What polite women.
"_Enfin, nous voila._" My guards awoke and yawned pretentiously. Lest I
should think they had dozed off. It is Paris.
Some _permissionaires_ cried "Paris." The woman across from me said
"Paris, Paris." A great shout came up from every insane drowsy brain that
had travelled with us--a fierce and beautiful cry, which went the length
of the train.... Paris, where one forgets, Paris, which is Pleasure,
Paris, in whom our souls live, Paris, the beautiful, Paris at last.
The Englishman woke up and said heavily to me: "I say, where are
we?"--"Paris," I answered, walking carefully on his feet as I made my
baggage-laden way out of the compartment. It was Paris.
My guards hurried me through the station. One of them (I saw for the
first time) was older than the other, and rather handsome with his Van
Dyck blackness of curly beard. He said that it was too early for the
_metro_, it was closed. We should take a car. It would bring us to the
other station from which our next train left. We should hurry. We emerged
from the station and its crowds of crazy men. We boarded a car marked
something. The conductress, a strong, pink-cheeked, rather beautiful girl
in black, pulled my baggage in for me with a gesture which filled all of
me with joy.
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