Paris January 8, 1918
Here I am in Paris, starting on my new adventure of writing the story of what the Americans are doing in the war. I left England on 2nd January, which was a Wednesday, and arrived here Thursday evening. As you know, while I was in the Front line I had very little idea of what France at war was like. One crossed from England, clambered on a military train with all the windows smashed, had a cold night journey, and found himself at once among the shell-holes. I was very keen on seeing what Paris was like; now that I've seen it, it's very difficult to describe. It's very much the same as it always was—only while its atmosphere was once champagne, now it is a strong, still wine. As in England, only to a greater extent, women are doing the work of men. The streets are full of the wounded—not the wounded with well-fitted artificial limbs that you see in London, but with ordinary wooden stumps, etc. Our English wounded are always gay and laughing—determined to treat the war as a humorous episode to the end. The French wounded are grave, afflicted, and ordinary. I think the Frenchman, with an emotional honesty of which we are incapable, has from the first viewed the war as a colossal Calvary, and has seen it against the historic skyline of a travailing world. Never by speech or gesture has he disguised the fact that he, as an individual, is engaged in a fore-ordained and unparalleled adventure of sacrifice. The Englishman, self-conscious of his own heroic gallantry, cloaks his fineness with pretended indifference and has succeeded in deceiving the world. Our sportsmanship in the face of death impresses more complex nations as irreligion. So while London is outwardly gayer than ever, Paris has a stiff upper lip, a look of sternness in its eyes, and very little laughter on its mouth. By nine-thirty in the evening every restaurant is closed, and the streets are empty till the soldiers on leave troop out from the theatres.
As for the food, I have seen no shortage in France as yet. You can get plenty of butter and sugar, whereas in London margarine is rare and sugar is doled out. The talk of France being ex hausted is all rubbish; you can feel the muscles of a great nation struggling the moment you land.
I have had a most kindly and helpful reception from the American Press Division. They have realized with the usual American quickness of mind the importance of what I propose to do. One of their officers starts out with me to-night on my first tour of military activities. It will take about five days. I then return to Paris to write up what I have seen, and afterwards set out again in a new direction. If I take the proper advantage of my opportunities, I ought to get an amazingly interesting lot of material.
Saturday I was lucky enough to secure a car, and went the round of my introductions, to the British Embassy and your friends from Newark.
I've been to two theatres. The audiences were composed for the most part of soldiers on leave—American, British, Canadian, Australian, Belgian, French, with the merest sprinkling of civilians. Sunday I walked through the Luxembourg, most of the galleries of which are closed. Afterwards I walked in the Gardens and watched the Parisians sliding on the ice. For the moment they forgot they were at war, and became children. There were little boys and girls, soldiers with their sweethearts, fat old men and women, all running and pushing and sliding and falling and chattering. I thought of Trilby with her grave, kind eyes. Then I walked down the Boule Miche to Notre Dame, where women were praying for their dead.
To-day Paris is under snow, and again the child spirit has asserted itself. Soldiers and sailors are pelting one another with snowballs in the streets, and Jupiter continues to pluck his geese and send their feathers drifting down the sky.
This time last year I was marching into action with temperature of 104 degrees, and you were reaching London, wondering whether I was truly coming on leave. A queer year it has been; in spite of all our anticipations to the contrary, we're still alive. I wish we were to meet again this year, and we may. We know so little. As Whitcomb Riley says in complete acceptance of human fortuitousness, “No child knows when it goes to sleep.”
XXVI
Paris