Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
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result of this transmigration, Ford found himself in that corner of the room , where there was no chair. Mr. Cameron soon rectified matters. Ford sat down in a chair, crossed his legs, and lightly began swinging one leg over the other. He was a thin, almost flat, slightly stooping old man with a clever wrinkled face and silver hair. He wore a new grey suit, black shoes, red necktie. Ford looked younger than his seventy-three years, and only his old brown hands with their swollen knuckles betrayed his age. We were told that occasionally in the evenings he goes out dancing.

We began at once to talk about the midget factories.

"Yes," said Mr. Ford, "I see the possibility of creating small factories, even steel foundries. But so far I am not yet opposed to large factories."

He said that he sees the future country covered with small factories, sees the workers liberated from the oppression of traders and financiers.

"The farmer," continued Ford," makes bread. We make automobiles. But between us stands Wall Street, the banks, which want to have a share of our work without doing anything themselves."

At this point he quickly waved his hand before his face, as if he were chasing away a mosquito, and said:

"They know how to do only one thing—to scheme tricks, to juggle money."

Ford detests Wall Street. He knows full well that if Morgan is given even one share of stock, all the other shares will soon likewise be his. The Ford enterprise is the only one in the United States not dependent on the banks.

In the course of the conversation, Ford was constantly moving his feet. He either pressed them against the desk or crossed his legs, holding them up with his hands, or again placed both his feet on the floor and began to sway. His eyes are set close together, the prickly eyes of a peasant. As a matter of fact, he looks very much like a sharp-nosed Russian peasant, a self-made inventor, who suddenly had his beard shaved off and put on an English suit of clothes.

Ford goes to work when all the others go and spends his entire day at the factory. To this very day not a single blueprint goes out without his signature. We have already said that Ford has no office of his own. Cameron had this to say about him :

"Mr. Ford circulates."

How much strength and will a man must have in order to circulate with such ease at the age of seventy-three!

The Ford method of work long ago exceeded the limits of mere manufacture of automobiles or other objects. Yet, although all his activities and the activities of other industrialists have transformed America into a country where no one knows any longer what will happen tomorrow, he continues to tell himself and the people around him:

"That is no concern of mine. I have my task. I make automobiles."

In farewell, Henry Ford, who is interested in the Soviet Union and is quite sympathetic to it, asked us:

"What is the financial situation of your country now?"

The day previous we happened to have read in Pravda the famous article by Grinko, and were, therefore, able to give him the very latest information.

"That's very good," said the amazing mechanic, smiling suddenly the wrinkled smile of a grandfather. " Don't ever get into debt, and help one another."

We said that that is how we usually do things, but nevertheless promised to transmit his words verbatim to Michael Ivanovich Kalinin.

Again there was a little commotion accompanied by handshaking in farewell, and the inspection of one of the greatest sights in America– Henry Ford—came to an end.

17 That Horrible Town, Chicago

A WEEK had passed since our departure from New York. We gradually developed a system of travel. We spent the nights in camps or tourist homes, that is, ordinary little houses where the owners rent to travellers cheap, clean rooms with wide comfortable beds, on which you will inevitably find several thick and thin woollen, cotton, and quilted blankets, commodes with mirrors, a rocking-chair, a wall closet, a spool of thread with a needle stuck into it, which touches your heart, and a Bible on the bedtable. The masters of these houses are workers, small merchants, and widows, who successfully compete with hotels, driving the owners of the latter to commercial philosophy. Frequently along the road we met advertising signs of hotels which quite nervously pleaded with travellers to come to their senses and return their goodwill to the hotels.

LET YOUR HEART FILL WITH PRIDE WHEN YOU UTTER

THE NAME OF THE HOTEL IN WHICH YOU STOPPED

These were veiled slurs against the unknown tourist homes and camps.

"No, no, gentlemen," said Mr. Adams when dusk was falling and it was necessary to consider a lodging for the night. "I ask you seriously, do you want your heart to fill with pride? It is very interesting when a heart fills with pride while the purse is emptied in proportion."

