Читать книгу Mary Jane in France - Clara Ingram Judson - Страница 5

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Mary Jane had thought that by now she was a very experienced traveler. She had crossed the ocean and she had been in two countries, England and Scotland. No, three countries, for a person must not forget the short drive the Merrills had had thru Wales when they were doing the sights of Chester. But the station in Paris made her realize how little experience she had had after all, for she felt bewildered by the confusion and noise. At first she thought something dreadful must be happening. Then, as they followed the travel man and stood where he told them to stand while Mr. Merrill got their luggage thru the customs, she saw that nothing was happening except the arrival of travelers. The noise was partly from the excitable French people and partly due to the strangeness of hearing a new language. Words didn’t sound like words; they sounded like noise and it was some minutes before Mary Jane happened to think that other people understand what all that jabber was about.

“When I go back to school,” remarked she, after she had watched two little French girls talking together happily in what seemed to her a ridiculous noise, “I’m going to learn to speak French—and German, too, and lots more,” she added, recklessly.

“I thought I could understand a few words,” confessed Alice, who had privately been studying a phrase book in the hope of surprising her family. “But so far, I haven’t heard a word that sounds a bit like anything in the book.”

“I think you’ll do better with signs than with any French you could teach yourself, dear,” said Mrs. Merrill. “But it’s well to try. If you pay attention, maybe you can pick up a few words while we are here. That would be a start in studying it after you get home.”

Alice listened determinedly as various groups of French speaking people passed by, but there wasn’t much time for learning. In a few minutes Mr. Merrill returned and reported that their luggage was free and the taxi ordered.

“Come this way, ladies,” said the guide, in excellent English and Mary Jane and Alice followed thru the station to the carriage entrance. There they were tucked into a small, rather dingy taxicab that shot away at a breath taking speed the minute the door was shut.

The girls had planned to observe a lot on their way to the hotel. But they had not counted on the Paris taxicabs. Their driver dashed ahead, honking loudly thru heavy traffic, darting here and there when he could possibly get thru and stopping so suddenly when he couldn’t that the drive from the station was only a blur of buildings, cabs, streets, cars, noise and the most obvious thing Mary Jane got on the way was a very stiff neck from the sudden jerks.

With a grand flourish, the taxi stopped in front of the Louvre Hotel and people and bags were set out and the driver paid and off before Mary Jane quite knew what had happened to her. Mr. Merrill seated the girls by a great window that looked out on the street, while he made arrangements for rooms and Mrs. Merrill inquired for mail.

“Well, if that’s what is called a ride in a taxi,” said Alice as she settled herself in the great chair, “I, for one, am going to walk. It’s the only way to be sure of my neck.”

“But look! They all do that way!” exclaimed Mary Jane, pointing to the cabs darting by the hotel. “It wasn’t just our driver. They all do it.”

“The more reason for walking,” laughed Alice. “But maybe it isn’t as dangerous as it seems at first. Maybe we could get used to it.” (And, indeed, they did, surprisingly soon, and were as eager for taxi rides as in England.)

There wasn’t time for more than a glimpse down a long street, so absorbing were the taxicabs near by, before Mr. Merrill came for them and they went upstairs to their rooms. The elevators were called lifts, as in England, the girls discovered, and it was no surprise that the first floor was really the second on account of the word “ground floor” being used for our first as in England. So they got off at the “first floor” and followed the boy down a long, long corridor to the very end, then to the right where he showed them into a comfortable looking room, smaller than some they had had, but nicely furnished. Mary Jane looked around quickly and decided at once that she liked it. There were two beds, a great mantel with a mirror as high as the ceiling. There was a desk and dresser, some chairs, and two great windows heavily curtained with thick, rose colored drapes. While she was still looking around, the boy went to the windows and opened them like doors, showing a small, narrow balcony and then, stepping back near the door to the hall, he showed them the bathroom—a real luxury that they had hardly expected.

“But where do we sleep?” asked Mary Jane, looking at the beds that, while large for one, would be far too small for two.

“Right here, Miss,” said the boy, in excellent English, as he pushed aside some heavy rose curtains near the desk and unlocked a large door into an adjoining room that was a smaller edition of the main room only without the bathroom attached.

“Now did you ever see anything better?” cried Mary Jane, gleefully, as she peeped into the larger room to make sure the boy had gone. “Such grand windows! Curtains like in Windsor Castle! Mirrors like a picture book! Oh, but I’m glad I came to France.” And as she danced in and out of the two rooms, peeping out of the windows, poking into the great closets and primping before the mirror, so quickly that she seemed to be every place at once.

“So am I,” agreed Alice. “But I’ll be gladder when I’ve had a bath.”

