Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

Meat and copper kings and railroad queens, princes of chewing gum and dollar princesses were interested at the time in Bach, Brahms, and Shostakovich. Why they were drawn at the same time to the profound and abstruse Bach, to the cold Brahms, and to the stormy, ironical Shostakovich, they did not know, of course, did not wish to know, and would never know. A year hence, just as madly ("Oh, what a strong, all-embracing feeling!"), they will be carried away at the same time by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Prokofiev.

The bourgeoisie had stolen art from the people, but it did not even wish to support that stolen art. Performers are bought in America, and big money is paid for them. The bored rich men have had their fill of the Chaliapins, Heifetzes, Horowitzes, Rachmaninoffs, Stravinskys, Giglis, and Totti del Montes. It is not at all difficult for a millionaire to pay ten dollars for a ticket. But as for opera or a symphonic orchestra – that, you see, is too expensive. Those forms of art in all the world demand donations. The state does not give money for it. Well-known American charity remains. The benefactors keep up in America only three opera houses, and of those only the New York Metropolitan Opera works regularly a whole three months a year. When we remarked that in Moscow there are four opera houses which work the year around, except for an interval of three months, Americans wondered politely, but in the depths of their hearts they did not believe us.

A few years ago the Maecenases got a public slap in the face from the great director Toscanini, who at that time conducted the New York Philharmonic. The affairs of the Philharmonic were in a bad way. There was no money. The Maecenases were preoccupied with their businesses and gave no thought to the fate of clarinets, cellos, and bass viols. Finally came the moment when the Philharmonic had to close its doors. That coincided with the seventieth birthday of Arturo Toscanini. That great musician found a way out. He did not turn to the meat and copper kings for money. He turned to the people. After a radio concert he asked every radio listener to send a dollar in exchange for a photograph which Toscanini would autograph. And Toscanini was rewarded for his long and difficult life. The Philharmonic received the necessary means, received it from people who did not have the money to buy tickets to a theatre and to see the living Toscanini. It is said that the majority of these people were poor Italian immigrants.

In the life of Toscanini was a small, but interesting, occurrence:

When he was a director of La Scala, in Milan, a competition was announced for the best opera. Toscanini was a member of the jury. A certain quite untalented composer, before presenting his manuscript, spent a long time flattering the famous musician and paying court to him in every way. He asked that his opera be submitted separately to Toscanini for the latter's opinion. That opinion was unfavourable. The opera was rejected. Ten years passed, and the talentless composer again met Toscanini, this time in New York.

"Well, maestro, it is a matter of the past," the composer said to him, "but I should like to know why you then rejected my opera."

"I didn't like it," replied Toscanini.

"But I am sure, maestro, that you never even read it. If you had read it, you could not have failed liking it."

"Don't talk nonsense," replied Toscanini, "I remember your manuscript perfectly. It's no good. Listen to this!" He sat down at the grand piano and played from memory several passages from the dead opera which he had rejected ten years before. "No, it's no good," he kept saying as he played. "It's beneath all criticism!"

And then came the evening when we went to a Kreisler concert after carelessly leaving our automobile in front of the hotel. A cold wind blew from the lake. We were quite chilled, although we had to go only a short distance. We were glad that we had bought our tickets ahead of time.

The foyer was quite empty. In fact, at first we thought that we were late, and that the concert had already begun. In the hall itself there were few people, not more than half the hall being occupied.

"The Chicagoans certainly like to come late," we decided.

But it was unfair of us and premature to accuse Chicagoans. of unpunctuality, for they really are a punctual people. They did not come late. They simply did not come at all. The concert began and ended in a half-empty hall.

