3 books to know World War I. John Dos Passos

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СКАЧАТЬ the track a red eye appeared and grew nearer. He could hear the hard puffing of the engine up the grade. Huge curves gleamed as the engine roared slowly past him. A man with bare arms black with coal dust was leaning out of the cab, lit up from behind by a yellowish red glare. Now the cars were going by, flat cars with guns, tilted up like the muzzles of hunting dogs, freight cars out of which here and there peered a man's head. The train almost came to a stop. The cars clanged one against the other all down the train. Fuselli was looking into a pair of eyes that shone in the lamplight; a hand was held out to him.

      “So long, kid,” said a boyish voice. “I don't know who the hell you are, but so long; good luck.”

      “So long,” stammered Fuselli. “Going to the front?”

      “Yer goddam right,” answered another voice.

      The train took up speed again; the clanging of car against car ceased and in a moment they were moving fast before Fuselli's eyes. Then the station was dark and empty again, and he was watching the red light grow smaller and paler while the train rumbled on into the darkness.

      A confusion of gold and green and crimson silks and intricate designs of naked pink-fleshed cupids filled Fuselli's mind, when, full of wonder, he walked down the steps of the palace out into the faint ruddy sunlight of the afternoon. A few names, Napoleon, Josephine, the Empire, that had never had significance in his mind before, flared with a lurid gorgeous light in his imagination like a tableau of living statues at a vaudeville theatre.

      “They must have had a heap of money, them guys,” said the man who was with him, a private in Aviation. “Let's go have a drink.”

      Fuselli was silent and absorbed in his thoughts. Here was something that supplemented his visions of wealth and glory that he used to tell Al about, when they'd sit and watch the big liners come in, all glittering with lights, through the Golden Gate.

      “They didn't mind having naked women about, did they?” said the private in Aviation, a morose foul-mouthed little man who had been in the woolen business. “D'ye blame them?”

      “No, I can't say's I do.... I bet they was immoral, them guys,” he continued vaguely.

      They wandered about the streets of Fontainebleau listlessly, looking into shop windows, staring at women, lolling on benches in the parks where the faint sunlight came through a lacework of twigs purple and crimson and yellow, that cast intricate lavender-grey shadows on the asphalt.

      “Let's go have another drink,” said the private in Aviation.

      Fuselli looked at his watch; they had hours before train time.

      A girl in a loose dirty blouse wiped off the table.

      “Vin blank,” said the other man.

      “Mame shows,” said Fuselli.

      His head was full of gold and green mouldings and silk and crimson velvet and intricate designs in which naked pink-fleshed cupids writhed indecently. Some day, he was saying to himself, he'd make a hell of a lot of money and live in a house like that with Mabe; no, with Yvonne, or with some other girl.

      “Must have been immoral, them guys,” said the private in Aviation, leering at the girl in the dirty blouse.

      Fuselli remembered a revel he'd seen in a moving picture of “Quo Vadis,” people in bath robes dancing around with large cups in their hands and tables full of dishes being upset.

      “Cognac, beaucoup,” said the private in Aviation.

      “Mame shows,” said Fuselli.

      The cafe was full of gold and green silks, and great brocaded beds with heavy carvings above them, beds in which writhed, pink-fleshed and indecent, intricate patterns of cupids.

      Somebody said, “Hello, Fuselli.”

      He was on the train; his ears hummed and his head had an iron band round it. It was dark except for the little light that flickered in the ceiling. For a minute he thought it was a goldfish in a bowl, but it was a light that flickered in the ceiling.

      “Hello, Fuselli,” said Eisenstein. “Feel all right?”

      “Sure,” said Fuselli with a thick voice. “Why shouldn't I?”

      “How did you find that house?” said Eisenstein seriously.

      “Hell, I don't know,” muttered Fuselli. “I'm goin' to sleep.”

      His mind was a jumble. He remembered vast halls full of green and gold silks, and great beds with crowns over them where Napoleon and Josephine used to sleep. Who were they? O yes, the Empire,—or was it the Abdication? Then there were patterns of flowers and fruits and cupids, all gilded, and a dark passage and stairs that smelt musty, where he and the man in Aviation fell down. He remembered how it felt to rub his nose hard on the gritty red plush carpet of the stairs. Then there were women in open-work skirts standing about, or were those the pictures on the walls? And there was a bed with mirrors round it. He opened his eyes. Eisenstein was talking to him. He must have been talking to him for some time.

      “I look at it this way,” he was saying. “A feller needs a little of that to keep healthy. Now, if he's abstemious and careful...”

      Fuselli went to sleep. He woke up again thinking suddenly: he must borrow that little blue book of army regulations. It would be useful to know that in case something came up. The corporal who had been in the Red Sox outfield had been transferred to a Base Hospital. It was t. b. so Sergeant Osier said. Anyway they were going to appoint an acting corporal. He stared at the flickering little light in the ceiling.

      “How did you get a pass?” Eisenstein was asking.

      “Oh, the sergeant fixed me up with one,” answered Fuselli mysteriously.

      “You're in pretty good with the sergeant, ain't yer?” said Eisenstein.

      Fuselli smiled deprecatingly.

      “Say, d'ye know that little kid Stockton?”

      “The white-faced little kid who's clerk in that outfit that has the other end of the barracks?”

      “That's him,” said Eisenstein. “I wish I could do something to help that kid. He just can't stand the discipline.... You ought to see him wince when the red-haired sergeant over there yells at him.... The kid looks sicker every day.”

      “Well, he's got a good soft job: clerk,” said Fuselli.

      “Ye think it's soft? I worked twelve hours day before yesterday getting out reports,” said Eisenstein, indignantly. “But the kid's lost it and they keep ridin' him for some reason or other. It hurts a feller to see that. He ought to be at home at school.”

      “He's got to take his medicine,” said Fuselli.

      “You wait till we get butchered in the trenches. We'll see how you like your medicine,” said Eisenstein.

      “Damn fool,” muttered Fuselli, composing himself to sleep again.

      The bugle wrenched Fuselli out of his blankets, half dead with СКАЧАТЬ