tried to order a drink, but the waiter said, “Ah, mon colonel, s’est defendu,” and the colonel made a wry face. Eveline sat up on a sort of table. She was so excited looking at the people and listening to the distant snort of the bombs that she hardly noticed that colonel was squeezing her knee a little more than was necessary. The colonel’s hands became a problem. When the airraid was over something went by on the street making a funny seesaw noise between the quacking of a duck and a burro’s bray. It struck Eveline so funny she laughed and laughed so that the colonel didn’t seem to know what to make of her. When she tried to say goodnight to him to go up to her room and get some sleep, he wanted to go up too. She didn’t know what to do. He’d been so nice and polite she didn’t want to be rude to him, but she couldn’t seem to make him understand that she wanted to go to bed and to sleep; he’d answer that so did he. When she tried to explain that she had a friend with her, he asked if the friend was as charming as mademoiselle, in that case he’d be delighted. Eveline’s French broke down entirely. She wished to heavens Miss Felton would turn up, she couldn’t make the concièrge understand that she wanted the key to her room and that mon colonel wasn’t coming up and was ready to break down and cry when a young American in civilian clothes with a red face and a turnedup nose appeared from somewhere out of the shadows and said with a flourish in very bad French, “Monsieur, moi frère de madmosel, can’t you see that the little girl is fatiguee and wants to say bon-soir?” He linked his arm in the colonel’s and said, “Vive la France…. Come up to my room and have a drink.” The colonel drew himself up and looked very angry. Without waiting to see what happened Eveline ran up the stairs to her room, rushed in and doublelocked the door.

it is difficult to realize the colossal scale upon which Europe will have to borrow in order to make good the destruction of war

BAGS 28 HUNS SINGLEHANDED

Peace Talk Beginning To Have Its Effect On Southern Iron Market

LOCAL BOY CAPTURES OFFICER

ONE THIRD WAR ALLOTMENTS FRAUDULENT

There are smiles that make us happy

There are smiles that make us blue

again let us examine into the matter of rates; let it be assumed that the United States is operating fleets aggregating 3000 freight and passenger vessels between U.S. and foreign ports

GANG LEADER SLAIN IN STREET

There are smiles that wipe away the teardrops

Like the sunbeams dry away the dew

There are smiles that have a tender meaning

That the eyes of love alone can see

SOLDIER VOTE CARRIED ELECTION

suppose now that into this delicate medium of economic law there is thrust the controlling factor of an owner of a third of the world’s tonnage, who regards with equanimity both profit and loss, who does not count as a factor in the cost of operation the interest on capital investment, who builds vessels whether they may be profitably operated or not and who charges rates commensurate in no certain measure with the laws of supply and demand; how long would it be before the ocean transport of the whole world had broken down completely?

CROWN PRINCE ON THE RUN

But the smiles that fill my heart with sunshine

Are

the

smiles

you

give

to

me

persistent talk of peace is an unsettling factor and the epidemic of influenza has deterred country buyers from visiting the larger centers

à quatorze heures precisement the Boche diurnally shelled that bridge with their wellknown precision as to time and place à quatorze heures precisement Dick Norton with his monocle in his eye lined up his section at a little distance from the bridge to turn it over to the American Red Cross