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Note there are two letters in this set. [Monte Carlo, Monaco] |
| Dear Bess: | December 3, 1918 |
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I am having a very enjoyable vacation, as I told you in a letter day before yesterday. The whole bunch of us went to Monte Carlo day before yesterday and stayed all night. They won't let soldiers in to the casino, nor will they allow anyone who lives or works in any of the towns along the Riviera to play. It is a gaudy, gorgeous place, just what you'd expect in a place whose sole income is from fleecing tourists and making them gamblers. The fleecing isn't done at the casino but at the hotels and cafes. The gambling is on the square but the probable error has been so closely figured that the house wins in the long run. They let us go in and see the great gambling rooms before ten o'clock in the morning and they are surely furnished in a style you'd expect to find in a place of the kind. There are velvet hangings, beautiful paintings, and mahogany chairs and tables, a beautiful mahogany bar in a drinking saloon which has Brussels carpet a foot thick on the floor and leather chairs to sit in. No French theater is complete without a fine bar and a beautiful room to drink in. Everyone, men, women, and children, are frequenters and every show gives thirty-minute intermissions between each act so the audience can go out and quench its thirst, which it does en masse. I'll bet that this country drinks enough wine to float the British navy every month. They use water only to wash in and if a man wants water to drink with his meals, they think he needs a doctor or something. . . . I have to go back to slavery day after tomorrow and I'd almost rather be shot. Most of us are endeavoring to get the flu so we can stay here. The trouble is that the flu or any other sickness doesn't work here. I am hoping for a bushel of letters when I get back. Be sure and keep sending them. How I wish you were here, Yours always, Harry Verdun, France
. . . I stopped in Paris again on my way back to the regiment and went to the opera, the real one, and heard Thais. It was beautifully put on and well sung. The building was worth the price of admission to look at. Major Gates and I went. The rest went to the Casino de Paris to see a gaiety show, which, they said, was very good. Paris has a thousand streets more or less and no two of 'em run in the same direction, nor do any of them have the same name from end to end. Nearly any old street in a small village sports a name for each end of it and in Paris they have from two to a dozen. It is always necessary to hire a bandit in a taxi to take you around or you'll never arrive. They're not such bandits after all, because I rode all afternoon with Major Gates and Colonel Elliott and it was only 15 francs, about $2.75 in honest-to-goodness money. They made us sign a paper the day we returned stating whether we wanted to become regular army men with our same grades, go into the reservist army, or have a complete discharge from the army at once. I naturally took the last event. I don't expect to go into anything where I can't say what I please when I please. Anyhow the emergency is over and I am ready to be a producer instead of a leech. If they take me at my word, which I much doubt they'll do, I may want to see you in New York sure enough if you'll come. I am of the opinion we'll all go home and be discharged with our outfits next spring. How I wish I could see you. Keep on writing. May you have a Joyous Christmas. Yours always, Harry |
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