On the stage stood an elderly man in a broad cutaway, a man with quite a large stomach on which dangled a watch chain with fobs. There he stood, his legs apart, holding on to his violin with an irate chin. That was Kreisler, the greatest violinist in the world. The violin is a precarious instrument. One cannot play on it passably well or merely well, as on a piano. Mediocre violin playing is frightful, while good violin playing is mediocre and scarcely tolerable. The violin must be played remarkably well. Only then can the performance afford any pleasure. Kreisler played with the utmost perfection. He played subtly, poetically, and wisely. In Moscow he would have received an ovation of half an hour after such a concert. It would have been necessary to take away the piano and to put out all the lights in order to stop the ovation. But here, as in New York, his playing called forth no rapture from the public. They applauded Kreisler, but one did not feel gratitude in their applause. The public seemed to be saying to the violinist: "Yes, you know how to play the violin. You have brought your art to perfection. But, after all, art is not such a very important thing. Is it worth while to get excited about it?" Kreisler evidently wanted to stir the public up a bit. It would have been better if he had not done it. He turned to pieces which were increasingly banal—pretty little waltzes and other light pieces—the productions of low taste. He finally attained his objective, for the public came to life and demanded encores. It was the great humiliation of a great artist who had begged for charity.

We came out on Michigan Avenue with a heavy heart.

"There, there, gentlemen," Mr. Adams told us. "You demand too much from America. A score of years ago something very interesting happened to me. You will find it interesting to hear this. The first time Wagner's Parsifal was presented in New York I went, of course. I love Wagner very much. I took my place in the seventh row and prepared to listen. Beside me sat a large red-haired gentleman. Five minutes after the beginning of the performance I noticed that the red-haired gentleman was asleep. That would not have been so terrible if in his sleep he had not leaned on my shoulder and emitted a quite unpleasant snore. I wakened him. But a minute later he was again asleep, all the time leaning his head on my shoulder, as if it were a pillow. Gentlemen, I am not a mean man, but I could not endure this. With all my strength I shoved my elbow into the red-headed gentleman's side. He awakened and stared at me for a long time with an uncomprehending look. Then I saw suffering on his face. `I beg your pardon, sir,' he said,' but I am a very unhappy man. I came from San Francisco to New York for two days only, and I have many things to attend to. But in San Francisco I have a wife, who is a German. You know, sir, the Germans are crazy people; they are mad about music. My wife is no exception. When I was leaving, she said, "James, give me your word that you will go to the first performance of Parsifal. What a treat to be at the first performance of Parsifal! Since I cannot go, at least you must go. You must do it for me. Give me your word of honour." I gave her my word, and we business people know how to keep our word. And so, I am here, sir!' I advised him to go back to the hotel, since he had already kept his word and there was no danger that he would become a dishonest person, and he immediately ran away after warmly pressing my hand. You know, I liked that red-headed gentleman. You must not judge Americans too harshly. They are an honest people. They deserve the utmost respect."

While listening to Mr. Adams's tale we walked up to the hotel, and here to our great horror we did not find our automobile. Our sedately mouse-coloured car had disappeared. Mrs. Adams looked in her bag and did not find the key. The most terrible thing that could have happened to anyone on the road had happened to us. The automobile had disappeared, key, licence, and all.

"Oh, Becky, Becky," Mr. Adams wailed in despair. "I told you, I told you..."

"What did you tell me?" asked Mrs. Adams.

"Oh, but! Becky! What did you do? Everything is lost! I told you, you must be careful!"

We recalled that in the machine were the suitcases we had packed away for the road, since we had decided to leave Chicago immediately after the concert and to spend the night in some little town. We walked along Michigan Avenue, literally tottering from grief. We no longer felt the icy wind that blew our overcoats apart.

Then suddenly we saw our car. There it was—on the opposite side of the street. The left front wheel was on the sidewalk, the doors were open. Inside, the light was on, and even the headlights of our sedate mouse-coloured treasure shone in confusion.

We ran to it, yelping with joy. What luck! Everything was in its place, including the key, the licence, and the baggage. Preoccupied with the examination of the automobile, we did not notice the approach of a huge policeman.

"Is that your automobile?" he asked in a thunderous voice. "Yes, sir!" Mr. Adams piped in fright.

"A-a-a!" roared the giant, looking down upon fat little Adams. "Do you know—the devil take you!—where to park a machine in the city of Chicago?"

"No, Mr. Officer," Adams replied meekly.

"I am not an officer!" cried the policeman. 'I am only a policeman! Don't you know that you must not leave your automobile in front of a hotel on a thoroughfare like Michigan Avenue? This is not New York. I'll teach you to drive in Chicago!"

