Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

"Yes, yes, gentlemen, in Moscow there is snow now, no doubt," said Mr. Adams, looking solicitously at our harassed faces.

The gentlemen groaned.

"No, seriously, we must properly celebrate New Year's Eve today, come what may. I have a plan. It is now only eight o'clock in the evening. I suggest that we drive directly to the Robert E. Lee Hotel: I gave the address of that hotel to my correspondents. There we will shave, get dressed, leave our automobile in a garage, and then sally forth. I know a fine little restaurant in San Antonio. It is not very far from the hotel. There poets and artists meet. San Antonio reminds one of Santa Fe and Carmel in that it is beloved by people of the arts. Yes, yes! In this little restaurant the food is excellent... And on this day we will not be economical. We shall meet poets and artists, and we shall feast. Gentlemen, what do you think of that plan?"

And Mr. Adams smacked his bald head with the palm of his hand in the audacious manner of a hopeless roisterer.

We fell in enthusiastically with this plan. In less than an hour, cheery, washed, with traces of powder on our shaved cheeks and hope in our hearts, we went out into the street and mixed with the crowd.

"First we must send some telegrams of congratulation," said Mr. Adams. The Western Union telegraph office was located in a small store divided into two halves by a wide oak stand, behind which sat a young man with a pencil behind his ear. At the entrance to the bureau waited two boy bicyclists, in leggings, caps, and tunics, with shoulder straps and bright buttons. It was their duty to deliver telegrams to various addresses. The bicycles, with broad handle-bars and thick tyres, were leaning against the street lamp-posts. The boys were proud of their uniforms and carried themselves importantly, yet they remained children and passed their time in the most carefree fashion. Inside the handle-bars of their bicycles they placed a firecracker, lighted it, and, running off to the door, watched the passers-by jump as soon as they came near the bicycles and heard a shot explode right over their very ears. When the shot was especially loud and the passer-by jumped with particular nervousness, the boys ran into the office and, choking with laughter, looked out into the street, while the young man with the pencil behind his ear waved a reproving finger at them. Then the messenger boys would get into a fight with a company of ordinary youngsters without leggings, without shoulder straps, and without bicycles. The warring sides attacked each other with firecrackers which resounded deafeningly.

The young man accepted our telegrams, pulled the pencil from behind his ear, and, quickly counting the words, said: "Two dollars and eighty cents." We pulled out our money.

"This telegram," said the young man, "will be delivered in Moscow today. But maybe you would like to have it delivered tomorrow morning? This is a telegram of congratulation, and I think the person you are addressing it to will be just as well satisfied if he receives it in the morning."

We agreed with that proposal.

"In that case, the price will be different."

The young man took a piece of paper, made a calculation, and said:

"It will cost you, all told, two dollars and ten cents."

Seventy cents of economy! We began to like the young man.

"But perhaps, gentlemen, you would rather send the telegram some other way. We have a special rate for telegraph letters. Such a telegram will not come much later and will cost you a dollar and a half, and besides, you have the right to add eight more words."

We spent nearly an hour at the Western Union Office. The young man scribbled figures over several sheets of paper, consulted information books, and finally saved another ten cents for us.

He behaved like a kind and cautious uncle who gives his light-minded nephews lessons in how to live. He was more concerned about our pocket-book than we were ourselves. On New Year's Eve, when one longs especially for home, and the job is especially trying, this clerk seemed more than ideally patient with his clients. He seemed a true friend, whose duty was not only to serve us but to protect us, to save us from vital errors.

"Seriously, gentlemen," Mr. Adams said to us, "you have travelled a lot through America and must understand the nature of American service. Ten years ago I made a round-the-world trip and went to a certain tourist bureau to get my ticket. My itinerary was very complicated. It came out too expensive. They sat with me in that bureau all through the day and finally, with the aid of some complicated railway combinations, they economized a hundred dollars for me. A whole hundred dollars! A hundred dollars is big money. Yes, yes. I ask you not to forget that the bureau receives a certain percentage from a deal and that actually, having made my ticket cheaper, it lessened its own earnings. Therein lies the cardinal principle of American service! The bureau earned less on me than it could have earned, but the next time I will unfailingly come to them and they will again earn a little on me. You understand it, gentlemen ? Less, but more often! That is exactly what is happening here in the Western Union telegraph office. Truly, you simply do not understand, you do not want to understand the nature of American service!"