No, we didn't want our hearts to fill with pride! So, as soon as it grew dark and our mouse-coloured car drove along the residential part of the next small town, be it Syracuse or Vienna, we stopped near a house which was distinguished from the other houses of the city only with the placard: "Rooms for Tourists." We entered and said in an uneven chorus: "How do you do?" to which we forthwith heard in response another " How do you do? " and from the kitchen emerged an elderly person in an apron and with knitting in hand. Here Mr. Adams took the stage. A child or a court investigator could very well envy his curiosity. Small, fat, impatiently moving from one foot to the other and wiping his head with a handkerchief, delighted with an opportunity to converse, he methodically squeezed out of the hostess all the local news.

"Surely!" he exclaimed, upon learning that the town had two thousand population, that there had been a lottery the day before, that the local doctor was about to get married, and that not long ago there was a case of infantile paralysis. " Surely! Of course!"

He asked the hostess how long she had been a widow, where her children were studying, what was the price of meat, and how many more years she had to make payments on her house at the bank.

We were already in our beds on the second floor, when from below we still heard:

"Surely! Surely!"

Then our ears would hear the creaking of the wooden stairway. Mr. Adams was walking upstairs and stopped for a minute at the door of our room. He was overcome with the desire to talk.

"Gentlemen," he asked, "are you asleep?"

Receiving no reply, he proceeded to his room.

But in the morning, at seven o'clock sharp, he would take advantage of his uncontested right as captain and chief of the expedition, would noisily enter our room, fresh, shaven, in suspenders, with drops of water on his eyebrows, and shout:

"Get up, get up, get up! Good morning!"

And the new day of travel would begin.

We drank tomato juice and coffee in thick cups, ate ham and eggs in a little cafe on Main Street, which at that hour was sleepy and depopulated, and took our places in the machine. Mr. Adams was waiting for that moment. He would turn to us and begin to talk. And he talked almost without interruption all through the day. He evidently consented to go with us principally because he sensed in us good listeners and conversationalists.

But most remarkable of all was that in no sense could he have been called an idle chatterer. Everything he said was interesting and wise. Throughout the two months of the journey he never once repeated himself. He possessed accurate information on almost all phases of life. An engineer by profession, he had recently retired and was living on a small capital which, in addition to modest means, gave him independence, something he treasured very much and without which he evidently could not live a minute.

"Only by sheer accident I did not become a capitalist," Mr. Adams told us on one occasion. " This is quite serious. It will be interesting for you to hear this. There was a time when I dreamed of becoming a rich man. I made a lot of money and decided to insure myself, so that by the age of fifty I would receive large sums from insurance companies. There is such a form of insurance. I had to pay colossal premiums. But I agreed to that in order to be a rich man in my old age. I selected two of the most respectable insurance companies in the world. The Petersburg Rossiya Company and another very honest German company in Munich. Gentlemen! I felt that even if the rest of the world goes to the devil, nothing could ever happen in Germany and Russia. Their stability was beyond all doubt. But in 1917 you had a revolution, and the insurance company Rossiya went out of existence. Then I transferred all of my hopes to Germany. In 1923 I was exactly fifty years old. I had four hundred thousand marks coming to me. That's very big money, that's colossal money! And in 1923 I received from the Munich Insurance Company a letter like this: ' Most respected Herr Adams: Our company congratulates you on your fiftieth birthday and attaches herewith a cheque for four hundred thousand marks.' This was the most honest insurance company in the world. But, gentlemen, listen! This is very interesting. For all of that money I could buy only one box of matches, because at that time in Germany there was inflation and bills in denominations of billions circulated through the country. I assure you, capitalism is the most elusive thing in the world. But I am happy. I received the greatest prize of all. I did not become a capitalist."

Mr. Adams had an easy-going attitude toward money—a little humour, and very little respect. In that sense he did not at all resemble an American. A real American is ready to be humorous about everything in the world but not about money. Mr. Adams knew many languages. He had lived in Japan, Russia, Germany, India, knew the Soviet Union well —better than many Soviet people know it. He had worked at Dniepro-stroi, in Stalingrad, Cheliabinsk. A knowledge of old Russia made it possible for him to understand the Soviet land as it is rarely understood by foreigners. He had travelled across the U.S.S.R. in hard cars, entered into conversation with workers and collective farmers. He saw the country not only as it opened to his gaze, but he saw it as it had been yesterday and as it would become tomorrow. He saw it in motion, and for that purpose he studied Marx and Lenin, read the speeches of Stalin, and subscribed to Pravda.

