Paris: The Novel

mother was all smiles. God forbid that any French family should not have food on the table for a guest. Though it was as well, Thomas thought, that it was Sunday, or there might not have been enough. “Did you go to Mass today?” she asked Édith.
    “
Oui, madame
. With my mother,” Édith answered.
    “You hear that?” said his mother to Nicole. “Perhaps you will accompany me next Sunday, instead of lazing in bed.”
    “I was tired, Maman,” said Nicole irritably.
    “Passy, eh?” said Monsieur Gascon. “Elegant quarter.”
    “We used to have a farm there, monsieur,” said Édith, “but not anymore.”
    “And what do you do, if I may ask?” inquired Thomas’s mother.
    “I help my mother, madame. She’s the caretaker of the Lycée Janson de Sailly. But I also help my aunt Adeline. She has a very good position with Monsieur Ney the attorney, and it may be that I can take her place one day.”
    “Janson de Sailly,” said his father. “I hear that’s very chic already.”
    Thomas watched his mother making her own calculations with this information, while Nicole was eyeing Édith’s skirt and blouse, and her shoes. The clothes looked all right to him. What Nicole thought of them he couldn’t guess. Judging by his mother’s expression, she hadn’t made up her mind yet, but wasn’t especially impressed.
    “This year I started work as a housemaid in a doctor’s house near the Place de Clichy,” Nicole announced.
    “That sounds like a good position,” said Édith politely.
    Nicole shrugged.
    “It’s all right.”
    There was enough food. A big plate of haricots verts appeared. There was even meat, though Thomas saw his mother discreetly cut two of the portions to a smaller size, to provide for Édith. There was a fruit pie. He was glad that his family could eat respectably on a Sunday, and supposed that the money he gave his mother must be helping them to do so. Theytalked of this and that. His mother discovered that Édith was an only child.
    Luc had been observing Édith, but unusually for him, he’d been rather silent so far. Édith asked him what he was planning to work at when he grew up.
    “I shall work in Montmartre, like I do now,” he answered cheerfully. “And then I am going to be a great comedian, and make a fortune.”
    “Oh,” said Édith.
    “It’s better than working,” said Luc.
    “He’s joking,” said Thomas, though he wasn’t sure that his brother was joking at all.
    To make conversation, Thomas told them how they had taken a tram, and how Édith had nearly fallen.
    “Ah,” said his father. “Thomas is working on his great tower, and people will come from all over the world to see it, but when they see how we move around the city, we shall be ashamed.”
    “Why?” asked his wife.
    “In London they have steam trains that take you all over the city. They go underground, many of them. We still have nothing like that.”
    “And in New York,” Luc chimed in, “they have elevated trains.”
    “The English and the Americans can do what they like,” said Édith, “but why should we spoil the beauty of Paris with soot and steam and hideous rail tracks everywhere? They may be more modern, but we are more civilized.”
    “I agree,” said Thomas’s mother, with approval. “Life is more civilized here.”
    After the meal, Thomas and Édith stepped out into the unpaved streets of the Maquis, and he walked her up the hill to the Moulin de la Galette. The day was clear but cold, and although it was a Sunday, there weren’t many people up there. Then he took her through the little square where the artists liked to paint. There were just three men out there, wrapped in heavy overcoats and scarves, but doggedly applying paint to canvas. They looked at them for a few minutes, then proceeded to the great building site of Sacré Coeur. Though the huge stone walls of the church were steadily rising, all one could see at present was a great fortress of scaffolding in a sea of mud.
    But from the edge of the hill beside it there was still a magnificent view.
    “There are the towers of Notre Dame.” Thomas pointed them outproudly. The golden domes of the Opéra, only a mile away, and Les Invalides farther off. “And there”—he indicated the site some way to the right of Les Invalides on the panorama—“that’s where Monsieur Eiffel’s tower will soar above them all.” He smiled. “I know the Maquis is a bit primitive, but I love Montmartre. There’s nowhere