But Mr. Adams was mistaken. We had long ago understood the nature of American service. And if we admired the work of the young man with a pencil behind his ear, it was not because it seemed an exception to us, but because it confirmed the rule.

Throughout our journey, in one way or another, every day we used that service and we learned to prize it highly, although at times it made itself known in scarcely noticeable details.

On one occasion, in Charleston, South Carolina, we sat down in an empty street car which went across the main street with a thunder peculiar to this antiquated form of transportation. The motorman, who at the same time performed also the duties of the conductor, gave us our tickets.

"Ten cents a ticket," said he. "But if you buy four tickets at once there is a rebate. It costs you seven cents apiece, do you understand? Seven cents apiece. Twenty-eight cents all told. Twelve cents of economy! You understand? Only seven cents a ticket!"

All the way down he turned around, showing us his seven fingers, as if we were deaf, and shouting:

"Seven cents. Understand! Seven cents a ticket!"

It was a pleasure to him to give us a rebate, to give us service.

We have become accustomed to having our laundry not only washed but also mended, and should we forget our cuff-links in the sleeves of a soiled shirt, they will be attached to the clean laundry in a special envelope, on which will be printed the advertisement of the laundry. We stopped noticing that in restaurants, cafes, and drug-stores there were pieces of ice in the glasses of water; that at petrol stations free information and road maps are given; while in museums catalogues and prospectuses are given free. Service is best in so far as it becomes as necessary and as unnoticeable as air.

In a New York department store called Macy's, behind the backs of the clerks hang placards addressed to the purchasers: "We are here to serve you!"

To store service belongs likewise the classical American adage: "The customer is always right."

Insurance companies, when their interests coincide with the interests of the insured client, perform wonders of service. For a small fee they give medical service to a man insured for life, since it does not pay them to have the man die. The man, on the other hand, wants very much to live and, getting well, he proclaims the fame of insurance service.

In America there is an interesting trade enterprise called "mail-order house." As a matter of fact, such establishments are known also in Europe, but they are not successful there and frequently go into bankruptcy. This is trade by mail. Here everything is built on service. Should the service be bad, neither the quality of the goods nor the sumptuous office of the head of the enterprise will do any good. A mailorder house serves principally farmers. The distinctiveness of such an establishment lies in the fact that everything, from a pin to house furnishings, is ordered by catalogue. The success of this business is built on the fact that any order is filled within twenty-four hours and not a second more, irrespective of what is ordered, whether it is a hundred cigarettes or a grand piano, and irrespective of where the order must be delivered, whether on Fifth Avenue or to a small house in the state of Dakota. If the thing is not to your liking, it can be sent back to the mail-order house and the purchase money is refunded, except for a small deduction for postage.

When an American finds that he has been well served by some worker or government official, he will write that very day a letter to the corporation or to the department, saying in his letter: "At such and such a time and in such and such a place I was splendidly served by Mr. So-and-so. Allow me to congratulate you on having such a fine employee." And such letters are not lost. The good worker or official is rewarded with promotion. Americans well understand that in order to have good service it is important to have more than just a "complaint book." This does not deter them from writing letters about bad service.

At times, in the desire to give everything and to receive something in return, service becomes comical and occasionally even vulgar.

There is a whole book of ready-made telegrams, of long and pretentiously composed telegrams, for all the occasions of life. It costs only twenty-five cents to send such a telegram. The point is that not the text of the telegram, but only the number by which it is indicated in the book and the signature of the sender are transmitted by wire. This is rather amusing and reminiscent of drug-store lunch No. 4. Everything is served here ready-made, and man is liberated from the unpleasant necessity of thinking and, besides that, he spends extra money.

There are congratulations for a birthday, for a house-warming, for New Year, for Christmas. The content and style of the telegram are adapted to every need and taste—congratulations for young husbands, for respectful nephews, for old clients, for sweethearts, children, writers, and old women. There are even telegrams in verse.

