Well, I have really had a very exciting time since I last wrote you. I
have even had a caller. Also my neighbor at Voulangis, on the top of
the hill, on the other side of the Morin, has returned from the States,
to which she fled just before the Battle of the Marne. I even went to
Paris to meet her. To tell you the actual truth, for a few days, I
behaved exactly as if there were no war. I had to pinch myself now
and then to remind myself that whatever else might be real or unreal,
the war was very actual.
I must own that Paris seems to get farther and farther from it every
day. From daybreak to sunset I found it hard to realize that it was the
capital of an invaded country fighting for its very existence, and the
invader no farther from the Boulevards than Noyon, Soissons, and
Rheims--on a battle-front that has not changed more than an inch or
two--and often an inch or two in the wrong direction--since last
October.
I could not help thinking, as I rode up the Champs-Elysées in the sun
--it was Sunday--how humiliated the Kaiser, that crowned head of
Terrorizers, would be if he could have seen Paris that day.
Children were playing under the trees of the broad mall; automobiles
were rushing up and down the avenue; crowds were sitting all along
the way, watching the passers and chatting; all the big hotels, turned
into ambulances, had their windows open to the glorious sunny
warmth, and the balconies were crowded with invalid soldiers and
white-garbed nurses; not even arms in slings or heads in bandages
looked sad, for everyone seemed to be laughing; nor did the crippled
soldiers, walking slowly along, add a tragic note to the wonderful
scene.
It was strange--it was more than strange. It seemed to me almost
unbelievable.