When I went to lay my weary—oh, so weary—bones between the sheets, I found the latter to be fashioned apparently out of heavy canvas. It was like nestling down between two jibs of the good swordfisher, “Edmund Black.” The pillow is enormous and uncompromising—my own little baby pillow Mrs. Bigelow put in her trunk for me. Still, as I describe them, they look very good to me and I think I’ll go back to them. It is getting light, I think, and pouring rain, I’ll try looking out again.
Tuesday.
I have seen it! I have seen it! Paris is the most romantic place in the world. Talk about London! Oh, I never shall forget this afternoon. I went to sleep almost before I stopped writing the above in pencil and never woke up until twelve o’clock. I asked the femme de chambre whether or not any one had called for me, thinking Miss Curtis might have tried to find me, and she said that I had had two telephone calls, and that a young gentleman had been here in a taxi. It was Mr. Baxter, of course, because he said he would take me back to the Quai d’Orsay and help me with my trunk and customs and prefect of police; and there, they’d told him that I was asleep, and not to be waked up! I felt hopeless at the thought of having to go by myself without any idea of what to do! I suppose Mrs. Bigelow may have called me up. I had no idea of Miss Curtis’s whereabouts and I knew that the Shurtleffs are at their headquarters all day long and I had no idea where that was, and I knew that Mrs. Bigelow was at the other end of Paris and couldn’t help me even if I did see her.
I didn’t feel like lunch, so I took the map of Paris and went out in the dripping streets with no umbrella. I was so confused and so embarrassed with my map, which I didn’t dare open; I felt that people were staring at me, and my rubbers and umbrella were in my trunk and my coat and hat and feet were soaking. I just wandered along and finally came to a taxi. I decided to go to Mrs. Shurtleff’s house, whether she was in or not. So I said, 6 Place Denfert-Rochereau, and got out at a big apartment house. I walked in, and there was no elevator boy or telephone girl or anything, so I rang at the first apartment and asked for Dr. Shurtleff. The maid said he wasn’t there, and I asked if she could tell what apartment he lived in and she said she didn’t know; finally her face lighted up and she showed me into a little parlor and said, “You come for a consultation! I’ll go and get the doctor.” Heavens and earth, I’d stumbled into a physician’s office. I said, “No, no!” and went out. I thought I’d have to ring at all the apartments to find the Shurtleffs, but I found a concierge, tremendously en négligé, who pointed to a little elevator and said, “third floor.” I got in expecting to be followed, but bang went the doors without apparently word or sign from any one and up I shot. Up and up; and I was scared to death. I felt sure I was going through the roof; but eventually we stopped and I got out and rang at the first bell to the left, as I’d been told. No answer; I rang and rang; still no answer. I gathered that they were at the headquarters, so I sat down on the top step of the stair and wrote on the back of my visiting card that I was at the Hôtel des St. Pères. I was a little discouraged, because it meant that I would have to wait at the hotel until some one could call or write. In the mean time the lift was standing inert and I couldn’t make it go down—of course, I wouldn’t have gone down in it myself for the gross receipts. I could hear people ringing wildly down below and pretty soon a man came leaping up the stairs. I asked in my prettiest French if he could make the thing go down, and he couldn’t any more than I. He started to go into an opposite apartment, and as the door opened I heard some one greet him in English. I jumped up; it was the first English I’d heard since the others had left me. I rushed forward and almost put my foot in the door, for I was desperate. I asked the woman who had spoken, one of the most beautiful women I ever saw, if she knew where Dr. Shurtleff lived. She said, “I am Mrs. Shurtleff. Why, you must be Miss Root.” And she threw both her arms around me and pulled me into their living-room. There were Miss Curtis and Dr. Shurtleff and a blazing wood-fire. If that wasn’t heaven on earth to me, I should be ungrateful to admit it. We talked and talked, and oh, but I was glad to see them! They never had received my telegram and the Espagne had not been announced in Paris, the concierge had directed me to the wrong apartment, but now everything was straightened out. It just happened that they were taking an afternoon off, the Shurtleffs, that is; the others left very soon. I hadn’t had anything to eat since on the train the night before, and I felt weak and horrid, and everything still rocked; so Mrs. Shurtleff gave me hot tea and nut bread and cold chicken, and warmed me through and through. She is an angel; she looks like one of the old Gibson drawings,—beautiful, and so charming and enthusiastic, and much younger, too, than I had thought, with light-brown hair and blue eyes and pink cheeks.
No. 6 Place Denfert-Rochereau
The first thing to decide was where I should live permanently, and Mrs. Shurtleff took me that afternoon to two pensions, the best and nearest to the work. One was very near, just across a little green square from the Shurtleffs’. The other was on an adorable little street in the old Latin Quarter, where all the painters from time immemorial have lived. It was dark, and no conveniences, no heat, no running water, and no bathtub in the whole house. But I peeped into one of the rooms and there was a wood-fire singing so adorably, and a lovely mantelpiece and gold mirror, and a piano with candles. That was nine francs a day, and although much more inconvenient and far-away, I wanted to go there. The cook showed us around and I promised to call on Wednesday and see the landlady.
After that Mrs. Shurtleff took me to do an errand—and I saw Paris for the first time. I think that the Seine, and the bridges, and lines of straight trees are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We looked up the Champs Élysées as the sun was setting and the lights were beginning to twinkle through a violet haze. It was like a dream city. I sat on the extremest edge of the seat in the taxi gazing and gazing at everything. Mrs. Shurtleff delighted in my delight, and she said it made her live again the enthusiasm and wonder that she felt when she came here ten years ago. So many queer things I noticed that she grew used to years ago; the door-handles in the middle of the doors, the lamp-posts in the middle of the sidewalks, and funny quaint little things like that. We saw a trolley-car marked “Bastille,” and I burst out laughing. Why, it seemed like marking the ugliest, most ordinary or modern thing “Guillotine” or “Robespierre”! Think of getting a transfer or “watching your step” going to the Bastille.
I went to the Vestiaire yesterday morning where I am to work. It is wonderfully interesting. All kinds of clothing are piled everywhere and there is an office where people apply, and everything is very business-like. The refugees are pathetic to the last degree, and already I have seen many, many people, and heard of cases, that I couldn’t believe existed in the world. I haven’t done any real work yet; but here is something I want to tell you. We need everything, particularly warm things, blankets; and big wide shoes above everything. I saw men turn away some people to-day, and I tell you I’d like to snatch these bedclothes out of the hotel and go find old people and give them to them. But any kind of clothes! I saw a pile of sticks, about a hundred, stored in the corner, and I asked Mrs. Shurtleff what they were for and she said for the blind. They can’t afford to buy them. Think of being blinded and then not being able to afford a few pennies to buy a cane.