SMITH SYRACUSE TEXAS STOP

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU OLD TOP

GREETINGS ALSO TO YOUR WIFE

HOPE YOU PROSPER ALL YOUR LIFE.

For dissipated students, there are particularly extensive, quite artistically composed and touching telegrams addressed to parents, requesting money ahead of time and threatening in case of refusal to commit suicide.

And all this pleasure for only twenty-five cents!

The country respects and values service, and that service is not only ability to trade and to derive some benefit. It is necessary to say once again: service has entered into the very blood of the people. It is an integral part of the national character. Essentially, it is a way of doing things.

This feeling of respect for service, like all other popular feelings, is played upon expertly by priests and bankers. It is considered here that priests render service to the people. True, the church performance is actually called "service," yet the church also likes to use it in the figurative, or main, sense of that word. The thought is pounded into the brains of people that the church serves the people.

Service is the favourite expression of the Wall Street robber. Openly robbing people, and not only single individuals but entire cities and countries, he will unfailingly say that he is a small man, a simple fellow, and a democrat, as much as are all good people, and that it is not money he serves, but society. He gives people service.

"And so, gentlemen," said Mr. Adams when we left the Western Union, "now we shall celebrate. I ask you to follow me. It is, I think, not far from here. Forward! Go ahead!"

"Go ! Go ! Go!" cried Mrs. Adams.

Since it was already nearly ten o'clock, and all of us were quite hungry, we hastily moved forward.

"This is a marvellous restaurant," Mr. Adams was saying. " I suggest, gentlemen, that we order a large beefsteak and a couple of bottles of good California wine apiece. Although, since we are celebrating, we might as well celebrate right and take some French or Rhine wine. By the way, have you noticed that Americans drink very little wine and prefer whisky ? Oh, oh! Didn't you really know that? This is very, very interesting and will be useful for you to know. This is a profound problem. I advise you to write it down in your little notebooks. You see, a bottle of good wine presupposes good conversation. People sit at a table and talk, and so one thing supplements the other: without good conversation wine brings no pleasure. But Americans do not like and do not know how to converse. Have you noticed it? They never sit around a table longer than necessary. They have nothing to talk about. They dance or play bridge. And they prefer whisky. You drink three glasses and you're drunk at once. So that there's no use talking. Yes, yes, gentlemen, Americans do not drink wine!"

We walked for quite a while down some broad street, with cottages on either side. The business centre was far behind us. We were in the residential part. Here there were no restaurants, no stores, not even any drug-stores. It began to rain. Over the hidden lights hung a placard: " Forty deaths as a result of automobile accidents in San Antonio during the past year. Drive carefully!"

"Hadn't we better turn back?" asked Mrs. Adams.

"Oh, Becky!" exclaimed the old man. "How can you talk like that: 'Let's go back!' It's quite near to the restaurant. I well remember the place."

We walked another half-hour in the rain, becoming gloomier every minute. We passed an automobile cemetery, then a vacant lot where second-hand machines were being sold. Going in the other direction, toward the centre of the city, several automobiles passed, filled with young people who shouted something and lighted firecrackers. At a crossing was a swing illuminated with electric lights. A couple having a good time were sadly swinging in a metal boat. Only here we noticed that the rain was beginning to come down in earnest. By electric light could be seen the thin streams of rain.

"Well, all right," said Mrs. Adams, with her customary reasonableness, "if you don't remember where the restaurant is located, we can ask a policeman."

"No, no, Becky," said Mr. Adams, "don't do that. The restaurant is somewhere around here."

"But, after all, where is it? On what street?"

"Becky, you must not talk like that."

"I'm going to ask a policeman right away," Mrs. Adams said with determination. "What is the name of your restaurant?"

"Why, Becky, I ask you, please, don't worry! No, truly, we must not bother a policeman."

"You have forgotten the name of the restaurant!" said Mrs. Adams.

Mr. Adams groaned, clutching his wet head.

Talking thus, we passed through the entire city and finally saw ahead of us what was evidently the wet desert.