Mr. Adams evidently thought that Mr. Officer would beat him up, so he shielded his head with his arms.

"This is not New York," shouted the policeman, "where you can throw your trough in the middle of the main street!" He was evidently settling some ancient account with New York. "Do you know that I had to squeeze myself into your lousy little car, move it to this place, and then watch it for two hours, so that no one should steal it?"

"Yes, Mr. Officer!" chimed in Adams.

"I am not an officer!"

"Oh, no! Mr. Policeman! I am very, very sorry! I apologize most humbly!"

"Well," said the policeman, softening, "this is Chicago and not New York!"

We thought that he would give us a ticket (whoever gets a ticket must appear in court), that we would be fined mercilessly, and maybe even placed in the electric chair (who can tell about the customs of Chicago ?). But the giant suddenly laughed aloud in a terrifying basso and said:

"Well, run along. But next time remember, this is Chicago, not New York!"

We hastily got into the machine.

"Good-bye!" cried Mr. Adams, who became lively again after the machine started. "Good-bye, Mr. Officer!".

In reply we heard only an indistinct roar.

PART III

TOWARD THE PACIFIC OCEAN

19 In Mark Twain's Country

AT THE beginning of our journey we passed through the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. The names of countless little cities where we had lunch or dinner, where we went to the motion-picture theatre, or where we spent the night, remained in our memories. Poughkeepsie, Hudson, Albany, Troy, Auburn, Waterloo, Avon, Fredonia, Erie, Sandusky, Toledo, Peoria, Springfield.

In all these towns, and in hundreds of others unmentioned here, on the main square stand monuments to the soldier of the Civil War, the war between the North and the South. These are very nice monuments, small in stature, and not at all militant. Somewhere in old Europe a bronze or stone warrior inevitably waves his sword or gallops on a rearing horse, or, at any rate, he shouts something in the nature of, "Forward, wonderful heroes!" But the monuments of American cities are entirely devoid of exuberance. The little soldier stands, idly leaning on a rifle, the haversack on his back is buttoned in accordance with the rules and regulations, his head droops on his arm, and at almost any moment this fighter for the liberation of the Negroes may doze off, lulled to slumber by the peaceful autumn atmosphere.

These monuments were imported from Germany. They are quite alike. They do not differ from one another any more than a standard model of one Ford differs from the next, which may differ by an ash-tray and therefore may cost half a dollar more. Some of the cheap little soldiers are so small that you could keep them in your room. Others, more expensive, were somewhat like the one we have just described. There is, if one may put it that way, a de luxe model of a soldier at whose feet lies a cannon-ball. To make a long story short, this German merchandise was available in all prices, so that each little town chose its monument according to its means. It is only comparatively recently that Americans freed themselves from such dependence on foreign countries and at last began to make cast-iron and stone soldiers with their own hands and out of their own materials.

Besides that, each American town, the denizens of which are not devoid of a legitimate feeling of patriotism, has likewise at its disposal a cannon of the times of the same war between the North and the South, and a small pile of cannon-balls. The cannon and the cannon-balls are usually placed not too far from the soldier, and together make up the military and historical division of the town. Its contemporary part is already known to us. It is composed of automobile establishments, drug-stores, restaurants, five-and-ten-cent stores, and grocery stores belonging to the firm "Atlantic and Pacific." The stores of that company are built according to one model, and no matter in what corner of the land a customer may find himself, he always knows that in an Atlantic and Pacific store pepper stands on a certain shelf, vanilla on such and such a shelf, and coconut on such and such a shelf. This magnificent sameness even invests the Atlantic and Pacific company with certain attributes of immortality. One imagines that in case of the destruction of our planet, the last lights to go out would be in the stores of this Atlantic and Pacific company which so zealously and devotedly serves the consumer, offering him always a wide and fresh assortment of grocery goods, from bananas to cigarettes and cigars of domestic as well as imported tobacco.

