Nice

Nice is the destination of Eveline Hutchins’s two-week leave in March, but it becomes more than a sunny respite from Paris: the holiday’s languor gives way to an unexpected reunion with J.W. Moorehouse and a decision to leave with him. Its hotels, cafés, promenades, and coastal roads form the setting for a shift from disappointment to excitement, and then to a restless night before the planned return north.

A planned escape from Paris

Eveline and Eleanor Stoddard arrange to travel south together while Eleanor is on her way to Rome to wind up the office’s affairs there. After the damp cold of Paris, the prospect of warmer weather makes the preparations feel like an adventure to Eveline. They pack, secure sleeping-car reservations, and have their transport orders signed. Mr. Rasmussen sees them off at the Gare de Lyon, where he orders a large dinner that Eveline is too excited to eat. The details of departure—coalsmoke, luggage, papers, and the train—make the trip feel like a carefully arranged break from the routines and pressures of Paris.

The send-off is crowded with awkward attentions. Paul Johnson arrives to help with the bags, looking gloomy and disheveled, with a missing uniform button; he declines food but drinks several glasses of wine. Jerry Burnham appears drunk and carrying a large bouquet of roses, while Mr. Rasmussen and Paul look on with visible displeasure. As the train starts, Paul scrambles off, and Mr. Rasmussen passes papers and Jerry’s flowers through the window before waving from the platform. Once Nice is finally in reach, the departure itself has already exposed the competing attachments and expectations surrounding Eveline’s leave.

Arrival and the holiday’s letdown

The train passes through Marseilles, where Eveline feels a pang at not stopping to see the town. Eleanor has insisted on going directly to Nice because she dislikes the sordidness of seaports. The next view restores Eveline’s spirits: over coffee in the dining car, she sees pines, dry hills, headlands, and blue patches of the Mediterranean. The contrast between the town she had hoped to visit and the landscape opening around the train gives the journey a brief surge of promise.

In Nice, the two women find a good hotel and walk among wounded soldiers and officers from the Allied armies. They stroll along the Promenade des Anglais beneath grey palm trees. Yet the mild weather and resort scenery do not immediately make the leave satisfying. Eveline begins to feel disappointed that her precious two weeks may be wasted there. Eleanor remains briskly cheerful and suggests a drink at a large café on the square, where a brass band plays. They sit watching the uniforms and overdressed women, but the afternoon does not supply a plan or purpose. Eveline’s question about what they should do once they have arrived marks the gap between the holiday she had anticipated and the idle time she now faces.

J.W. Moorehouse’s arrival

The next morning, Eveline wakes late and can scarcely imagine how to fill the day. From her room she hears J.W. Moorehouse speaking in the adjoining room, which belongs to Eleanor. Her body responds before she joins them: she stiffens, and after dressing she finds her heart pounding. Eleanor tells her that J.W. has motored down to see her off to Italy, explaining that the Peace Conference has become stuffy and he needed a change of air. Eveline answers in a deliberately musical tone, concealing her reaction while pulling on her best transparent black silk stockings.

J.W. has driven from Paris in fifteen hours, with only four hours of sleep after dinner in Lyons. In high spirits, he joins the two women over bitter coffee with hot milk, and they plan an outing. The Packard carries them along the Corniche; they lunch at Monte Carlo, look at the casino, take tea in an English tearoom in Mentone, and visit the perfume factories at Grasse the following day. These excursions briefly give the holiday the activity Eveline had lacked. But Eleanor’s departure for Rome changes the company and the meaning of the trip. At the station, Eveline and J.W. stand together after the train leaves, speaking warmly of Eleanor while Eveline recognizes that her own voice sounds false when she says she wishes they were going with her.

From Nice toward Paris

After Eleanor’s departure, J.W. asks where he can take Eveline before returning to Paris. Eveline proposes lunch, and they eat at the casino over the water. The sea is very blue; three lateen-sailed boats head toward the harbor entrance. In the glassed-in restaurant, the warmth, food sizzling in butter, and smell of wine make Nice feel inviting at last. The change in Eveline’s response is tied to the company as much as the setting: while J.W. drinks more than usual, he speaks about his boyhood in Wilmington, hums one of his old songs, and discusses his ideas about capital and labor. Eveline is thrilled by his talk. She orders champagne, and their lunch stretches into an afternoon of increasingly easy conversation.

They speak about Eleanor and what her friendship has meant to each of them. Eveline recalls meeting her at the Art Institute and describes her as the only girl in Chicago who truly shared her interests, admiring both her talent and business ability. J.W. remembers Eleanor’s importance to him during difficult years with his second wife and stresses that their friendship had been misunderstood. Their conversation keeps Eleanor present even as the two are alone together. As evening approaches, J.W. says that he is not free and suggests taking the air. Eveline has insisted on paying for lunch, spending all the money she has; as they leave, they are both unsteady, and she leans against his shoulder while he pats her hand.

At sunset they drive around the end of the bay toward Cannes. J.W. proposes that Eveline return to Paris with him, stopping in picturesque villages along the way, and says he will send back the staff car and hire a French car to avoid meeting people they know. Eveline agrees that Nice has become tiresome. He returns her to her hotel and says he will collect her the next morning. After he leaves, she feels let down, drinks a cup of cold tea that tastes of soap, and goes to bed unable to sleep. In the night, faces emerge and fade in her half-dreams, including those of Jerry Burnham, Mr. Rasmussen, Edgar Robbins, Paul Johnson, and Freddy Seargeant. Nice thus ends not in the settled warmth Eveline sought, but in bodily agitation and a looming departure: the holiday has opened a route back to Paris with J.W., while leaving her troubled by the attachments she is leaving behind.