PARIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

PARIS.

THE GAY GITY OF WIDOWS WEEDS.

(By NELLIE M. SCANLAN.)

Paris is still wearing black and showing its knees. Paris may Be the gayest of cities, but there are more widows : weeds to the square yard than any when on earth. 1 counted ten in one smal patch of the city crowd. Curtains o crepe drip despondently from chic littli hats, but sorrow has not dimmed tin carmine of tbeir lips. The Parisiai widow has a flair for melancholy—tha waxy pallor, those luminous great eyes All through France, indeed, you line this sombre note, black eyes, black hair black dresses, even to the peasants work ing in the lields, as though bereave ments were so frequent it was ai economy to wear it all the while: Th French are thrifty.

But black is not always synonymouwith mourning- in Paris. Oh, la la! Yoi can be very gay in black. Of all colour; it is the smartest; tres chic. Thei eyebrows plucked to a symmetrical arch a fascinating glow on the ivory skin, am lips like ripe cherries, then flashing eye —all is well. No, blaek is not alway sad in Paris.

Even the little women who are con ductors on the trams wear black—blac] cotton overalls and little round caps They are busy, efficient women, wit! their toy tin trumpets with which the\ signal "stop" and "start." But beneatl these ugly official uniforms they an still women, French women, and brigh earrings dangle saucily from their earsAnd the maid who brings in your morn ing coffee is trim in black, the sauo minx, and with a toss of her shingle) head and a, flick of. her dainty heel sin turns to draw your curtain and let in tin spring sunshine, which is no brightei than her smile.

Spring has not yet come to Paris. Nc bud has burst its bonds on the Champt Elysse or in the Bois. Fire race> through grass, dried by the fierce frosts and blackened patches scar the cotintrj and ring the streams and pools where ict still lingers.

The first shy, white boat has stolei. from its moorings and elid up the Seine to Saint Cloud. Tfce river season ha? begun. Leather-faced old women in black, witii a scrap of white or black lace upon their heads, wheel elaborate perambulators into sunny corners along the streets or squares, and, unfolding theii camp stools, speeu the sunny hours with swiftly-flying needle. The French nursemaid is a busy old soul. Pfeening Their Feathers.

Americans are flocking to Paris, and their smartly-dressed women and expen-sively-clad men are filling the best hotels. Already little tables have bulged out on to the pavements, and the open-air cafe is in full swing.

Mannikine are abroac 1 by day and by night, turning the pages of new fashions for eager buyers, who watch them come and go at the races on Sunday, at the theatres, the cafes and restaurants. In Paris the mannikin parade is not confined to the shops or salons, it goes on everywhere.

Thousands of expensive cars race along the boulevardes, and myriads of taxis— cheap taxis—are never idle. The air is thick with their petulant honking. If, in dressing, you have achieved success, you must not mar the etfect by haste or effort. In perfection you must arrive, so if you have not a car of your own, you take a taxi, for taxis are very cheap, less than threepence for the first section. To get the best of Paris you must be rich, very rich. Yet there is something for the poor. Milady may throw back her sables and her jewels may gleam in the sun. But the underworld, the sewer rats, have climbed out from their sewer homes, and the sunshine is sable and pearls to them. After such a bitter winter, this, the first warm sunshine bniigs hope.

Oiit beyond Paris, beyond its hectic life, its vice and luxury, its poverty, its industry and beauty, ploughs are turning the lirst furrows for the sowing. They are ploughing the fiel n " war, the graveyards of the unknown brave. War is history now, and Paris is again the gay city of pleasure. But the scar remains. Soo ■it will be green along the boulevardes, when the young leaves come out; a new sea on will dawn, and the wealth of the world will pour into Paris to buy its dresses and hats, its jewels and its pleasures, and so on, till the next war.