We turned back and, stumbling, ran toward the centre of the city.

"If we could only find a taxi," said Mrs. Adams.

But we did not find a taxi. Evidently they had all been taken by people celebrating the New Year. It was getting on toward twelve o'clock. We ran in the rain, hungry, angry, and tired. The closer we moved toward the centre, the more frequently we met machines with hilarious young people. The centre of the city was full of people. Our nerves had gone altogether to pieces, we winced at every shot, and they resounded on all sides. There was an odour of gunpowder, as during street fighting. Everywhere rattles which emitted the noise of machine-guns were being sold.

"Gentlemen!" Mr. Adams cried suddenly. "Let's have a good time!"

With lightning rapidity he bought a rattle and gaily began to swing it. Some riotous youth struck Mr. Adams on his bald pate with a rattle, and Mr. Adams struck him back on the shoulder.

We went into the first drug-store and ordered sandwiches.

While they were being prepared for us, we sadly clicked our glasses of tomato juice and wished each other happiness. That very minute it struck twelve.

So we met the New Year in the city of San Antonio, in the state of Texas.

43 We Enter the Southern States

THE MORNING after the tempestuous greeting of the New Year we awakened in the Robert E. Lee Hotel with one passionate desire—to go on! To start as soon as possible, this very minute, this very second! In vain did Mr. Adams assure us that San Antonio was a fine city, that it would be unforgivable folly not to see it ("No, seriously, gentlemen"), that we did not understand anything and that we do not wish to understand. We, without previous agreement, repeated sadly one and the same thing:

"Yes, we do not understand anything, we do not wish to understand, and in all probability we will never understand. We gladly admit all that you say, that San Antonio is a wonderful city, but we want to go on! Besides, don't forget, Mr. Adams, that your baby is waiting for you!"

As soon as the baby was mentioned the Adamses began to make haste, and in half an hour we were driving over the same broad and long street where yesterday under a drenching rain we sought a restaurant without a name.

Before leaving San Antonio we drove around Breckenridge Park. Mr. Adams insisted on it.

"You must not think, gentlemen," he announced, "that San Antonio is a bad town. It is a good, well-planned city—and you must see Breckenridge."

The large fine park was empty. Only a few of its trees were naked. All the others, just as in summer-time, rustled with thick green foliage. The park was crossed in all directions by irrigation canals lined with rock. The water flowed with a quiet rustle from one canal into another located a little lower. We looked at a camel and some sea-lions, admired the boys who played football on an almost blindingly green lawn, looked at the tables and benches arranged for picnickers, and, having received considerable information from at least ten petrol stations, we moved on east to the border of Louisiana.

Each day we drove out of one city in order to reach another city by evening, having passed in the course of the day any number of large and small main streets, the Adamses in front, we two in the back seat, and between us some hitchhiker with a suitcase on his knees! But never before had we been in such a hurry. It seemed that the faultless motor of our car was fed not only by the petrol, but also by the impatience that beat within us—as soon as possible to get to New York, as soon as possible to board a ship, as soon as possible to leave for Europe! The second month of our automobile journey was coming to an end. That is a short time for such a large and interesting country. But we were already filled to the brim with America.

The Negro South was approaching. The last mile separating us from Louisiana we drove through forests. The sun looked out. It was warm and joyous, as in the spring-time in the Ukraine. More frequently we met towns, habitations, petrol stations, and horses running freely over fields, their manes flying.

Finally, we passed the little post with the inscription "State of Louisiana," and raced alongside reddish fields of harvested cotton.

The monumental churches of the East and the West were succeeded by wooden, white-washed little churches on poles instead of foundations, Spanish and Indian names were succeeded by French names, and at the petrol station where Mrs. Adams "got" information they replied to her not "Yes, ma'am!" but "Yes, mom!"

Passing through the town of Lafayette we saw a large placard stretched across the street with a picture of an unpleasant self-satisfied face, bearing this inscription in heavy letters:

Elect me sheriff. I am a friend of the people!

