Three Soldiers - John Dos Passos (books to read fiction txt) 📗

before he had heard Debussy’s Nocturnes and Les Sirenes. Rhythms from them were the warp of all his thoughts. Against the background of the grey street and the brownish fog that hung a veil at the end of every vista he began to imagine rhythms of his own, modulations and phrases that grew brilliant and faded, that flapped for a while like gaudy banners above his head through the clatter of the street.

He noticed that he was passing a long building with blank rows of windows, at the central door of which stood groups of American soldiers smoking. Unconsciously he hastened his steps, for fear of meeting an officer he would have to salute. He passed the men without looking at them.

A voice detained him. “Say, Andrews.”

When he turned he saw that a short man with curly hair, whose face, though familiar, he could not place, had left the group at the door and was coming towards him. “Hello, Andrews…. Your name’s Andrews, ain’t it?”

“Yes.” Andrews shook his hand, trying to remember.

“I’m Fuselli…. Remember? Last time I saw you you was goin’ up to the lines on a train with Chrisfield…. Chris we used to call him…. At Cosne, don’t you remember?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, what’s happened to Chris?”

“He’s a corporal now,” said Andrews.

“Gee he is…. I’ll be goddamned…. They was goin’ to make me a corporal once.”

Fuselli wore stained olive-drab breeches and badly rolled puttees; his shirt was open at the neck. From his blue denim jacket came a smell of stale grease that Andrews recognised; the smell of army kitchens. He had a momentary recollection of standing in line cold dark mornings and of the sound the food made slopping into mess kits.

“Why didn’t they make you a corporal, Fuselli?” Andrcws said, after a pause, in a constrained voice.

“Hell, I got in wrong, I suppose.”

They were leaning against the dusty house wall. Andrews looked at his feet. The mud of the pavement, splashing up on the wall, made an even dado along the bottom, on which Andrews scraped the toe of his shoe up and down.

“Well, how’s everything?” Andrews asked looking up suddenly.

“I’ve been in a labor battalion. That’s how everything is.”

“God, that’s tough luck!”

Andrews wanted to go on. He had a sudden fear that he would be late. But he did not know how to break away.

“I got sick,” said Fuselli grinning. “I guess I am yet, G. O. 42. It’s a hell of a note the way they treat a feller…like he was lower than the dirt.”

“Were you at Cosne all the time? That’s damned rough luck, Fuselli.”

“Cosne sure is a hell of a hole…. I guess you saw a lot of fighting. God! you must have been glad not to be in the goddam medics.”

“I don’t know that I’m glad I saw fighting…. Oh, yes, I suppose I am.”

“You see, I had it a hell of a time before they found out. Court-martial was damn stiff…after the armistice too…. Oh, God! why can’t they let a feller go home?”

A woman in a bright blue hat passed them. Andrews caught a glimpse of a white over-powdered face; her hips trembled like jelly under the blue skirt with each hard clack of her high heels on the pavement.

“Gee, that looks like Jenny…. I’m glad she didn’t see me….” Fuselli laughed. “Ought to ‘a seen her one night last week. We were so dead drunk we just couldn’t move.”

“Isn’t that bad for what’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t give a damn now; what’s the use?”

“But God; man!” Andrews stopped himself suddenly. Then he said in a different voice, “What outfit are you in now?”

“I’m on the permanent K.P. here,” Fuselli jerked his thumb towards the door of the building. “Not a bad job, off two days a week; no drill, good eats…. At least you get all you want…. But it surely has been hell emptying ash cans and shovelling coal an’ now all they’ve done is dry me up.”

“But you’ll be goin’ home soon now, won’t you? They can’t discharge you till they cure you.”

“Damned if I know…. Some guys say a guy never can be cured….”

“Don’t you find K.P. work pretty damn dull?”

“No worse than anything else. What are you doin” in Paris?”

“School detachment.”

“What’s that?”

“Men who wanted to study in the university, who managed to work it.”

“Gee, I’m glad I ain’t goin’ to school again.”

“Well, so long, Fuselli.”

“So long, Andrews.”

Fuselli turned and slouched back to the group of men at the door. Andrews hurried away. As he turned the corner he had a glimpse of Fuselli with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed leaning against the wall behind the door of the barracks.

