The Love of an Unknown Soldier Found in a Dug-Out | Page 3

met. I had been so bold as to ask you to come to lunch, and you, quite wonderfully, had accepted. I think I remember every step and emotion of that walk up to the ChampsElysees to call for you. You'd never guess how long I spent in polishing my belt and buttons. Yes, men are like that. Are you smiling? Perhaps you had spent just as long in making yourself beautiful. I should like to think that.
And my emotions! Shall I be frank? They were awfully muddled. They were made up of longing, hope, doubt and the terror that I might appear absurd. The longing was all for you. The hope was that you might be sharing my longing. The doubt was lest I might have idealized a memory which, when I saw you, would fade into reality. Oh, the heresy of me! I feared lest you might be actually quite ordinary, like any other of the many girls who crowd the world. And then my terror lest I might appear absurd I wonder if girls know it. You see, a man in love is at such a disadvantage; he is not sure that he is cared for in return. I had no right to that assurance I, a mere stranger who had met you once.
I came to your hotel. When I inquired for you of the concierge, he seemed to distrust me. He answered me gruffly that he would apprise you of my presence. When he returned he informed me with jealous reluctance that Mademoiselle would presently descend. 1 waited. Heavens, how long I waited! It was five minutes probably; but it seemed a century. As each second ticked by I grew more and more dissatisfied with my conduct. How impertinent you must think me to presume on this slight acquaintance !
Your footstep on the stairs! A gentle rustling! You were standing before me, girlish and friendly, offering me the frailness of your hand. As I touched it a novel happiness swam through me. I felt alive, exalted and somehow rested the way one does in hospital when one reckons up the days of one's probable respite from cold and fighting and discomfort. What I write is inadequate. It doesn't express a tithe of what I felt. I have spoken of the touch of your hand, but I think it was the sympathy in your eyes that touched me.
We were out in the Avenue, all shyness gone, the frost in the wind tingling against our faces. We caught a tram and lost ourselves; caught another and recognized where we were going. All the while we were chatting, asking questions and breaking in with new questions on each other's answers. Then we alighted and walked for the mere fun of walking. I suppose you'll never know how proud I was to be seen beside you. You didn't notice how people paused to gaze after you. You wouldn't; one of your dearest qualities is your gay unconsciousness of self. But picture me, fresh from the defilement of battle-fields, where man's only hope is to die as heroically as he can; where one never sees a woman or children; where one dare not encourage tenderness lest one should become a coward; where all beauty, save of the soul, and every ambition for the future is blotted out. Here was I, a Lazarus restored from the dead, walking beside the most beautiful girl in Paris. It was wonderful, don't you think, to a man who had been so long buried that the earth was as yet scarcely out of his eyes? The fun we had at the cafe where we went for lunch do you remember that? The choosing of the courses! The way you concealed your smile at my halting French and at last came to my rescue! Our laughter at the curious people all of them kind, but not all of them respectable! And who were we that we should laugh at others we two who, by such strange chances, had found each other from all across the world? When we left it was snowing, not hard but in little puffy flakes like jewels that settled on your hair and furs. 1 didn't want to lose you, so proposed a visit to the Luxembourg. By luck we found a taxi and, when the doors were shut, were for the first time alone together. It was a strange sensation. Our words faltered; we fell into a trembling silence. This alone ness, which I feared, was the thing which for months I had most desired. I felt so keenly aware of you; your beauty was almost painful. I wondered then, as I have wondered so many times, whether you had guessed. I can see you now the clear profile of your face against