. A green tent in Flanders. n one side, bright new uniforms, alluringlydecked out with stripes and made to fitdapper young bodies, smart kepis and trimkits; on the other, all grades of femininemourning—the coquettishly becoming andstill aspiring taking the lead, the blank,crushed, plain, cheap black heedless of formor wile bringing up the rear. In an inner courtyard of the Invalidesguns and fragments of guns of all kinds,bones of Zeppelins, and motorless corpses ofvarious aircraft, are on show. Absorbedand circling round and round are poilus athome on leave. Most of the spectators,curiously en
. A green tent in Flanders. n one side, bright new uniforms, alluringlydecked out with stripes and made to fitdapper young bodies, smart kepis and trimkits; on the other, all grades of femininemourning—the coquettishly becoming andstill aspiring taking the lead, the blank,crushed, plain, cheap black heedless of formor wile bringing up the rear. In an inner courtyard of the Invalidesguns and fragments of guns of all kinds,bones of Zeppelins, and motorless corpses ofvarious aircraft, are on show. Absorbedand circling round and round are poilus athome on leave. Most of the spectators,curiously enough, are poilus. One wouldhave thought they had had their fill else-where. Perhaps the blind, burrowing ac-complishment of modern warfare reservesfor home a convincing sight of the enemy. In the Petit Palais, for a franc, we can 22 A GREEN TENT IN FLANDERS wander past the glories of the tapestries ofRheims and other reUcs now doubly preciousas we find them ours again after their hair-breadth escape from plundering The sunshine gleams on the gilding of thisour entrenched camp, but we play no new-sought answering facets. We are irrespon-sive, self-centred, silent. There are noclanking motor busses, hardly any all subway stations large, sombre, funnel-shaped crowds are greedily sucked in, or A GREEN TENT IN FLANDERS 28 shot out fanlike and scurry away. Taxiscarry the more fortunate. The streets aredark at night, except where blue shadowsover rare lamps throw wan circles of light onto the pavements. Ostentatious joy and itsvotaries make their profits elsewhere. Foronce Paris is at home and alone. I change my Italian money at a bank andam given only sixteen francs for everytwenty lire—the backlash of all the fatprofits made on American money changed inItaly. I even, in answer to an appeal, dis-gorge my showy *^ Californian coins, drop-ping them into the Banque de France andthus earn, all too easily, as gilding of thedull-looking exchange, a souvenir certificate
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