Mr. Adams was very absent-minded. Yet his was not the traditional meek absent-mindedness of a scientist, but rather the stormy, aggressive absent-mindedness of a healthy person full of curiosity carried away by a conversation or a thought and for the time being forgetting the rest of the world.

In everything concerned with the journey Mr. Adams was unusually careful and conservative.

"This evening we shall arrive in Chicago," said Mrs. Adams.

"But,Becky, don't talk like that! Maybe we'll arrive and maybe we won't," he replied.

"Look here," we intervened. "It is only a hundred miles to Chicago, and if we figure that we make an average of thirty miles an hour . .."

"Yes, yes, gentlemen!" muttered Mr. Adams. "Oh, but! You don't know anything yet."

"What do you mean, we don't know? It is now four o'clock. We are averaging thirty miles an hour. Thus, we shall be in Chicago at about eight o'clock."

"Maybe we will and maybe we won't. Seriously, gentlemen, seriously, nothing is certain. Oh, no!"

"But what will keep us from reaching Chicago by eight o'clock?"

"You mustn't talk like that! It would be simply foolish to think like that. You don't understand that."

Yet he talked with assurance about world politics and did not want to hear any contradiction. For example, he declared that there would be war in five years.

"But why in exactly five? Why not in seven? "

"No, no, gentlemen! Exactly in five years!"

"But why?"

"Don't ask me why! I know. I tell you there will be war in five years!"

He became very annoyed when contradicted.

"No, no, we won't talk about it!" he exclaimed. "It is downright foolish and ridiculous to think that there will be no war in five years!"

"All right. When we get to Chicago this evening we'll talk about it seriously."

"Gentlemen, you mustn't talk like that—we will be in Chicago this evening. Maybe we'll get there and maybe we won't!"

Not far from Chicago our speedometer indicated the first thousand miles. We shouted hurrah!

"Hooray! Hooray!" cried Mr. Adams, jumping up excitedly on his little cushion. "Hear, hear, gentlemen! Now I can tell you quite definitely: we have covered a thousand miles. Yes, yes! Not `maybe we have covered'; but we have surely covered it! Now we know!"

Every thousand miles it was necessary to change the oil in the machine and to grease it.

We stopped near a service station, which in the moment of need was always at hand. Our machine was lifted on a special electrical frame and, while the mechanic in a striped cap drained out the dark, polluted oil, poured in the new, tested the brakes and greased the parts, Mr. Adams learned how much the man earned, where he was from, and how the people in this town lived. Every, even a passing, acquaintanceship gave Mr. Adams a lot of pleasure. This man was born to mingle with people, to be friends with them. He derived the same pleasure from conversations with a waiter, a druggist, a passer-by from whom he found out about the roads, a six-year-old Negro boy, whom he called "sir," the mistress of a tourist home, or the director of a large bank.

He stood, his hands deep in the pockets of his top-coat, his collar up, without a hat (the parcel, for some reason, did not arrive in Detroit), and greedily yessed the man with whom he was talking:

"Surely! I hear you, sir! Yes, yes, yes! Oh, but, this is very, very interesting! Surely!"

Chicago at night – we were approaching along the broad shore drive that separates the city from Lake Michigan—proved to be astoundingly splendid. To the right was blackness filled with the measured roar of a sea as its waves broke against the shore. Along the shore drive, almost touching each other, several rows of automobiles moved at inordinate speed, casting on the asphalt pavement the dazzling reflection of their headlights. On the left rows of skyscrapers stretched for several miles. ' Their lighted windows faced the lake. The lights of the upper stories of the skyscrapers mingled with the stars. The electric advertisements seemed possessed. Here, as in New York, electricity was trained. It extolled the same gods: Coca-Cola, Johnny Walker Whisky, Camel Cigarettes. Here, too, were the infants that had annoyed us all through the week: the thin infant who did not drink orange juice, and his prospering antipode—the fat, good infant who, appreciating the efforts of the juice manufacturer, consumed it in horse-sized doses.

