It was the same old Paris--crowded with
Cook's tourists and full of the melody of life as it is played by the hoot
of motor horns, the clang of steam trams, the shrill-voiced camelots
shouting "La Presse! La Presse!" and of the light laughter of women.
Then suddenly the thunderbolt fell with its signal of war, and in a few
days Paris was changed as though by some wizard's spell. Most of
the children vanished from the Tuileries gardens with their white-
capped nurses, and the sparrows searched in vain for their bird man.
Punch gave a final squawk of dismay and disappeared when the
theatre of the Petit Guignol was packed up to make way for a more
tragic drama. A hush fell upon Montmartre, and the musicians in its
orchestras packed up their instruments and scurried with scared
faces--to Berlin, Vienna, and Budapesth. No more boats went up to
Sevres and St. Cloud with crowds of pleasure-seekers. The Seine
was very quiet beneath its bridges, and in the Pavilion Bleu no dainty
creatures sat sipping rose-tinted ices or slapped the hands of the
beaky-nosed boys who used to pay for them. The women were hiding
in their rooms, asking God--even before the war they used to ask
God funny questions--how they were going to live now that their
lovers had gone away to fight, leaving them with nothing but the
memory of a last kiss wet with tears.
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