The same inclement weather pursued us throughout the journey. Only on the first day of our trip did the frozen sun light the way. In Buffalo it was already raining, while in Cleveland the rain increased. In Detroit it became real punishment, while in Chicago it was succeeded by a ferociously cold wind that tore off hats and almost put out electric signs.

Shortly before we reached Chicago in rain and fog we saw the murky phantom of the metallurgical plant at Gary. Metallurgy and inclemency conspired to create a depressing ensemble that gave us goose-pimples. Only the day after our mad dash out of Chicago did we first see the blue sky across which the wind quickly and unceremoniously chased the clouds. The roads changed—not the road itself but rather everything that surrounded it. We had passed at last through the industrial East and found ourselves in the Middle West.

There are three true indications whereby Americans infallibly determine whether the real West has actually begun. From the show windows of small restaurants and drug-stores announcements advertising "hot dogs" disappear. A "hot dog" is not really far removed from an ordinary dog —it is a hot sausage. Throughout the world there are witticisms concerning sausages and dogdom, but only in Eastern America has this witticism become current to the extent of making dog the official name for sausage.

Instead of "hot dogs" the restaurants and drug-stores display in their show windows placards advertising a purely Western edible: "barbecue," sandwiches of grilled pork.

Then, instead of the optimistic "all right" and "O.K." in the conversation of Westerners one hears the no less optimistic but purely local "you bet!" which means "I wager" but is used for all occasions. For example, if you should ask just as a matter of form whether the steak you order on Dinner # 3 is likely to taste good, the girl will answer with a pleasant smile: "You bet!"

But the last and most important indication is—old automobiles, and not merely used ones, but real antiques. Machines of the year 1910 carry on their small wheels the respectable denizens of the West in droves of entire families. Perched in high old Ford coupes farmers in blue overalls with the white threads of all the seams showing, move on their way. The hefty hands of the farmers lie firmly on their steering wheels. Somewhere a family of Negroes is wandering off. In front sits a young Negro; beside him is his wife. In the back seat slumbers the grey-haired mother-in-law, while young piccaninnies examine our yellow New York licence-plate with popping eyes. The family is evidently travelling from afar, because a bucket and a wooden step-ladder are fastened to the machine. Spindle-shanked mules with long ears are pulling village wagons and drays down the road. The drivers, also in overalls, drive standing. Not once throughout the journey did we see a mule driver sitting in his wagon. That seems to be the style—to stand in his vehicle. Then more and more old Fords. Their lines are old-fashioned, a little funny, but at the same time touching. One senses respectability in them. In a curious way they suggest old Henry Ford himself. They are old and thin, but at the same time durable. They inspire confidence and respect.

Ford need have no compunction about being proud of these machines. They are twenty or twenty-five years old, yet they still run, pull, work– these honest, cheap, black horseless carriages. And always, whenever we met or overtook an ancient model, we exclaimed with candid joy:

"There goes another Old Henry!"

The Old Henry can scarcely breathe, everything in it shakes, only tatters are left of the canvas top and nothing but a rusty rim of the spare wheel, yet the old fellow moves on, does his duty, an appealing and somewhat comical automobile veteran.

We are in the West. We have been driving away from winter and toward summer. Thus we gained not only as to the season of the year, but also in time itself. From the Atlantic we moved into the Central Belt, and gained an extra hour on that. It was now ten o'clock in New York, but only nine here. On the road to San Francisco we would move our watches back twice again. From the Midwestern on to the Mountain and then to the Pacific Belt.

At the intersection of three roads, opposite a small cafe made of boards, which advertised as something new that it sold beer not in bottles but in tin-cans, stood a post to which were attached broad arrows with the names of towns. Besides directions and distances, the arrows pointed out that in the West Americans do the same as in the East—they choose for their cities beautiful, dignified, and famous names. It was pleasant to learn in this little town that it was only forty-two miles from there to Eden, sixty-six to Memphis, forty-four to Mexico, and a mere seventeen miles to Paris. But we chose neither Paris nor Memphis. We were looking for the city of Hannibal. The arrow indicated that we should drive to the right, and that it was thirty-nine miles to Hannibal.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Adams, "remind me to tell you this evening about beer in tin-cans. It is a very, very interesting business."