We drove up to a skyscraper with the white electric sign "Stevens Hotel." Judging by the advertising prospectus, this was the biggest hotel in the world, with three thousand rooms, huge halls, stores, restaurants, cafeterias, concert and ball-rooms. In brief, the hotel was quite like a transoceanic steamer, the comforts of which are adapted to the needs of people who for a certain time are entirely cut off from the world. Only, the hotel was much larger. One could undoubtedly live a whole lifetime there without once going out into the streets, since there is really no need for it. Perhaps only to take a walk? But one could take a walk on the flat roof of the hotel, and it is even better there than in the street. There is no risk of being run over by an automobile.

Several times we went out on the esplanade, which is called Michigan Avenue, surveyed with pleasure that remarkable avenue and the elaborate facades of skyscrapers that look out upon it, turned into the first cross street off the shore, and suddenly stopped.

"No, no, gentlemen!" cried Mr. Adams, delighted with our amazement. "You must not be amazed. Oh, but! This is America! Seriously! It would be foolish to think that the Chicago meat kings would build you a sanatorium here."

The street was narrow, not too well lighted, depressingly dull. It was crossed by quite narrow, dark, dirty lanes paved with cobblestones, real dives with the blackened brick walls of shoddy houses, fire-escapes,, and garbage-cans.

We knew that Chicago has its dives, that there must be dives there. But that these were located in the centre of the city—that was a complete surprise. It looked as if Michigan Avenue were only the tinsel, and that it was only necessary to lift it in order to see the real city.

This first impression proved in the main to be correct. We wandered over the city for several days, wondering more and more at the helter-skelter accumulation of its various parts. Even from the point of view of capitalism, which has raised the simultaneous coexistence on earth of both wealth and poverty into a law, Chicago must perforce appear a heavy, clumsy, uncomfortable city. Scarcely anywhere else in the world have heaven and hell intertwined so intimately as in Chicago. Side by side with the marble and granite facing of skyscrapers on Michigan Avenue are the disgusting alleys, dirty and stinking. In the centre of the city factory chimneys jut out and trains pass, enveloping the houses in steam and smoke. Some of the poor streets look as they would after an earthquake: broken fences, twisted roofs of boarded kennels, wires askew, piles of rusty metal trash, broken chamber-pots, and half-rotted soles, filthy children in rags. Yet only a few blocks away—fine broad streets lined with trees, filled with beautiful private residences with mirror-like walls, red-brick roofs, with Packards or Cadillacs at their entrances. Ultimately this close proximity of hell makes life in paradise not too pleasant. All this in one of the richest cities, if not the very richest city, in the world!

Down the street ran newsvendors, shouting:

"Policeman murdered!"

"Bank Robbery!"

"Detective Thomas Killed!"

"Gangster Filios, Alias 'Little Angel,' Killed Instead of Detective Patterson!"

"Racketeer Arrested!"

"Kidnapping on Michigan Avenue!"

In this city shooting goes on. It would be surprising if people did not shoot here, if they did not steal millionaires' children (that is what they call kidnapping), if they did not maintain houses of ill-fame, if they did not occupy themselves with rackets. A racket is the surest and most profitable profession, if it may be called a profession. There is hardly a single form of human activity that is beyond the reach of a racket Broad-shouldered young men in light hats walk into a store and ask the merchant to pay them—these young men in light hats—a salary, regularly, every month. For that they will try to reduce the taxes which the merchant pays the state. If the merchant does not agree, the young men take out machine-guns and begin to shoot at his counter. Then the merchant agrees. That constitutes a racket. Later other young men come in and politely ask the merchant to pay them a salary for ridding him of the first group of young men. They, too, shoot up his place. That is another racket. Trade-union officials receive money from manufacturers for calling off strikes. From the workers they likewise receive money for getting them jobs. That, too, is a racket. Artists pay ten per cent, of their earnings to employment agents even when they find the jobs themselves. That also is a racket. A doctor of internal medicine sends a man whose liver is out of order to a dentist for consultation and receives from the latter forty per cent, of his fee. That is likewise a racket.