III

The darkness, where the rain fell through the vague halos of light round the street lamps, glittered with streaks of pale gold. Andrews’s ears were full of the sound of racing gutters and spattering waterspouts, and of the hard unceasing beat of the rain on the pavements. It was after closing time. The corrugated shutters were drawn down, in front of cafe windows. Andrews’s cap was wet; water trickled down his forehead and the sides of his nose, running into his eyes. His feet were soaked and he could feel the wet patches growing on his knees where they received the water running off his overcoat. The street stretched wide and dark ahead of him, with an occasional glimmer of greenish reflection from a lamp. As he walked, splashing with long strides through the rain, he noticed that he was keeping pace with a woman under an umbrella, a slender person who was hurrying with small resolute steps up the boulevard. When he saw her, a mad hope flamed suddenly through him. He remembered a vulgar little theatre and the crude light of a spot light. Through the paint and powder a girl’s golden-brown skin had shone with a firm brilliance that made him think of wide sun-scorched uplands, and dancing figures on Greek vases. Since he had seen her two nights ago, he had thought of nothing else. He had feverishly found out her name. “Naya Selikoff!” A mad hope flared through him that this girl he was walking beside was the girl whose slender limbs moved in an endless frieze through his thoughts. He peered at her with eyes blurred with rain. What an ass he was! Of course it couldn’t be; it was too early. She was on the stage at this minute. Other hungry eyes were staring at her slenderness, other hands were twitching to stroke her golden-brown skin. Walking under the steady downpour that stung his face and ears and sent a tiny cold trickle down his back, he felt a sudden dizziness of desire come over him. His hands, thrust to the bottom of his coat pockets, clutched convulsively. He felt that he would die, that his pounding blood vessels would burst. The bead curtains of rain rustled and tinkled about him, awakening his nerves, making his skin flash and tingle. In the gurgle of water in gutters and water spouts he could imagine he heard orchestras droning libidinous music. The feverish excitement of his senses began to create frenzied rhythms in his ears:

“O ce pauvre poilu! Qu’il doit etre mouille” said a small tremulous voice beside him.

He turned.

The girl was offering him part of her umbrella.

“O c’est un Americain!” she said again, still speaking as if to herself.

“Mais ca ne vaut pas la peine.”

“Mais oui, mais oui.”

He stepped under the umbrella beside her.

“But you must let me hold it.”

“Bien.”

As he took the umbrella he caught her eye. He stopped still in his tracks.

“But you’re the girl at the Rat qui Danse.”

“And you were at the next table with the man who sang?”

“How amusing!”

“Et celui-la! O il etait rigolo….” She burst out laughing; her head, encased in a little round black hat, bobbed up and down under the umbrella. Andrews laughed too. Crossing the Boulevard St. Germain, a taxi nearly ran them down and splashed a great wave of mud over them. She clutched his arm and then stood roaring with laughter.

“O quelle horreur! Quelle horreur!” she kept exclaiming.

Andrews laughed and laughed.

“But hold the umbrella over us…. You’re letting the rain in on my best hat,” she said again.

“Your name is Jeanne,” said Andrews.

“Impertinent! You heard my brother call me that…. He went back to the front that night, poor little chap…. He’s only nineteen …he’s very clever…. O, how happy I am now that the war’s over.”

“You are older than he?”

“Two years…. I am the head of the family…. It is a dignified position.”

“Have you always lived in Paris?”

“No, we are from Laon…. It’s the war.”

“Refugees?”

“Don’t call us that…. We work.”

Andrews laughed.

“Are you going far?” she asked peering in his face.

“No, I live up here…. My name is the same as yours.”

“Jean? How funny!”

“Where are you going?”

“Rue Descartes…. Behind St. Etienne.”

“I live near you.”

“But you mustn’t come. The concierge is a tigress…. Etienne calls her Mme. Clemenceau.”

“Who? The saint?”

“No, you silly—my brother. He is a socialist. He’s a typesetter at l’Humanite.”

“Really? I often read l’Humanite.”

“Poor boy, he used to swear he’d never go in the army. He thought of going to America.”

“That wouldn’t do him any good now,” said Andrews bitterly. “What do you do?”

“I?” a gruff bitterness came into her voice. “Why should I tell you? I work at a dressmaker’s.”

“Like Louise?”

“You’ve heard Louise? Oh, how I cried.”

“Why did it make you sad?”

“Oh, I don’t know…. But I’m learning stenography…. But here we are!”

The great bulk of the Pantheon stood up dimly through the rain beside them. In front the tower of St. Etienne-du-Mont was just visible. The rain roared about them.

“Oh, how wet I am!” said Jeanne.

“Look, they are giving Louise day after tomorrow at the Opera Comique…. Won’t you come; with me?”

“No, I should cry too much.”

“I’ll cry too.”

“But it’s not…”

“Cest l’armistice,” interrupted Andrews.

They both laughed!

“All right! Meet me at the cafe at the end of the Boul’ Mich’ at a quarter past seven…. But you probably won’t come.”

“I swear I will,” cried Andrews eagerly.

“We’ll see!” She darted away down the street beside St. Etienne-du-Mont. Andrews was left alone amid the seethe of the rain and the tumultuous gurgle of waterspouts. He felt calm and tired.

When he got to his room, he found he had no matches in his pocket. No light came from the window through which he could hear the hissing clamor of the rain in the court. He stumbled over a chair.

“Are you drunk?” came Walters’s voice swathed in bedclothes. “There are matches on the table.”

“But where the hell’s the table?”

At last his hand, groping over the table, closed on the matchbox.

The match’s red and white flicker dazzled him. He blinked his eyes; the lashes were still full of raindrops. When he had lit a candle and set it amongst the music papers upon the table, he tore off his dripping clothes.

“I just met the most charming girl, Walters,” Andrews stood naked beside the pile of his clothes, rubbing himself with a towel. “Gee! I was wet…. But she was the most charming person I’ve met since I’ve been in Paris.”

“I thought you said you let the girls alone.”

“Whores, I must have said.”

“Well! Any girl you could pick up on the street….”

“Nonsense!”

“I guess they are all that way in this damned country…. God, it will do me good to see