Exactly thirty-nine miles later Hannibal appeared. A cast-iron plaque placed by "The Historical Society of the State of Missouri" before the entrance to the town, announced that here the great humourist, Mark Twain, had spent his childhood, that somewhere in this town were Mark Twain's house, a park with a view of the Mississippi River, monuments, caves, and so forth.

While we were looking for a night's lodging and Mr. Adams was finding out from the lady of the house how business was in the city, how the depression had affected it, and what our landlady, who was a neat old American lady, thought of Roosevelt, it had grown dark. We had to postpone the examination of the sights of the city recommended by the Historical Society of the State of Missouri until the next morning. While the old landlady told us at great length that business in Hannibal was so-so and that a fairly large portion of the city's income was derived from tourists who came to see the Mark Twain relics, that the depression at one time was quite bad but that they managed to get along better than in the East, and that President Roosevelt was a very good man and looked out for the interests of the poor folks, it had grown still darker. That evening we managed to visit only the Mark Twain museum, which was located on the main street.

That was a temporary museum constructed for the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of Mark Twain's birth. It was located in the building of a bank called the Hannibal Trust Company, which had gone bankrupt shortly before the anniversary. That is why the photographs and the various relics were strangely mixed here with office partitions and the steel locks of safety deposit boxes. Over the huge (alas, for ever empty!) safe hung the steering wheel of the river-boat. A wheel just like that had been turned by Mark Twain when in his youth he was a sailor on the Mississippi. Besides us there was one other visitor, but even he had such a sad face that we had no doubt he must have been at one time a depositor of the Hannibal Trust Company and had come here only in order to take one more look at the magnificent and quite empty bank vault where at one time his modest savings had lain.

Photographs hung on the walls. In a special little room stood a bed brought here especially for the anniversary, the bed on which the author died. Everywhere lay manuscripts, first editions of his books, shoes, scarves, and black lacy fans of the little girl who was the model for Mark Twain's " Becky Thatcher." On the whole, the museum had been assembled helter-skelter, and did not present any special interest.

There was likewise in the museum a plaster model of the monument, for the construction of which a national subscription had already been announced. Here the great writer was surrounded by his heroes. Here were fifty figures, if not more. The monument would cost about a million dollars, and at such a comparatively low price would be, judging by the model, one of the most hideous monuments in the world.

We dined, or rather supped, in a lunch-room across from the museum. Mr. Adams, who never drank anything, suddenly ordered beer. The young waiter brought two tin-cans, the kind in which we sell green peas.

"This is a tremendous business," said Mr. Adams, watching the waiter open the tin-cans of beer, "and until now no one could make a go of it. The trouble was with the odour of the tin. Beer demands an oaken barrel and glassware, but you must understand, gentlemen, that it is not convenient to transport beer in bottles, besides being too costly. Bottles take up too much room. They add to the excessive expense of transportation. Recently a lacquer has been perfected which corresponds perfectly to the odour of a beer barrel, if one may say so. By the way, they looked for this lacquer to fill the needs of a certain electric production, and not for the sake of beer. Now they cover with it the inside of tin-cans, and the beer has no foreign taste at all. This is a big business!"

He drank two glasses of beer, which he really didn't like at all. He drank it out of respect for technique. The beer was quite good.

While we were leaving the tourist home in the morning we saw a small, old and not at all a well-to-do little town. It lay beautifully on hills going down to the Mississippi. The ascents and the slopes were quite as in a small town along the Volga, standing on a precipitous shore. We didn't learn the names of the little streets, but it seemed to us that they must be like the names of the streets along the Volga—Obvalnaya or Osypnaya.

So this was the city of Hannibal, the city of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn!

A remarkable thing! This city is famous not for its production of automobiles, like Detroit, nor for slaughter-houses and bandits, like Chicago! It was made famous by the literary heroes of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the most appealing and the happiest adventures that ever existed in world literature.

As everywhere else, there were almost no people on the streets. But 'those whom we did meet were real Twain types. Timorous and good-natured Negroes, an honourable judge who early in the morning attached himself to a cheap cigar that dangled between his teeth, and boys without end, in velvet-belted corduroy trousers that cannot be worn out, gathered in groups and huddles. The boys were playing some game. Judging by the way they were stealthily looking to the sides, they were playing for money.

