3 books to know World War I. John Dos Passos

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      YVONNE TOSSED THE OMELETTE in the air. It landed sizzling in the pan again, and she came forward into the light, holding the frying pan before her. Behind her was the dark stove and above it a row of copper kettles that gleamed through the bluish obscurity. She flicked the omelette out of the pan into the white dish that stood in the middle of the table, full in the yellow lamplight.

      “Tiens,” she said, brushing a few stray hairs off her forehead with the back of her hand.

      “You're some cook,” said Fuselli getting to his feet. He had been sprawling on a chair in the other end of the kitchen, watching Yvonne's slender body in tight black dress and blue apron move in and out of the area of light as she got dinner ready. A smell of burnt butter with a faint tang of pepper in it, filled the kitchen, making his mouth water.

      “This is the real stuff,” he was saying to himself,—“like home.”

      He stood with his hands deep in his pockets and his head thrown back, watching her cut the bread, holding the big loaf to her chest and pulling the knife towards her, she brushed some crumbs off her dress with a thin white hand.

      “You're my girl, Yvonne; ain't yer?” Fuselli put his arms round her.

      “Sale bete,” she said, laughing and pushing him away.

      There was a brisk step outside and another girl came into the kitchen, a thin yellow-faced girl with a sharp nose and long teeth.

      “Ma cousine.... Mon 'tit americain.” They both laughed. Fuselli blushed as he shook the girl's hand.

      “Il est beau, hein?” said Yvonne gruffly.

      “Mais, ma petite, il est charmant, vot' americain!” They laughed again. Fuselli who did not understand laughed too, thinking to himself, “They'll let the dinner get cold if they don't sit down soon.”

      “Get maman, Dan,” said Yvonne. Fuselli went into the shop through the room with the long oak table. In the dim light that came from the kitchen he saw the old woman's white bonnet. Her face was in shadow but there was a faint gleam of light in her small beady eyes.

      “Supper, ma'am,” he shouted.

      Grumbling in her creaky little voice, the old woman followed him back into the kitchen.

      Steam, gilded by the lamplight, rose in pillars to the ceiling from the big tureen of soup.

      There was a white cloth on the table and a big loaf of bread at the end. The plates, with borders of little roses on them, seemed, after the army mess, the most beautiful things Fuselli had ever seen. The wine bottle was black beside the soup tureen and the wine in the glasses cast a dark purple stain on the cloth.

      Fuselli ate his soup silently understanding very little of the French that the two girls rattled at each other. The old woman rarely spoke and when she did one of the girls would throw her a hasty remark that hardly interrupted their chatter.

      Fuselli was thinking of the other men lining up outside the dark mess shack and the sound the food made when it flopped into the mess kits. An idea came to him. He'd have to bring Sarge to see Yvonne. They could set him up to a feed. “It would help me to stay in good with him,” He had a minute's worry about his corporalship. He was acting corporal right enough, but he wanted them to send in his appointment.

      The omelette melted in his mouth.

      “Damn bon,” he said to Yvonne with his mouth full.

      She looked at him fixedly.

      “Bon, bon,” he said again.

      “You.... Dan, bon,” she said and laughed. The cousin was looking from one to the other enviously, her upper lip lifted away from her teeth in a smile.

      The old woman munched her bread in a silent preoccupied fashion.

      “There's somebody in the store,” said Fuselli after a long pause. “Je irey.” He put his napkin down and went out wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Eisenstein and a chalky-faced boy were in the shop.

      “Hullo! are you keepin' house here?” asked Eisenstein.

      “Sure,” said Fuselli conceitedly.

      “Have you got any chawclit?” asked the chalky-faced boy in a thin bloodless voice.

      Fuselli looked round the shelves and threw a cake of chocolate down on the counter.

      “Anything else?”

      “Nothing, thank you, corporal. How much is it?”

      Whistling “There's a long, long trail a-winding,” Fuselli strode back into the inner room.

      “Combien chocolate?” he asked.

      When he had received the money, he sat down at his place at table again, smiling importantly. He must write Al about all this, he was thinking, and he was wondering vaguely whether Al had been drafted yet.

      After dinner the women sat a long time chatting over their coffee, СКАЧАТЬ