CHILDHOOD VISTAS FOR A NEW GENERATION
In September, 1910, we went to Constantinople for just one year, as we
had gone to Tarsus for one year. But the lure of the East held us. We
loved our home up above the Bosphorus behind the great castle of Rumeli
Hissar. When the Judas-trees were ablaze and nightingales were singing
that first spring in Constantinople, we forgot Paris and rashly promised
to stay two years longer. Life was full of adventure, the war with
Italy, the war between Turkey and the Balkan States during which our
city was the prize fought for, cholera, the coming of our second baby,
and a wonderful trip in the Balkans. We would not have missed it, no,
but Paris called us again, and we decided to leave the political unrest
and wars of the Near East to return to the peaceful atmosphere of the
Bibliothèque Nationale.
My husband could not get away from Constantinople until the end of June
and then he wanted to pay his way back to Paris by traveling through the
Balkans again after peace was signed with Turkey. With my two children,
I sailed for Marseilles at the beginning of March and reached Paris just
in time to get the last weeks of winter. In the calendar seasons are
conventional. As in the United States, France frequently has winter
until April is well started.
I found a little apartment on the Rue du Montparnasse just north of the
Boulevard. From the standpoint of my friends I suppose the Quarter was a
bit more _comme il faut_ than the Rue Servandoni. I missed the
picturesqueness of our old abode with the _épicerie_ on the ground floor
and the _moyenageux_ atmosphere. But the change to the Montparnasse
Quarter had its compensations. The air, none too good in the great city,
is better around the Boulevard du Montparnasse than in any other part of
the city except Montmartre, Belleville and Buttes-Chaumont. You are on
high ground away from the heavy mists and dampness of the river.
Communications are excellent. You do not have to sacrifice the feeling
of being in a real vital part of Paris, either. We still lived in the
midst of historical association. If Gondorcet hid in the Rue Servandoni
from those who would have chopped his head off during the Terror,
Lamartine was hauled from a house on the Rue du Montparnasse by the
soldiers of Louis Napoleon at the beginning of the _coup d'etat_ of
1851, and to the Rue du Montparnasse flocked the cream of Paris on
Mondays to hear Sainte-Beuve during the Third Empire.
It was a new world opened for the eyes of Christine and Lloyd to live
cooped up in an apartment after the big house at Rumeli Hissar and to
have to walk through city streets to find a garden to play in instead of
simply stepping out of their own front door. But life has its
compensations--everywhere and at all times. You never get anything
without sacrificing something else for it. We have to choose at every
step, and we must turn away from some blessings to obtain others. I love
the country. Theoretically speaking, it is the best place to bring up
children. But living in the open does deprive them of the mental
alertness, of the broad vision from infancy, of the self-reliance, of
the habits of industry that childhood in the city alone can give. And
then, the doctor comes right away when you telephone.
Thirty-Eight Rue du Montparnasse was opposite Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and
only a door down from the Boulevard. From the windows my tots could see
the passing show on the boulevard: and the church was a never-failing
source of interest. Just opposite us was the sexton's apartment, tucked
into the roof of the church. It is characteristic of Paris that a home
should be hidden away in an unexpected corner like this. From the
windows Christine and Lloyd could see the little church children playing
on their flat roof, and out of the door below the choir boys passed in
and out. We went into our apartment at First Communion season. My
childhood enjoyed the "little brides of Christ" in their white dresses
and veils. Every day had its weddings and funerals. The children did
not distinguish between life and death. Whenever carriages stopped in
front of the church, they would jump up and down and shout, "_Mariage_!"
A little sister arrived at the beginning of May. When June came, I was
able to take Emily Elizabeth out to market. Every morning we went down
the Boulevard Raspail to Sadla's, on the corner of the Rue de Sèvres,
and twice a week to the market on the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet. They were
the blessed days, when I had no cook--which meant that I could buy what
I liked to eat, and no nurse--which meant that I saw something of my own
children. Servants are a necessary evil to the housewife and mother that
wants to see something of the world in which she lives. But an
occasional interlude, when everything devolves on mother, is good both
for her and the children.
