"What would you have done if you had been invited to her house in Constantinople where the carpets and the mirrors are?"
"She would never have invited me there," Odette sighed. "Here she is not known. However broad her ideas, she could not defy public opinion at home. À la guerre comme à la guerre! Enfin, je suis fille du peuple, mais on me regarde; c'est déjà quelque chose."
The pension that to Odette appeared so mean after the glories of Madame Corvelis's little house had never been so welcome to Sylvia, and it was strange to think that any one could be more impressed by that pretentious little bourgeoise with her figure like apples in a string bag than by Madame Eliane, who resembled a mysterious lady in the background of a picture by Watteau.
It was in meditation upon such queer contrasts that Sylvia passed away her time in Odessa, thus and in pondering the more terrifying profundities of the human soul in the novels of Dostoievski and Tolstoi. She was not sorry, however, when the time came to leave; she could never exclude from her imagination the hope of some amazing event immemorially predestinate that should decide the course of the years still to come. It would have been difficult for her to explain or justify her conviction, but it would have been impossible to reject it, and it was with an oddly superstitious misgiving that she found herself traveling north again, so strong had been her original impulse to go south. If anything had been wanting to confirm this belief, her arrival in Warsaw at the beginning of February would have been enough.
Sylvia left Kieff on the return visit without any new revelation of human vileness or human virtue, and reached Warsaw to find a mad populace streaming forth at the sound of the German guns. She had positively the sensation of meeting a great dark wave that drove her back, and her interview with the distracted Jew who managed the cabaret for which she had been engaged was like one of those scenes played in a front set of a provincial drama to the sounds of feverish preparation behind the cloth.
"Don't talk to me about songs," the manager cried. "Get out! Can't you hear the guns? Everything's closed. Oh, my God! My God! Where have I put it? I had it in my hands a moment ago. Get out, I say."
"Where to?" Sylvia demanded.
"Anywhere. Listen. Don't you think they sound a little nearer even in these few minutes? Oh, the Germans! They're too strong. What are you waiting for? Can't you understand me when I say that everything's closed?"
He wiped the perspiration from his big nose with a duster that left long black streaks in its wake.
"But where shall I go?" Sylvia persisted.