Paris
One of my young guests had sore feet-- tourists walk much more than ordinary Parisians do. Both her pairs of shoes hurt her, so she borrowed her friend's comfortable desert boots. All she had was skirts, so she wore the boots with some thick socks and her winter jacket. It looked a little odd, but she already had blisters and I didn't blame her for not wanting them to get worse. And she was a pretty young girl, so how bad could it be?
As we walked down a street near my building, an old lady opened a ground-floor shutter and threw open her window. She was the kind of old woman you hope to look like when you are old-- silver hair falling softly around a soft but wrinkled face, a warm sweater, pink cheeks, slim. She looked at us and smiled. We smiled back.
Then her glance traveled downwards to my young friend's legs.
"Ho, c'est élégant!" she commented.
"What did she say?" said Margaret, curiously.
"Nothing!" I said.
Comments