During the war Sadla's went bankrupt, and for several years the corner
opposite the Hotel Lutetia has been desolate. Probably the firm failed
for the very reason that made it unique among the provision-shops even
of Paris, where the selling of food is as much a work of art as the
cooking of it. We loved Sadla's. Marketing there was always a joy. Your
baby-carriage was not an inconvenience: for everything was displayed
outside on the street. You started with fish and ended with fruit and
flowers, passing by meats and vegetables, canned goods, groceries,
pastry, cakes and candies. The fish swam in a marble basin under a
fountain. You made your choice, and the victim was netted by a
white-clad boy and flopped over the counter to the scales. Live lobsters
sprawled in sea-weed, and boiled ones lay on ice. Oysters from fifty
centimes to five francs a dozen were packed in wicker baskets, passed by
their guardian every few minutes under the fountain. In the _hors
d'œuvres_ and cold meat section, you had your choice of the cheapest
and the most expensive variety of tempting morsels. It made no
difference if you wanted a little chicken wing or a big turkey encased
in truffle-studded jelly, a slice of ham or a whole Yorkshire quarter,
one pickle or a hundred, twenty centimes worth of _salade Russe_ or an
earthenware dishful arranged like an Italian garden landscape, one
radish or a bunch of them. In Paris everybody is accustomed to
purchasing things to eat and drink of the best quality: so you do not
feel that the quality of what you want depends upon the quantity you ask
for. On the meat counters, for instance, single chops, and tiny cutlets
and roasts, and chickens of all sizes, are displayed side by side, each
with its price marked. Apples, pears, tomatoes, bananas, even plums, are
price-marked by the piece. Tarts and cakes are of all sizes. When you
come to flowers, you can buy single roses or carnations. I never tired
of shopping at Sadla's. Nor did the children.
Vegetables and fruits and nuts are mostly bought in the open markets or
from the _marchandes des quatre saisons_, who deal also in dairy
products and poultry and flowers. The markets are held on certain days
in different quarters. The women with push-carts line the streets every
day. They go early in the morning to the Halles Centrales and buy
whatever they find is the bargain of the day, and hawk in their own
quarter, announcing their merchandise by queer cries that even to the
well-trained ear of the French woman need a glance at the push-cart to
confirm what is at the best a guess.
It is fun to buy on the street, and the commodities and price are
sometimes an irresistible temptation. But you have to watch the
_marchandes des quatre saisons_. They have a way of throwing your
purchase on the scales in the manner of an American iceman, and you want
to be ready to put out your hand to steady the needle. Your eye must be
sharp too, to watch that some of the apples do not come, wormy and
spotted, from a less desirable layer underneath the selling layer. It is
a wonderful lesson in learning how to put the best foot forward to watch
the push-cart women arranging their wares on the side-walks around the
Halles Centrales before starting out on the daily round. From the
writings of Carlyle and other seekers after the picturesque, the legend
has grown that the _poissonnières_, who knitted before the guillotine,
are a race apart. But there is as much truth in this belief as in the
belief that our gallant marines did the trick alone at Château-Thierry.
Fish women are no more formidable among Parisiennes than the general run
of _marchandes des quatre saisons_. And ask almost anyone who has lived
in a Paris apartment about her concierge!
Fresh from Montenegro, Herbert reached our new home on the morning of
July fourteenth. He explained that he had left the Greeks and Serbians
and Bulgarians to fight over the Turkish spoils to their heart's
content. He was sick of following wars. He wanted to see his new baby.
It had come over him one night in Albania, when sleeplessness was due to
the usual cause in that part of the world, that by catching a certain
boat from Cattaro to Venice he could get home for the Quatorze.
After he had looked over his new acquisition, we started out for a
stroll by ourselves just to talk things over. We walked down the
Boulevard Montparnasse to the Place de l'Observatoire. Between the
Closerie des Lilas and the Bal Bullier was a big merry-go-round. The
onlookers were throwing multi-colored streamers at the girls they liked
the best among the riders. In the middle of the street a strong man in
pink tights was doing stunts with dumb-bells and the members of his
family.
The same thought came to us both. What a pity the children are missing
this! We hurried back for them, forgetting that we had promised
ourselves a long just-us talk to bridge the months of separation. And we
returned to join in the celebration, my husband pushing the
baby-carriage and I with progeny hanging to both hands. Why do children
drag so, even when you are walking slowly? Every mother knows how they
lean on her literally as well as figuratively.
That Quatorze was the beginning of a new epoch. A new generation was to
have childhood vistas of Paris, but parent-led and parent-shown, as it
had been for me thirty years before. For that is the way of the world.