Eveline Hutchins and Paul Johnson

Eveline Hutchins and Paul Johnson’s relationship grows in Paris from an awkward closeness into a shared commitment shaped by war, loneliness, and an unplanned pregnancy. Their May courtship briefly gives them a picture of a life after military service—work, marriage, and a return to America—but the discovery that Eveline is going to have a baby turns that imagined future into an immediate decision. Paul offers marriage; Eveline chooses to have the child. The relationship ends at a threshold, with their intentions stated but their future not yet secured.

First Attraction and Uneasy Closeness

During the Paris general strike, Eveline is with Paul and Don Stevens as they try to understand the scattered unrest. Paul answers Don’s question about events in the city, and when Paul raises his hands in mock surrender, Eveline jokes that they should find food first. Inwardly, she recognizes that she likes Paul better than Don. This preference is a first clear sign of the attachment forming between them, although it has not yet become an open courtship.

The three find a crowded restaurant, where Eveline sits close enough for her leg to press against Paul’s. She does not move; Paul, blushing, shifts his chair and apologizes. The small exchange establishes an early pattern in their intimacy: Eveline permits and even welcomes closeness, while Paul is self-conscious about how to respond. Their surroundings offer a wider measure of the day’s disappointment. Two older men complain that the supposed general strike has produced little action, and Don buys them wine. Against that public talk of labor and liberty, Eveline and Paul’s hesitant physical awareness is private and nascent.

Courtship in May

The next evening, Paul is waiting at Eveline’s apartment in a new uniform obtained through a friend in the quartermaster’s stores. Eveline praises his appearance, and he returns the compliment. They go to dinner at Noël Peters’, where Paul, buoyed by a month’s pay and his ration allowance, talks about what he might do after returning to America. His father wants him to enter a grain broker’s office in Minneapolis; Paul would rather try his luck in New York before settling into a career. Eveline is less certain about her own plans. She knows only that she does not want to resume the life she had before and imagines that she might remain in Paris.

Their difference in confidence briefly unsettles the evening. Paul explains that Paris feels better when he is with her and speaks as though her attention is a generosity he must be grateful for. Eveline dislikes this humility and becomes angry. Yet she also admits that she has felt miserable, as though what she wanted were crumbling away just as she reached for it. Paul answers not with an explanation but with an effort to cheer her. When diners begin dancing polkas among the tables, they join in. Paul dances awkwardly, but having his arms around him makes Eveline feel better and temporarily quiets her loneliness. Their closeness is not only flirtation: it becomes a form of comfort, even as her distress remains unresolved.

They continue the evening on the boulevards and in a dancehall, moving among other couples while talking about loneliness and what each wants. Paul doubts that Eveline could be lonely when so many people appear to be pursuing her. She suggests that he might be dangerous too. Later, after dancing cheek to cheek, she says she may want marriage and a baby. Paul is embarrassed and does not answer with a promise. Eveline watches a young French soldier kiss the girl he is dancing with and wishes she were in the girl’s place. The scene makes her desire for ordinary, mutual affection distinct from the attention she says surrounds her.

From Dancing to a Shared Future

After drinking, Paul and Eveline take a taxi and begin kissing in its darkened back. Eveline asks to go to his room rather than her own because she fears her concierge. They reach Paul’s small room after passing the old hotel keeper who controls the keys. Paul is drunk and laughing; once they are alone, he approaches her with shining eyes. He falls asleep soon after they get into bed, his head on Eveline’s shoulder. She gets up to put out the light and open the window, then returns to his warmth. Unable to sleep, she hears a puppy whining somewhere in the building and experiences the sound as an echo of something imprisoned and restless within herself. Their night together brings physical closeness, but it does not dissolve her loneliness or uncertainty.

The next day, they spend time together instead of attending their separate obligations: Eveline reports sick to the American Red Cross, and Paul forgets the Sorbonne. At a café near the Madeleine, they make plans to return to America as soon as possible, find jobs in New York, and marry. Paul hopes to study engineering in his spare time and thinks he can obtain work with a grain-and-feed firm in Jersey City through his father’s friends. Eveline imagines restarting her decorating business. Paul now seems happy and confident rather than apologetic. Eveline repeatedly tells herself that he has substance, that she loves him, and that a life together can be made. The plans give the relationship practical shape, though they remain hopes rather than accomplished changes.

Pregnancy and an Unsettled Commitment

For the rest of May they are almost continually lightheaded and spend their pay quickly, eating instead at inexpensive table d’hôte restaurants alongside students, working people, and clerks. On a Sunday in June, they walk through the forest at St. Germain. Eveline suffers spells of nausea and weakness and has to lie on the grass several times; Paul becomes deeply worried. When they reach the Seine River, they cross on a small ferry rowed by an old man. Halfway across, Eveline tells Paul she is going to have a baby. The news transforms their earlier plans: the question is no longer only where to work or what sort of future to try, but what responsibility they will take on immediately.

Paul says that he had not planned for a child and regrets not having married her sooner. He proposes that they marry at once and says he will find out how to obtain permission to marry in the American Expeditionary Forces. He also admits that the pregnancy changes his plans. Eveline answers dryly that it changes hers as well, comparing the situation to going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. His tears and question about how he can make it up to her convey remorse, but do not erase the shock or uncertainty between them.

On the train back to Paris, they sit facing each other in silence, their knees touching. Eveline finally says she wants to have the baby and that they will have to go through everything in life. Paul nods. The train enters a tunnel, and she can no longer see his face. Their relationship therefore closes this episode with an agreement about the child and a proposed marriage, not with proof that the marriage has occurred or that their American plans will succeed. The tunnel makes the ending a pause at the edge of an unknown future: intimacy and intention are present, while the consequences still lie ahead.