This plea of the police Marat from the state of Louisiana reminded us of the manner of the recently assassinated senator, Huey Long, who likewise regarded himself "a friend of the people," of all the people, with the exception of Negroes, Mexicans, intellectuals, and workers, and demanded universal, participation in wealth, in all the wealth, with the exception of the five millions apiece which, according to the idea of the "friend of the people," had to be left to every millionaire.

Here in the South we saw what we had never before seen in America —pedestrians wandering along the highway. There was not a single white man among them.

An old bent Negro woman in thick yellow stockings, ragged dirty slippers, in apron and an old-fashioned hat with a bow, passed by.

We suggested to Mr. Adams that we would like to give the old lady a lift.

"No, no, no!" he exclaimed. "What are you saying? You don't understand the nature of the Southern states. To give a lift to an old Negress! She will never, never believe that white people want to give her a lift. She will think that you are making fun of her."

On the highway, in the midst of the automobiles, suddenly appeared a grey horse pulling a two-wheeled cabriolet with a coachman's box (we saw such specimens in the Ford museum). In the cabriolet sat a planter's wife and her daughter. The ancient equipage turned into a country lane, an ordinary cart road, if you please, with a strip of yellowish grass in the middle. From all the automobiles that passed on the highway people looked out and gazed at the cabriolet which drove off, swaying importantly on its springs, high and thin as spider legs. In just such curiosity farmers had looked thirty years ago at the smoky and sputtering automobile with its clumsy body in which passengers sat up, dressed in wolf coats with the fur on the outside and wearing huge automobile goggles. We drove up to a large river. In the twilight it gleamed like metal.

"Mississippi!" exclaimed Mr. Adams.

"This is not the Mississippi," said Mrs. Adams calmly.

"This is the Mississippi!"

"This is not the Mississippi!"

"Becky, it depresses me to hear you say that this is not the Mississippi."

"Nevertheless, it is not the Mississippi."

Mr. Adams groaned. We drove across the bridge and found ourselves in Morgan City. Before going off to look for a night's lodging, we stopped at a restaurant called the "Blue Goose" to have our dinner.

"Sir," asked Mr. Adams of the proprietor, winking an eye, " what is the name of that river? I know what it is, but my wife would like to know."

"This is the Atchafalaya," replied the proprietor.

"How, how?"

"Atchafalaya."

"Thank you very, very," muttered Mr. Adams, backing out, "very, very."

That was the first occasion throughout the journey that Mr. Adams was guilty of a factual error.

Throughout the dinner Mr. Adams fidgeted in his chair and seemed distressed. Finally he produced a map and a guide book, looked into them for some time, and finally, without looking at his wife, he said timidly:

"I can inform you, gentlemen, of a very interesting detail. This accursed Atchafalaya is the deepest river in the world."

In order to fill up somehow a dull evening in dull Morgan City, we did what we usually did on such an occasion—we went to a motion-picture theatre. Usually, looking at the screen, Mr. Adams was not so much angry as he was ironical about the plot and the actors of the Holly– I wood production. But on this occasion he suddenly started a regular 1 demonstration. Ten minutes after the beginning we noticed that Mr. Adams was not his usual self. He jumped up and down in his seat, groaned and muttered quite aloud :

"To hell, hell, hell with it!"

Suddenly he cried out: "To hell with it!" so that everybody in the hall could hear him, jumped out of his seat, and, muttering curses and sputtering, ran out into the street. Mrs. Adams ran after him. We remained to see the picture to the end, sensing that an important family battle was at that very moment being waged in the street.

When the show was over we did not find either of the couple at the entrance to the theatre. With great difficulty we found them in various parts of the city. Happily, the ends of the city were not at any great distance from one another.

Mr. Adams, without a hat (his hat was still cruising from city to city), the collar of his coat raised, was taking broad steps across the dark highway in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico, continuing to mutter: "To hell with it!"

"Seriously, gentlemen," he said to us piteously, "I cannot bear it any longer. These motion pictures will finally drive me crazy. In New York I never go to the movies, and it is very hard for me to bear it, because I am not used to it. No, truly, I wanted to shoot at the screen—widi a machine-gun."

The couple quickly made it up and the evening ended with a heart-to-heart talk at the gas fireplace of the tourist home.

