John Passos - 1919

“But I declare I think I’d kinda like a husband and a baby… if you were the husband and the baby was yours.”

“I can’t do it… I couldn’t afford it… They won’t let you get married in the army.”

“That’s not so, Dick,” she said slowly.

They stood a long time side by side without looking at each other, looking at the rain over the dark roofs and the faint phosphorescent streaks of the streets. She spoke in a trembly frail voice, “You mean you don’t love me anymore.”

“Of course I do, I don’t know what love is… I suppose I love any lovely girl… and especially you, sweetheart.” Dick heard his own voice, like somebody else’s voice in his ears. “We’ve had some fine times together.” She was kissing him all around his neck above the stiff collar of the tunic. “But, darling, can’t you understand I can’t support a child until I have some definite career, and I’ve got my mother to support; Henry’s so irresponsible I can’t expect anything from him. But I’ve got to take you home; it’s getting late.”

When they got down into the street the rain had let up again. All the waterspouts were gurgling and water glinted in the gutters under the street lamps. She suddenly slapped him, shouted you’re it, and ran down the street. He had to chase her, swearing under his breath. He lost her in a small square and was getting ready to give her up and go home when she jumped out at him from behind a stone phoenix on the edge of a fountain. He grabbed her by the arm, “Don’t be so damn kittenish,” he said nastily. “Can’t you see I’m worried sick.” She began to cry.

When they got to her door she suddenly turned to him and said seriously, “Look, Dick, maybe we’ll put off the baby… I’ll try horseback riding. Everybody says that works. I’ll write you… honestly, I wouldn’t hamper your career in any way… and I know you ought to have time for your poetry… You’ve got a big future, boy, I know it… if we got married I’d work too.”

“Anne Elizabeth, you’re a wonderful girl, maybe if we didn’t have the baby we might wangle it somehow.” He took her by the shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. Suddenly she started jumping up and down, chanting like a child, “Goody, goody, goody, we’re going to get married.”

“Oh, do be serious, kid.”

“I am… unto death,” she said slowly. “Look, don’t come to see me tomorrow… I have a lot of supplies to check up. I’ll write you to Paris.”

Back at the hotel it gave him a curious feeling putting on his pyjamas and getting alone into the bed where he and Anne Elizabeth had been together that afternoon. There were bedbugs and the room smelt and he spent a miserable night.

All the way down to Paris on the train, Ed kept making him drink and talking about the revolution, saying he had it on good authority the syndicates were going to seize the factories in Italy the first of May. Hungary had gone red and Bavaria, next it would be Austria, then Italy, then Prussia and France; the American troops sent against the Russians in Archangel had mutinied: “It’s the world revolution, a goddam swell time to be alive, and we’ll be goddam lucky if we come out of it with whole skins.”

Dick said grumpily that he didn’t think so; the Allies had things well in hand. “But, Dick, I thought you were all for the revolution, it’s the only possible way to end this cockeyed war.” “The war’s over now and all these revolutions are just the war turned inside out… You can’t stop war by shooting all your opponents. That’s just more war.” They got sore and argued savagely. Dick was glad they were alone in the compartment. “But I thought you were a royalist, Ed.” “I was… but since seeing the King of Italy I’ve changed my mind… I guess I’m for a dictator, the man on the white horse.”

They settled to sleep on either side of the compartment, sore and drunk. In the morning they staggered out with headaches into the crisp air of a frontier station and drank steaming hot chocolate a freshfaced Frenchwoman poured out for them into big white cups. Everything was frosty. The sun was rising bright vermilion. Ed Schuyler talked about la belle, la douce France, and they began to get along better. By the time they reached the banlieue, they were talking about going to see Spinelli in Plus Ça Change that night.

After the office and details to attend to and the necessity of appearing stiff and military before the sergeants it was a relief to walk down the left bank of the Seine, where the buds were bursting pink and palest green on the trees, and the bouquinistes were closing up their stalls in the deepening lavender twilight, to the quai de la Tournelle where everything looked like two centuries ago, and to walk slowly up the chilly stone stairs to Eleanor’s and to find her sitting behind the teatable in an ivorycolored dress with big pearls around her neck pouring tea and retailing, in her malicious gentle voice, all the latest gossip of the Crillon and the Peace Conference. It gave Dick a funny feeling when she said as he was leaving that they wouldn’t see each other for a couple of weeks as she was going to Rome to do some work at the Red Cross office there. “What a shame we couldn’t have been there at the same time,” said Dick. “I’d have liked that too,” she said. “A revederdci, Richard.”

March was a miserable month for Dick. He didn’t seem to have any friends any more and he was sick to death of everybody around the despatch service. When he was off duty his hotel room was so cold that he’d have to go out to a café to read. He missed Eleanor and going to her cosy apartment in the afternoon. He kept getting worrying letters from Anne Elizabeth; he couldn’t make out from them what had happened; she made mysterious references to having met a charming friend of his at the Red Cross who had meant so much. Then too he was broke because he kept having to lend Henry money to buy off Olga with.

Early in April he got back from one of his everlasting trips to Coblenz and found a pneumatique from Eleanor for him at his hotel. She was inviting him to go on a picnic to Chantilly with her and J.W. the next Sunday.

They left at eleven from the Crillon in J.W.’s new Fiat. There was Eleanor in her grey tailored suit and a stately lady of a certain age named Mrs. Wilberforce, the wife of a vice-president of Standard Oil, and longfaced Mr. Rasmussen. It was a fine day and everybody felt the spring in the air. At Chantilly they went through the château and fed the big carp in the moat. They ate their lunch in the woods, sitting on rubber cushions. J.W. kept everybody laughing explaining how he hated picnics, asking everybody what it was that got into even the most intelligent women that they were always trying to make people go on picnics. After lunch they drove to Senlis to see the houses that the Uhlans had destroyed their in the battle of the Marne. Walking through the garden of the ruined château, Eleanor and Dick dropped behind the others. “You don’t know anything about when they’re going to sign peace, do you, Eleanor?” asked Dick.

“Why, it doesn’t look now as if anybody would ever sign… certainly the Italians won’t; have you seen what d’Annunzio said?”

“Because the day after peace is signed I take off Uncle Sam’s livery… The only time in my life time has ever dragged on my hands has been since I’ve been in the army.”

“I got to meet a friend of yours in Rome,” said Eleanor, looking at him sideways. Dick felt chilly all over. “Who was that?” he asked. It was an effort to keep his voice steady. “That little Texas girl… she’s a cute little thing. She said you were engaged!” Eleanor’s voice was cool and probing like a dentist’s tool.