It is still warm, damp and slow here. There is little news.
My English pupil shows signs of progress. Our plan is to visit the house of a friend of hers, study from about 8 to 9; then have tea in the little garden in back of the house, and talk till 9:45 or 10. Then we go our separate ways. This friend is a middle aged woman, who lives right around the corner from our quarters. About 6 years ago she lived in America. Oh yes, she knows all about the U.S. Didn’t she live 4 months in Bound Brook, N.J.? She talks in a sort of shattered English, and tells how she took a train in Bound Brook to go to the movies in Plainfield, but ended up in Philadelphia. Her husband was doing some work for Pathé, the movie people, in their Bound Brook plant. I enjoy these visits.
I spend the little spare time I have during the day, in studying the maps. You see, to write intelligently about a photo, one really ought to know where it was taken and its relation to current operations in the war. So I have to bone up on the various war zones, so as to be able to say with surety whether Chateau-Thiery is in Sweden or Madagascar.
Tonight there is a ball game between the Stills and the Movies. I can’t go because I’m due to go on guard in a few minutes. They play down in a large drill ground in the park.
Most of the people around here live in apartments. They are much like American ones, but have no elevators. The minute you come into a room they close the windows. I never saw such a passion for stuffiness as the people seem to have. And dogs – there are more dogs than people. France’s food problem would be appreciably lightened if she got rid of 80 per cent of her dogs. But I have seen very few dogs in apartments.
The private houses hereabouts are not very pretentious. They’re just comfortable. They are not detached houses, as a rule, but each has its little garden in front and big one in back planted with trees, grass and flowers. Most always you will find the family around a table, eating supper in the garden. It is a nice comfortable life they live. They may work hard during the day, but at night there is always the garden. The class of people who live around here seem content with that. I don’t know whether they get tired of one another’s company. I doubt if they read anything but the newspapers and some cheap paper-bound books concerning the amorous adventures of young girls in great cities, etc.
Magazines of the class of Harper’s, or even Metropolitan or Munsey’s, I have not found. They have literary reviews; Le Rire, which is like Life; and illustrated news weeklies like The Times Pictorial. I’ve never found a library.
I miss books somewhat, though I don’t know when I’d have time to read. Jack has a book about movied people, written by his cousin, Rob Wagner, which I think I’ll borrow. That will help.
Must stop now and get some sleep before I go on guard.
Next post August 2.
Letters from Sidney Friend During The Great War 