And other things happen. Here is one told us by a Chicago doctor:

"Just before elections to the Congress of the state of Illinois," said the doctor, "a man whom I had never seen before in my life came into my house. He was a politician of the Republican party. A politician is a business man whose profession is only politics. Politics is his means of earning a livelihood. I detest people of that type: they are brazen, crude, impudent. They always have a wet cigar in their mouth, their hat is always askew, they have stupid eyes, and an imitation ring on a fat finger. 'Good mawnin', doc,' the man said to me (meaning 'Hello, doctor!'), ' who are you going to vote for?' I wanted to hit him in the mug and throw him out into the street. But having appraised the width of his shoulders, I realized that if anyone were thrown out into the street, it would most likely be I. Therefore, I said modestly that I would vote for my favourite candidate. 'All right,' said the politician. `I believe you have a daughter who has been waiting for four years to get a job as a school-teacher.' I told him that that was so. 'All right, then,' said my uninvited guest, 'if you will vote for our candidate, we will try to get a job for your daughter. We don't promise you anything definite, but if you vote for our opponent, then I can tell you quite definitely, your daughter will never get a job, she will never be a school-teacher.' That was the end of our conversation. ' Good-bye, doctor,' he said in farewell. 'I'll come in to see you on election day.' Well, of course, I was very much ashamed. I was indignant at this outrage. But on election day he actually drove up in his automobile to call for me. Again his fat cigar came in at the door of my home. 'Good mawnin', doc,' he said, 'can I give you a lift to the voting booth?' And, do you know, I actually went with him. I thought to myself, in the end does it make any difference who is elected a Democrat or a Republican—and maybe my daughter might get a job. I haven't told this story to anyone except you—I was so ashamed. Hut I am not the only one who leads such a political existence. Everywhere there is compulsion in one form or another. And if you want to be really honest, you must become a Communist. But to do that I must at once sacrifice everything, and that's too hard!"

The Chicago racket is the most famous in America. Chicago had a mayor whose name was Cermak. He came from the workers, was a trade-union leader for a while, and was popular. He was even a friend of the present President, Roosevelt. The newspapers wrote about the touching friendship of the President and the simple workman. (You see, children, what a man can attain with his own horny hands in America?) Three years or so ago Cermak was killed. He left three million dollars, fifty houses of ill-fame, which, it developed, had been kept by the busy Cermak. And so—for a certain time a racketeer was mayor of Chicago.

It does not follow from this fact that all the mayors of American lilies are racketeers. The incident with Cermak, however, does give some insight into Chicago, a city in the state of Illinois.

On our first evening in New York we were disturbed by its poverty and wealth. Here in Chicago one is overcome with anger at people who, in their chase for the almighty dollar, have reared on a fertile prairie on the shores of the full-watered Michigan, this horrible town. It is impossible to accept the thought that this city arose, not as a result of poverty, but as a result of wealth, of extraordinary development in technique, of agriculture, and of cattle raising. The earth gave man all that he could take from it. Man applied himself with admirable skill. So much, grain was grown, so much oil was drilled, and so many machines were built that there was enough of all to satisfy nearly half the globe. Yet, on this amply fertilized soil, instead of gleaming palaces of joy, there sprang up, in defiance of all reason, a huge, ugly, poisonous fungus, the city of Chicago in the state of Illinois. It is a kind of triumph of absurdity. Here one begins to think quite seriously that technique in the hands of capitalism is a knife in the hands of a madman.

One might say that we were too impressionable, that we are overstating our case, that Chicago has an excellent university, a Philharmonic orchestra, presumably the best water system in the world, a wise radical intelligentsia, that here was a grandiose world's fair, that Michigan Avenue is the most beautiful street on earth. That is true! There are these things in Chicago. But all of it emphasizes more than ever the depth of the poverty, the ugliness of the buildings, and the lawlessness of the racketeers. The fine university does not teach youths how to fight poverty, the water system" does not give people soup, the radical intelligentsia is powerless, the police shoot not so much at bandits as at strikers reduced to despair, the world's fair brought happiness only to the proprietors of hotels, and the most-beautiful-in-the-world Michigan Avenue loses a lot by being the neighbour of slums.

Kind people in Chicago decided to entertain us and took us to a student club in Chicago University, where a ball was held to celebrate the granting of independence to the Philippines. After seeing pictures of Chicago life, we wanted a little diversity.

