Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/3

chapter 1

The Spring of 1935 invaded Paris with thunder and lightning. Then the wind gave up, leaving behind a steady rain that continued for days.

Early Sunday morning the sun broke through. It was a pale and naked sun taking her morning bath in the tidal heavens. The sharp-edged clouds, like ice-blocks in a polar sea pierced her lambent body, until the sky oozed with blood with radiant red that streamed down the rousing city, adding color to the winding streets that stretched like opened nerve-fibers of a fevered brain inflamed and tormented with cosmic problems.

An illusionary quiet lay over the city. The rain-washed pavements like black satin against the grey of the buildings, the red of the window-panes-grey, black and purple-wrapped in the mist of the dawn.

Along the sidewalks the chestnut trees were budding, their growth thwarted by iron bars reaching upward. In the dim alleys hungry dogs and homeless people were prowling in the garbage cans. The concierges were sweeping the fronts of their houses. Jingling street-cars and rattling taxis were racing through the indefinite distance. The morning papers appeared on the stands flanked by popular magazines flaunting their nudes at the passersby.

In the Bois-de-Boulogne fashionable Parisiennes on graceful horses were prancing along the bridle-path. Then the