The spring came early that year and very suddenly. So that one day the
branches of the trees in the Luxembourg Gardens were bare and grim and
the next they waved cool leaves in a kind wind. Or so it seemed. Then
the chestnuts flowered and the girls walking along with linked arms
began to discuss their new clothes endlessly. ‘_Ma robe verte ... mon
costume gris...._’ And on the Boulevard St Michel bevies of young men
of every nationality under the sun strolled along smiling at every
woman they passed. The Latins were gay and insolent, the Northerns
lustful, shamefaced and condescending, the Easterns shy, curious and
contemptuous.
Nearly every week-end the Heidlers went down to a country cottage they
had found near Brunoy on the way to Fontainebleau. Twice Marya went
with them.
Left alone at the flat in the Avenue de l’Observatoire she would dine
in the Rue St Jacques and go for solitary walks when the meal was
over. But she vaguely disliked the Boulevard St Michel with its rows
of glaring cafés, and always felt relieved when she turned into the
Boulevard Montparnasse, softer, more dimly lit, more kindly. There she
could plunge herself into her dream.
Fancy being shut up in a little dark dirty cell when the spring was
coming. Perhaps one morning you’d smell it through the window and then
surely your heart would nearly burst with the longing for liberty.
* * * * *
One evening, just outside the Café de la Rotonde, she met Miss
De Solla. That lady had been ill, and seemed discontented with
Montparnasse. She was going to Florence for some months, she said, and
would not be back in Paris before June.
When Marya informed her that she was living with the Heidlers: ‘Yes,’
said Miss De Solla, with an uneasy expression, ‘as a matter of fact, I
heard that you were.’
She added: ‘I must be getting along.’