The street where Mark Twain had passed his childhood as the barefooted, bare-legged Sam Clemens has been preserved in complete faithfulness. Over the entrance to the writer's house hangs a round white lantern with the inscription "Mark Twain House." By the way, Americans do not say Tven but Twain, and they don't say Tohm Sawyer but Tom Sawyer, and even the most serious, the most businesslike American, whenever he speaks of this world-renowned boy, begins to smile and his eyes become gentle.

In the house live two poor, almost impoverished, old women, distant kin of the Clemens family. They are so old and thin that they sway lib blades of grass. It is dangerous to take a deep breath in this little house because you might blow the old ladies out the window.

The two little rooms of the first floor were dusty and crowded. No, Mr. Clemens the Elder, Mark Twain's father, although he was the editor of the local Hannibal newspaper, must have lived very modestly. The easy-chairs with their springs sticking out and the shaky tables for photographs indicated that.

"In this chair," said one of the old ladies, "Aunt Polly always sat, and it was through this window that the cat Peter jumped out after Tom Sawyer gave him castor oil. It was at this table that the entire family sat when they thought that Tom had been drowned, while he was standing right there at the time and eavesdropping."

The old lady spoke as if everything that Twain had related in Tom Sawyer had actually occurred. She ended up by offering photographs for sale. The old ladies exist on the income from that. Each of us bought a half-dollar photograph.

"People come in here so rarely," said the old lady with a sigh. In the room nearest to the exit hung a memorial tablet with the image of the writer and an ideologically correct inscription composed by the local banker, a disinterested admirer of Mark Twain:

"The life of Mark Twain teaches us that poverty is a stimulus rather than a deterrent."

However, the appearance of the impoverished and forgotten old ladies eloquently refuted this stout philosophic concept.

Side by side with the house stood a low ordinary fence. But the enterprising Historical Society of the State of Missouri had already managed to attach to it a plaque which declared that this was the successor of the fence which Tom Sawyer had allowed his friends to paint in exchange for an apple, a blue glass ball, and other fine articles.

In brief the Historical Society of the State of Missouri was acting in a purely American manner. Everything was short and to the point. It did not write: "Here is the house where lived the girl who was the model for Becky Thatcher from Tom Sawyer." No, that would have been true, of course, but it would have been too wordy for the American tourist. He had to be told exactly whether that was or was not that particular girl. So, he was assured: "Yes, yes, don't worry! It's the very one. You did not use your petrol and time on this trip for nothing. This is she!"

And so at the house standing opposite the dwelling of old Clemens hangs another cast-iron board: "The house of Becky Thatcher, Tom Sawyer's first sweetheart."

The old ladies sold us several photographs. On one of these Becky Thatcher herself was represented in her old age. It seems that she had married an attorney. Some time before his death, Mark Twain came to Hannibal and was photographed with her. A large photograph of these two old people hangs in the museum with the touching inscription: "Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher."

On another photograph is represented an Indian portrayed by Twain under the name of "Indian Joe." This photograph was made in 1921. The Indian was then a hundred years old. So, at any rate, affirms the city of Hannibal.

Finally, we went to Cardiff Hill, where stands one of the rarest monuments in the world, a monument to literary heroes. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are on their way to some of their gay adventures. Not far from the monument fairly big boys were playing. They were in no way different from their cast-iron models. There was gay noise at the foot of the monument.

It was still quite early when we departed from Hannibal. Along the road sleepy travelling salesmen drove full-speed ahead. They work in the daytime, sleep in the evening, while at night they travel from place to place. At night the road is clear, and these demons of commerce take advantage of the possibility of racing.

We rode past cornfields and wheatfields recently harvested, past red barns and yards where metal windmills pump the water out of the wells, and toward the middle of the day we reached Kansas City. Roughly speaking, Kansas City is in the centre of America. It is approximately the same distance from there to New York, to San Francisco, to New Orleans and to the Canadian border.