The village is celebrating I don’t know how many years of destruction. The band goes blaring by below my apartment. Among the crowd of youngsters following it I recognize someone who was tried about three weeks ago; he has a patch over his right eye and his cheek is pocked with barely healed scabs. 

There are people the sea doesn’t suit, they prefer the mountains or the plain. Personally, I feel no worse there than anywhere else. Much of my life has ebbed away before this shivering expanse, to the sound of waves in storm and calm, and the claws of the surf.

She never knew the brittle rose would wake
    The far-off dormant egypt of its day
That she entombed; spring gave, autumn would take

    Then make a Dragon of the Time and check
Saint George the Heart, and look you ride to ruin
By the ruffled Mere before the Beast can wreck

He came thus to Europe, caught
in the legacy of his grandfathers
the looks of his bony aristocratic woman

Well, here you are. July ’14. We’re in the Avenue du Bois. And here we have three somewhat nervy Parisiennes. Ladies of the time— time of Gyp. So then, for God’s sake, we hear what they’re saying. And along the Avenue du Bois, along the allée cavalère goes a general, his aide de camp bringing up the rear, on horseback, of course, on horseback.