IV
THE GRAND PRIX AND OTHER PRIZES
I THINK the most satisfying thing about the race for the Grand Prix at Longchamps is the knowledge that every one in Paris is justifying your interest in the event by being just as much excited about it as you are. You have the satisfaction of feeling that you are with the crowd, or that the crowd is with you, as you choose to put it, and that you move in sympathy with hundreds of thousands of people, who, though they may not be at the race-track in person, wish they were, which is the next best thing, and which helps you in the form of moral support, at least. You feel that every one who passes by knows and approves of your idea of a holiday, and will quite understand when you ride out on the Champs Élysées at eleven o'clock in the morning with four other men packed in one fiacre, or when, for no apparent reason, you hurl your hat into the air.
There are two ways of reaching Longchamps, the right way and the wrong way. The wrong way is to go with the crowd the entire distance through the Bois, and so find yourself stopped half a mile from the race-track in a barricade of carriages and hired fiacres, with the wheels scraping, and the noses of the horses rubbing the backs of the carriages in front. This is entertaining for a quarter of an hour, as you will find that every American or English man and woman you have ever met is sitting within talking distance of you, and as you weave your way in and out like a shuttle in a great loom you have a chance to bow to a great many friends, and to gaze for several minutes at a time at all of the celebrities of Paris. But after an hour has passed, and you have discovered that your driver is not as clever as the others in stealing ground and pushing himself before his betters, you begin to grow hot, dusty, and cross, and when you do arrive at the track you are not in a proper frame of mind to lose money cheerfully and politely, like the true sportsman that you ought to be.
The right way to go is through the Bois by the Lakes, stopping within sound of the waterfall at the Café de la Cascade. The advantage of this is that you escape the crowd, and that you have the pleasing certainty in your mind throughout the rest of the afternoon of knowing that you will be able to find your carriage again when the races are over. If you leave your fiacre at the main entrance, you will have to pick it out from three or four thousand others, all of which look exactly alike; and even if you do tie a red handkerchief around the driver's whip, you will find that six hundred other people have thought of doing the same thing, and you will be an hour in finding the right one, and you will be jostled at the same time by the boys in blouses who are hunting up lost carriages, and finding the owners to fit them.
You can avoid all this if you go to the Cascade and take your coachman's little ticket, and send him back to wait for you in the stables of the café, not forgetting to give him something in advance for his breakfast. It is then only a three minutes' walk from the restaurant among the trees to the back door of the race-track, and in five minutes after you have left your carriage you will have passed the sentry at the ticket-box, received your ticket from the young woman inside of it, given it to the official with a high hat and a big badge, and will be within the enclosure, with your temper unruffled and your boots immaculate. And then, when the races are over, you have only to return to the restaurant and hand your coachman's ticket to the tall chasseur, and let him do the rest, while you wait at a little round table and order cooling drinks.
All great race meetings look very much alike. There are always the long grandstand with human beings showing from the lowest steps to the sky-line; the green track, and the miles of carriages and coaches encamped on the other side; the crowd of well-dressed people in the enclosure, and the thin-legged horses cloaked mysteriously in blankets and stalking around the paddock; the massive crush around the betting-booths, that sweeps slowly in eddies and currents like a great body of water; and the rush which answers the starting-bell. The two most distinctive features of the Grand Prix are the numbers of beautifully dressed women who mix quietly with the men around the booths at which the mutuals are sold, and the fact that every one speaks English, either because that is his native tongue, or because, if he be a Frenchman, he finds so many English terms in his racing vocabulary that it is easier for him to talk entirely in that tongue than to change from French to English three or four times in each sentence.