Antwerp to Gallipoli: A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind ThemRuhl, Arthur
History
Antwerp to Gallipoli: A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them
Ruhl, Arthur
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Down the centre in the open carriages flows a stream of women--and many
look like Nazimova--social distinctions so ironed out with enamel,
paint, and powder that almost all might be café chantant singers or
dressmakers' marionettes. Some cities have eagles on their crests, and
some volcanoes. If you were going to design a postage-stamp for
Bucarest, it struck me that the natural thing would be a woman in the
corner of an open victoria--after seeing scores of them all alike, you
feel as though you could do it in a minute: one slashing line for the
hat, two coal-black holes, and a dash of carmine in a patch of marble
white, and a pair of silk-covered ankles crossed and pointed in a way
that seems Parisian enough after one has become used to the curious
boxes in which women enclose their feet in Berlin. Coming up from
Bulgaria, which is not unlike coming from Idaho or Montana; or from
Turkey, where women as something to be seen of men in public do not
exist; or even across from the simple plains of Hungary, these enamelled
orchids flowing forever down the asphalt seem at the moment to sum up
the place--they are Bucarest.
Officers in light blue, in mauve and maroon--mincing butterflies, who
look as if an hour's march in the sun would send them to the hospital,
ogle them from the sidewalk. Along with them are many young bloods out
of uniform, barbered and powdered like chorus men made up for their
work. You will see few young men in Europe with whom the notion of
general conscription and the horrors of war can be associated with less
regret.
Streams of more frugal nymphs, without victorias but with the same
rakish air, push along with the sidewalk crowd, hats pinned like a wafer
over one ear, coiffures drawn trimly up from powdered necks. Waiters
scurry about; the café tables, crowded in these days with politicians,
amateur diplomats, spies, ammunition agents, Heaven knows what, push out
on the sidewalk. The people on the sidewalk are crowded into the
street, motors honk, hoofs clatter, the air is filled with automobile
smoke, the smoke carries the smell of cigarettes and coffee and women's
perfumes--it is "Bucarest joyeux!"
Some French music-hall singer--when I came through it was Miss Nita-Jo--
will tell you all about it at one of the open-air theatres in the
evening. All about the people you bump into in this sunset promenade--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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