INTERNATIONAL: Springtime in Europe

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Last week fine spring weather spread warmly over a sunlit Europe. In Norway, where the nights now are like dim, water-green, translucent twilights; in England, where the potato crop is doing well thanks to the rains in May; in Switzerland, where the yodeling festival is a high spot of the Zurich Fair; in Paris, where they are singing One Fine Day from Madame Butterfly and dancing to Chopin's Seconde Étude played as a tango; in Warsaw, where the officers called up are whiling away the time between crises learning to play bridge; in Belgium, where they are polishing their bicycles preparing for the 28th annual cycle tour next week; in Stockholm, where midnight concerts are about to begin and crowds are flocking to see Bette Davis in Dark Victory; in Rome, where they are laughing at a boy-meets-girl comedy called Two Dozen Red Roses and singing a tuneful song called It Was Folly; in Russia, where football squads are drilling for the summer season; in London, where the most popular song is Deep Purple. Over the crisis-worn continent last week the people were moving under cloudless skies; the wheat was up, the fishing was good, and a wave of celebrations, fairs, festivals, holidays, anniversaries, colored the old towns from Liége in Belgium to Brashov in Rumania.

The big antarctic whalers were nosing up the fjords to Oslo; Norwegian fishermen were pushing out in their eight-oared boats after mackerel; hay was springing up in the valleys that lie in bright green patches between the mountains. This week in Sweden the ten-day fair opened in Goteborg; the Swedish Parliament celebrated its 504th anniversary; preparations were under way for midsummer eve on June 23, when there is no night in Sweden and the people dance around the maypoles. In England last week 500,000 people saw Blue Peter win the Derby; cars were leaving London at the rate of 48,000 an hour; railroads put on 2,500 special trains for Whitsunday; a £5.000,000 South African loan was subscribed in 15 minutes; unemployment had decreased by 395,000 since February. In weather so exceptional the Derby was called Heatwave Derby, all young men between 20 and 21 registered for the draft, and labor's periodic stirring, signalized by recent rent strikes that involved 40,000 in Birmingham, grew as it grows each spring.

In Paris they are reading a novel about an undersexed brother who tries to keep his sisters from enjoying their love affairs. They are hustling to see Jean Cocteau's play involving a mother in love with her son, a son in love with the father's mistress, and a maiden aunt in love with the father. Spring, a week late, hit Paris with an intoxicating sequence of superb days. Out in the country, wheat, barley and oats looked good; the 1,500,000 vineyard owners had their spring shoots in the ground; fishermen were beginning to pull in their annual 5,000 tons of fish from France's inland waters. In Brittany it is the time for spring pardons—the old, unique, Breton folk custom that permits the peasant to approach the Deity through various saints, and which means a season of blessings, benedictions, reunions, torchlight parades, holidays, betrothals, marriage contracts, singing, wine and forgiveness.