The student ball was sober, gay, and pleasant in every respect. In a large hall danced broad-nosed, black-eyed, beautiful Filipino girls; across the hardwood floor also glided Japanese boys and Chinese girls; and above the crowd towered the white silk turban of a young Hindu. The Hindu was in a swallow-tail with a white shirt front—a lean seducer with ardent eyes.

"Excellent ball, gentlemen!" said Mr. Adams, tittering mysteriously.

"Don't you like it?"

"No, gentlemen! I told you: very good ball."

And he suddenly attacked the Hindu, took him aside and began to cross-examine him about his life in his dormitory, how many rupees a month his mother sends him, and to what line of work he intends to dedicate himself after graduating from the university. The Hindu politely answered all the questions, and with inexpressible boredom looked in the direction of the crowd of dancers from which he had been so suddenly dragged away.

From the ceiling were suspended Philippine and American flags. The orchestra on the stage was flooded with violet light. Musicians raised their saxophones. There it was—a harmless, quiet family ball, without drunkards, without anyone being hurt, without scandal. It was pleasant to be aware of the fact that we were present at a historic occasion. After all, the Filipinos were being liberated; independence was being given to the Philippines. It need not have been given, yet it was granted! And granted willingly! That was honourable!

All the way back to the hotel, Mr. Adams muttered something.

"Seriously, gentlemen!"

"What, seriously?"

"I want to ask you: why did we suddenly give independence to the Philippines ? Seriously, gentlemen, we are good people. Just think of it, we gave them independence of our own free will! Yes, we are good people, but we don't like to have anybody stretch out his hand for our purses. These devilish Filipinos produce very cheap sugar, and, of course, they ship it here to our country without any duty. They were part of the United States until today. Their sugar was so cheap that our sugar manufacturers could not compete with them. Now that they have received from us the independence they have been hoping for so long, they will have to pay duty for sugar, like other foreign merchants. At the same time, we really don't lose the Philippines, because the good Filipinos consented to take their independence from us only on condition that we leave with them our army and our administration. Now, tell me, gentlemen, could we deny them this request? No! Truly, I want you to appreciate our honourableness! I demand it!"

18 The Best Musicians in the World

IN THE evening, having carelessly left our automobile in front of the hotel entrance, we went to a concert by Kreisler.

Rich America has taken possession of the best musicians in the world. In New York, in Carnegie Hall, we heard Rachmaninoff and Stokowski.

Rachmaninoff, according to what a composer told us, before coming out on the stage sits in his dressing-room and tells anecdotes. But as soon as the bell rings, he rises from his seat and, assuming the expression of a Russian exile's great sorrow, goes forth to the stage.

The night we went to hear him he appeared, tall, bent, and thin, with a long, sad face, his hair closely clipped; he sat down at the piano, separated the folds of his old-fashioned black swallow-tail, adjusted one of his cuffs with his large hand, and turned to the public. His expression seemed to say: "Yes, I am an unfortunate exile and am obliged to play before you for your contemptible dollars, and for all this humiliation I ask very little—silence."

There was such dead silence, as if the thousand auditors in the gallery lay dead, poisoned by some new, hitherto unknown, musical gas. Rachmaninoff finished. We expected an explosion. But in the orchestra only normal applause resounded. We did not trust our ears. We sensed cold indifference—as if the public had come, not to hear remarkable music remarkably played, but rather to discharge a dull duty. Only from the gallery did we hear several enthusiastic exclamations.

All the concerts we attended in America produced the same impression. All of fashionable New York was at the concert of the famous Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Stokowski. It is incomprehensible what guides fashionable New York. The fact is that it does not go to all the concerts. Meat and copper kings and princes of chewing gum in swallowtails, railroad queens, and simply dollar princesses in decollete and diamonds, took their places in the dress circle. Stokowski evidently knew that music alone was not enough for this public, that it needed also the outer trimmings. So the talented director devised for himself an effective entrance, almost a circus entrance. He no longer abided by the traditional striking of the baton against the music rack. Prior to his appearance the orchestra tuned its instruments, and then there was utter silence. He came out from behind the curtains, slightly bent, looking like Meyerhold. Without so much as glancing at anyone, he walked to his place in front of the stage, flung up his arms suddenly, and just as suddenly began the overture to Die Meistersinger. It was a tempo purely American. Not a second of hesitation. Time is money! The performance was faultless. It stirred no emotions in the hall.