Chapter 2

Georges, having commenced his regular three years’ military service in October, 1913,7 got leave to visit his aunt who was keeping a pension in Paris.

How shy and confused he was when I came down to the dining-room that day and surprised him while he was examining his too-faint mustache with great seriousness before the mirror! Charming, I thought him, instantly; a clean, jolly sort of boy, quite too young for that ridiculous soldier’s uniform.

His aunt introduced him (with her arm about his shoulder and a tweak of his ear) by his nickname, “Coco”; and, after he got used to my being a foreigner, he began to talk, using his big brown eyes and his free, expressive¹ hands quite as much as his tongue. Knowing a little of the Midi, I attempted an imitation of the patois². Coco threw back his head and laughed with abandon. That broke the ice, and we became great friends.

He was so curious about everything American that I took him up to my salon³ to8 see my typewriter; also my neckties and fancy socks.

“But what’s this?” asked Coco, reading with his funny French pronunciation, “A-mer-i-cain Pencil Compagnie.” It was a novelty, a “perpetual” pencil of the self-sharpening sort, with a magazine filled with little points like cartridges⁴. When I gave it to him, it pleased Coco immensely.

“Just like a rifle!” he exclaimed, as he amused himself by pressing the end and ejecting the bits of lead. He went through the manual of arms with it, laughing; he did a mock bayonet thrust or two, and then aimed it at me in fun, like a child. “Pan!” he cried; “that’s the way we shoot Germans!” The contrast of his red pantaloons and blue coat with the round, innocent face and lips parted like a girl’s was absurd. Why, he was more like those doll soldiers you see at toyshops with curly hair! With his fresh9 pink cheeks and big brown eyes he seemed no more than sixteen years old.

In the evening we all went out on the crowded Boulevard, where, it being a fête day, they were dancing in front of the open-air band stands. It was a long time before I ceased to think of Coco as jolly, flushed, exuberant⁵, dancing the Tango on the corner by the Sorbonne with his pretty young aunt, as excited and happy as only a lad can be who has come up from a provincial⁶ town to see the metropolis⁷ for the first time on a holiday.

That was on the 14th of July of 1914. Next day he went back to his caserne at Montauban.

In two weeks war was declared!

Coco, our own blithe⁸ Coco, would have to go to the front—oh, his aunt’s white face that day!—and Coco would be in the first line! It seemed like some hideous⁹ mistake.10 But already Coco, pink-cheeked, laughing, shy, his mother’s only boy, was well on his way toward the German shells and machine guns!

1 expressive   

adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的

参考例句：

• Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
• He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的，富于表情的，生动活泼的脸。

2 patois   

n.方言；混合语

参考例句：

• In France patois was spoken in rural,less developed regions.在法国，欠发达的农村地区说方言。
• A substantial proportion of the population speak a French-based patois.人口中有一大部分说以法语为基础的混合语。

3 salon   

n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室

参考例句：

• Do you go to the hairdresser or beauty salon more than twice a week?你每周去美容院或美容沙龙多过两次吗？
• You can hear a lot of dirt at a salon.你在沙龙上会听到很多流言蜚语。

4 cartridges   

子弹( cartridge的名词复数 )； （打印机的）墨盒； 录音带盒； （唱机的）唱头

参考例句：

• computer consumables such as disks and printer cartridges 如磁盘、打印机墨盒之类的电脑耗材
• My new video game player came with three game cartridges included. 我的新电子游戏机附有三盘游戏带。

5 exuberant   

adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的

参考例句：

• Hothouse plants do not possess exuberant vitality.在温室里培养出来的东西，不会有强大的生命力。
• All those mother trees in the garden are exuberant.果园里的那些母树都长得十分茂盛。

6 provincial   

adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人

参考例句：

• City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
• Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。

7 metropolis   

n.首府；大城市

参考例句：

• Shanghai is a metropolis in China.上海是中国的大都市。
• He was dazzled by the gaiety and splendour of the metropolis.大都市的花花世界使他感到眼花缭乱。

8 blithe   

adj.快乐的，无忧无虑的

参考例句：

• Tonight,however,she was even in a blithe mood than usual.但是，今天晚上她比往常还要高兴。
• He showed a blithe indifference to her feelings.他显得毫不顾及她的感情。

9 hideous   

adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的

参考例句：

• The whole experience had been like some hideous nightmare.整个经历就像一场可怕的噩梦。
• They're not like dogs,they're hideous brutes.它们不像狗，是丑陋的畜牲。