Evening star., 1919-08-17
DY ANNE RITTENHOUsE.

AsAo, aug. 4, l5lc.
HERE is an abundance of emo
ttonalism still rioting through
i Paris. The American does not
want to escape 1t. She, or he,
has come across the water to catch
the thrill Of II. The French say.
"Peace-perhaps." The American
says. "Let us make the most of IT,"
And so the streets of Paris have
been crowded on the gala nights with
segments of the U. s. A. making the
most of it, considerably aided by tho
French girls. They ride. shouting, in
huge camions. waving flags; they
swirl and dance under the trees; they
form In long lines and do the step of
the West Pointers after the Army and
Navy foot ball games. q concerted
movement that never fails to stir the
French crowd to cheers.
The welfare workers do their part
in the gala work, not so boisterously
as our men, but with emphasis. never
theless. When this is printed the
shouting of all these people will have
died down, for much of the gayety is
due to the fact that they are on the
last step OF the long, long trail that
leads home.
X X X
The French people do not smile as
they see the millions depart with their
purses, their hunger and thirst, their
desire for gifts. And what smiles
there have been were suddenly turned
melancholy when the news spread like
prairie fire through France that the
u. 8. A. would refuse passports to
tourists.
But whatever comes after, one feels
that one has lived. To have seen Paris
in the peace week was to have run
the gamut of emotions. Those who
have been here for years took it quiet
ly; those of US who landed just in
time to run into it felt that life had
suddenly become almost too vital to
bear.
There was the first afternoon the
cannon doomed from in front of Ma
poleon's tomb and the people looked
up to the skies with the unconscious
movement Of the jungle folk who are
Mortified at the sound that means
danger and death. Then the quick
reaction into buoyancy at realization
Of this new meaning of cannon; that
1t was no longer an air raid or Big
Bertha.
The wild street scenes at night were
merely a prelude to the ones to come
on that Saturday that saw the actual
signing. To hear the cannon booming
on Saturday afternoon down the
boulevards was ecstasy perhaps. but
to hear it from the window Of an old
French house in the old quarter Of
Paris, where flve or six centuries had
brought their news Of JOY and calam-
ity, was to experience that kind Of
panic Of emotion that seems to lift,
for f1eeting second, the veil that
happily screens all tumults that have
gone and are to come.
Down in the old courtyard of the
house sat solitary figure in home-
spun, knitting. who neither looked up
nor moved. the only silent figure in
the panorama of JOY expressed at the
windows. "She is too old to care"
said the hostess. she has seen so
the surcease from pain, one wonders?
Diving down from the kaleidoscope
streets that Saturday night into the
depths Of railroad station, the peace
commission and the journalists said
goodbye to President Wilson. and
again color and music and cere-
fnonial gayety kept ones sensations
hammering tattoo on the BRAIN For
there we who had just landed saw the
big figures in the drama closeup. So
many celebrities were crowded into
that place that 1t was like seeing the
making Of history in action. Crimson
carpets framed with long line Of
blue statues at salute. poilus by name,
masses Of pungent flowers, the cere-
riloniai procession headed by the
american President and filled in with
fthe Tiger" Poincare and madame,
Jusserand and madame. Gen. Pershing
and .Geps Bliss. Andre Tardieu, the
Japanese, delegation, and all those
whose names have reverberated
through the corridors of gossip until
one got to feel they held the destinies
of the world in their very human