“That’s an idea worth thinking of,” laughed Mrs. Merrill, as she quickly unpacked her smallest traveling bag and made herself at home. “I’m in favor of tubs and changes and then getting out for a walk. It’s after seven now and if we don’t look carefully to our ways, we’ll have a certain person not far from me saying that they are starving—long before we are ready to eat. And I for one would like to walk around the block before dinner.”

“The same to all of that for me,” said Mr. Merrill. “Moreover, the first person tubbed and dressed may sit in this big chair pulled up to the window. And believe me, there’s a lot going on to watch, but it’s no fair to look till you’re ready for dinner.”

Without even tempting themselves by a glance out of the window, the two girls went into their room, laid out clothes and brushes; then took quick tubs and in just twenty-two minutes were ready for dinner. The chair that Mr. Merrill had pulled to the big French windows for them was so big that Alice sat way back in it and Mary Jane middling back and both were very comfortable, and could see out nicely.

In front of them was a tiny balcony with an iron railing, prettily scrolled. Peering thru this they could see an open square below. It seemed almost a block wide and there was a great building on the opposite side. In the center of the square was a taxicab stand and it was very thrilling to watch the cabs come and go. One would come dashing along the street and then, with a quick turn that sent pedestrians scurrying right and left, it would dart into the part reserved for the waiting cabs. Then, after that rush and hurry, the driver would calmly slouch down in his seat and doze off in the laziest fashion as tho there was all the time in the world. The first few cabs they saw startled the girls and they thought surely there would be an accident. But they quickly got used to it and could laugh heartily, as did the bystanders around, at the scurrying pedestrians.

“I think they just drive that way for fun to amuse themselves,” said Mary Jane. “They’re not really in a hurry. Look at that man going to sleep already—and he was the rushingest one of all we have seen yet!”

“I wonder if they always make so much noise,” said Mrs. Merrill, as she came to look out over the girls’ heads. “Seems to me I never heard so much confusion in my life as right here on this square.”

“Maybe it’s because it is evening and they are finishing up for the day,” suggested Mr. Merrill. “Let’s go out and see if the noise seems as great when we are outside.”

They locked their doors and strolled downstairs and soon were around the corner walking on the street below their own windows. The cabs seemed just as dashing and hurried and the noise just as great—but there was so much to see that after the first minute of listening the girls paid no attention to anything but sights.

“That’s the Palais Royal over there,” Mr. Merrill explained, nodding backward over his left shoulder, “and this street we are coming to is the famous Rue de Rivoli. That is where there are shops, so likely we shall see more of it before we are thru. But let’s go on around our hotel now and see the Avenue de l’Opéra, that begins right at our front door.”

“How ever did you learn so much?” exclaimed Alice, admiringly.

“I looked at a map while you were exploring the rooms,” laughed her father, “but don’t ask me questions because I only know right around our hotel—so far.”

“Well, I want to know which is the Avenue de l’Opéra,” said Mary Jane, saying the words very carefully so as to be sure to get them right. “Is this it around the fountains?”

“Dear me, no!” laughed Mrs. Merrill, “they are just the beginning. The Avenue is the street right in front of you, child. See how wide and handsome it is? And not very long, either, only as long as from here to that great building down there—see? A few blocks away.”

With reckless disregard of passing cars and buses and the opinion of anyone who might look, the girls stood at the edge of the sidewalk and looked down the street past fountains and traffic and buildings to the great opera house some blocks away.

“Is that all the street is?” exclaimed Mary Jane.

“Only that,” said Mr. Merrill, “but it’s one of the famous streets of the world, so we’ll walk up and down, to say nothing of riding many times, till we know what it looks like with our eyes shut.”

“Well, I’ll like that,” Alice agreed. “But I’ll like, too, to sit on the sidewalk and eat like those people are over there,” she added, nodding her head across the street where rows of chairs were occupied by people eating at small round tables.

“Why, Alice Merrill! They are!” cried Mary Jane, excitedly, “Oh, Daddah, let’s!”

“Sometime, but not to-night,” her father promised. “Now we have seen quite enough for the minute, and I suggest we go into a quiet dining room and have the best French dinner some experienced waiter can order for us.”

That sounded even better than a jolly experiment like eating at a sidewalk table so, without regret, the girls followed their father indoors, thru the lobby and into a small dining room with great windows overlooking the Rue de Rivoli. Their waiter spoke excellent English and on his advice dishes for which that particular hotel was famous were selected. And by the time she had eaten delicious French fried potatoes and grilled chicken and salad with the dressing tossed over it at the table right before their eyes, Mary Jane began to feel more at home and quite satisfied with France.

But the most fun of the meal was a great, white, luscious Baked Alaska that was the best, oh, by far, of any the girls had ever eaten. They ate it up—to the last spoonful and when it was gone Mary Jane remarked, “If all our days in France are as nice as our first evening, I think I’m going to like it here pretty well.”