Even the old cocher
who drove me down the rue Cambon had put on a new white hat. He
had heard the glad tidings, this old wrinkled man, and he clacked his
whip to let others know, and gave the glad-eye--a watery, wicked old
eye--to half a dozen midinettes who came dancing along the rue St.
Honore. They knew without his white hat, and the clack of his whip.
The ichor of the air had got into their blood. They laughed without the
reason for a jest, and ran, in a skipping way, because there was the
spring-song in their feet.
Along the Champs Elysees there was the pathway of the sun.
Through the Arc de Triomphe there was a glamorous curtain of cloth
of gold, and arrows of light struck and broke upon the golden figures
of Alexander's Bridge. Looking back I saw the dome of the Invalides
suspended in space, like a cloud in the sky. It was painted over to
baffle the way of hostile aircraft, but the paint was wearing off, and the
gold showed through again, glinting and flashing in the air-waves.
The Seine was like molten liquid and the bridges which span it a
dozen times or more between Notre Dame and the Pont de l'Aima
were as white as snow, and unsubstantial as though they bridged the
gulfs of dreams.
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