John Passos - 1919

It was still dark when Freddy turned up Sunday morning. They went out and got some coffee sleepily from an old woman who had a little stand in the doorway opposite. They still had an hour before train time and Freddy suggested they go and get Eleanor up. He’d so looked forward to going to Chartres with both of them, he said; it would be old times all over again, he hated to think how life was drawing them all apart. So they got into a cab and went down to the quai de la Tournelle. The great question was how to get in the house as the street door was locked and there was no concièrge. Freddy rang and rang the bell until finally the Frenchman who lived on the lower floor came out indignant in his bathrobe and let them in.

They banged on Eleanor’s door. Freddy kept shouting, “Eleanor Stoddard, you jump right up and come to Chartres with us.” After a while Eleanor’s face appeared, cool and white and collected, in the crack of the door above a stunning blue negligée.

“Eleanor, we’ve got just a half an hour to catch the train for Chartres, the taxi has full steam up outside and if you don’t come we’ll all regret it to our dying day.”

“But I’m not dressed… it’s so early.”

“You look charming enough to go just as you are.” Freddy pushed through the door and grabbed her in his arms. “Eleanor, you’ve got to come… I’m off for the Near East tomorrow night.”

Eveline followed them into the salon. Passing the half open door of the bedroom, she glanced in and found herself looking J.W. full in the face. He was sitting bolt upright in the bed, wearing pyjamas with a bright blue stripe. His blue eyes looked straight through her. Some impulse made Eveline pull the door to. Eleanor noticed her gesture. “Thank you, darling,” she said coolly, “it’s so untidy in there.”

“Oh, do come, Eleanor… after all you can’t have forgotten old times the way hardhearted Hannah there seems to have,” said Freddy in a cajoling whine.

“Let me think,” said Eleanor, tapping her chin with the sharp pointed nail of a white forefinger, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, darlings, you two go out on the poky old train as you’re ready and I’ll run out as soon as I’m dressed and call up J.W. at the Crillon and see if he won’t drive me out. Then we can all come back together. How’s that?”

“That would be lovely, Eleanor dear,” said Eveline in a singsong voice. “Splendid, oh, I knew you’d come… well, we’ve got to be off. If we miss each other we’ll be in front of the cathedral at noon… Is that all right?”

Eveline went downstairs in a daze. All the way out to Chartres Freddy was accusing her bitterly of being absentminded and not liking her old friends any more.

By the time they got to Chartres it was raining hard. They spent a gloomy day there. The stained glass that had been taken away for safety during the war hadn’t been put back yet. The tall twelfth-century saints had a wet, slimy look in the driving rain. Freddy said that the sight of the black virgin surrounded by candles in the crypt was worth all the trouble of the trip for him, but it wasn’t for Eveline. Eleanor and J.W. didn’t turn up; “Of course not in this rain,” said Freddy. It was a kind of relief to Eveline to find that she’d caught cold and would have to go to bed as soon as she got home. Freddy took her to her door in a taxi but she wouldn’t let him come up for fear he’d find Don there.

Don was there, and was very sympathetic about her cold and tucked her in bed and made her a hot lemonade with cognac in it. He had his pockets full of money, as he’d just sold some articles, and had gotten a job to go to Vienna for the Daily Herald of London. He was pulling out as soon after May 1 as he could…“unless something breaks here,” he said impressively. He went away that evening to a hotel, thanking her for putting him up like a good comrade even if she didn’t love him any more. The place felt empty after he’d gone. She almost wished she’d made him stay. She lay in bed feeling feverishly miserable, and finally went to sleep feeling sick and scared and lonely.

The morning of the first of May, Paul Johnson came around before she was up. He was in civilian clothes and looked young and slender and nice and lighthaired and handsome. He said Don Stevens had gotten him all wrought up about what was going to happen what with the general strike and all that; he’d come to stick around if Eveline didn’t mind. “I thought I’d better not be in uniform, so I borrowed this suit from a feller,” he said. “I think I’ll strike too,” said Eveline. “I’m so sick of that Red Cross office I could scream.”

“Gee, that ud be wonderful, Eveline. We can walk around and see the excitement…. It’ll be all right if you’re with me… I mean I’ll be easier in my mind if I know where you are if there’s trouble… You’re awful reckless, Eveline.”

“My, you look handsome in that suit, Paul… I never saw you in civilian clothes before.”

Paul blushed and put his hands uneasily into his pockets. “Lord, I’ll be glad to get into civvies for keeps,” he said seriously. “Even through it’ll mean me goin’ back to work… I can’t get a darn thing out of these Sorbonne lectures… everybody’s too darn restless, I guess… and I’m sick of hearing what bums the boche are, that’s all the frog profs seem to be able to talk about.”

“Well, go out and read a book and I’ll get up…. Did you notice if the old woman across the way had coffee out?”

“Yare, she did,” called Paul from the salon to which he’d retreated when Eveline stuck her toes out from under the bedclothes. “Shall I go out and bring some in?”

“That’s a darling, do…. I’ve got brioches and butter here… take that enamelled milkcan out of the kitchen.”

Eveline looked at herself in the mirror before she started dressing. She had shadows under her eyes and faint beginnings of crowsfeet. Chillier than the damp Paris room came the thought of growing old. It was so horribly actual that she suddenly burst into tears. An old hag’s tearsmeared face looked at her bitterly out of the mirror. She pressed the palms of her hands hard over her eyes. “Oh, I lead such a silly life,” she whispered aloud.

Paul was back. She could hear him moving around awkwardly in the salon. “I forgot to tell you… Don says Anatole France is going to march with the mutilays ofla guerre…. I’ve got the cafay o lay whenever you’re ready.”

“Just a minute,” she called from the basin where she was splashing cold water on her face. “How old are you, Paul?” she asked him when she came out of her bedroom all dressed, smiling, feeling that she was looking her best.

“Free, white and twenty one… we’d better drink up this coffee before it gets cold.” “You don’t look as old as that.” “Oh, I’m old enough to know better,” said Paul, getting very red in the face. “I’m five years older than that,” said Eveline. “Oh, how I hate growing old.” “Five years don’t mean anything,” stammered Paul.

He was so nervous he spilt a lot of coffee over his trouserleg. “Oh, hell, that’s a dumb thing to do,” he growled. “I’ll get it out in a second,” said Eveline, running for a towel.

She made him sit in a chair and kneeled down in front of him and scrubbed at the inside of his thigh with the towel. Paul sat there stiff, red as a beet, with his lips pressed together. He jumped to his feet before she’d finished. “Well, let’s go out and see what’s happening. I wish I knew more about what it’s all about.”

“Well, you might at least say thank you,” said Eveline, looking up at him.

“Thanks, gosh, it’s awful nice of you, Eveline.”

Outside it was like Sunday. A few stores were open on the side streets but they had their iron shutters halfway down. It was a grey day; they walked up the Boulevard St. Germain, passing many people out strolling in their best clothes. It wasn’t until a squadron of the Guarde Republicaine clattered past them in their shiny helmets and their tricolor plumes that they had any inkling of tenseness in the air.