It was only a hundred miles to New Orleans. On a sunny morning we started on our journey. It was soft, almost summery weather. We drove! along a new but rather narrow concrete road, along a quiet little river. On the other side stretched reddish fields of cotton, on which here and there could be seen pieces of white cotton tuft and fields of sugar-cane where Negroes in large groups were chopping down its dry stalks with machetes.

Frequently across the river were flung protuberant and narrow little suspension bridges.

In the course of several hours we met the monotonous and pathetic board huts of Negro farm workers. Here was the devastating monotony of limitless poverty, a kind of standard of poverty. In the doorless entrances, surrounded by wattles almost falling apart, one could see not only no cows, pigs, or chickens, but not even a wisp of straw. This was the very lowest stage of poverty, before which the picturesque poverty of the Indians may seem the height of well-being, even of luxury. This was in south United States, in one of the most fruitful places on the globe.

Before us again appeared a large, smooth and completely deserted river, which reminded us of the Volga, although perhaps it was not so broad.

"This is the Mississippi," said Mrs. Adams triumphantly.

Mr. Adams sighed heavily. He would have paid a high price that the river should bear some other name. But there was no doubt. There was the bridge, the famous new silvery bridge with its side roads for automobiles and its central part designated for trains. Again American nature and American technique met in a contest of strength. The longest river in the world was crossed by the longest bridge in the world resting on abutments. It was opened only five days ago, had been three years under construction, and cost fifteen million dollars. Beyond the bridge began the widest express highway, and cottages appeared. We were driving into New Orleans.

New Orleans might have been called tne American Venice (after all, like Venice it has risen out of water), if its innumerable canals had not been hidden underground.

The city is widely spread on a low promontory between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain. From the place where the Mississippi enters into the Gulf of Mexico to the city it was ninety miles. Closer to the Gulf, not another place could be found where a city might be built. But even where it has been built the soil is alluvial, slimy clay. The city has always suffered from floods and fevers. The water which brought it its good fortune at the same time brought it misfortune. In the course of its entire life the city has been fighting itself, fighting against the soil on which it is built and the water which surrounds it on all sides. It is fighting even now. But the main work has already been done. Pontchartrain is separated from the city by a concrete embankment which drops toward the lake step by step. The approaches to the city for many miles around are covered with a system of dams, on top of which pass faultless highways. In the long battle between man and nature, man has come out the victor.

The city is planned with extraordinary simplicity. The streets which go parallel to the river follow the bend which the river makes at that place, and assume the shape of a crescent. They are crossed by completely straight and very long streets. Under one of these, located approximately in the centre of the city, is hidden the largest canal. In honour of this unseen canal the street itself is called Canal Street. This is the main street. It divides the city into two parts—the French, which is as careless as old Paris, with its little streets, its small arches on the wooden posts, its stores, its restaurants of unprepossessing appearance with first-class French cooking, its port inns, cobbled streets, and street stands filled with vegetables and fruits, the beauty of which stands out particularly, thanks to the proximity of dirt and slops thrown right out into the streets —and the new American part, which adds nothing to the character of the American cities already known to the readers.

At one time Louisiana belonged to France, and New Orleans was founded by Frenchmen. It is difficult to say to what extent the French spirit has been preserved in New Orleans, but on to Canal Street emerge the streets of the Dauphin, Toulouse, Royale, and there is even a Champs-Elysees, while in the old city in the Restaurant Arnot they serve the kind of filet that surely cannot be found anywhere else in America.

The city lies a little more than a metre below the level of the river. There is not a single dry spot in it where the dead might be buried. No matter where they try to dig the ground, they unfailingly find water. Therefore, people here always bury their dead in the manner of the ancient Egyptians, in sarcophagi, above the earth.

We went to the cemetery, which is located in the French part of the town, and for a while wandered through this white and tedious city of the dead. The quadrangular vaults are made of brick, and painted white. The coffin is placed in the front opening, which is then closed in with bricks. One vault is built on top of the other, and occasionally a third one on top of that. Its two-storied brick dullness makes the cemetery reminiscent of a small American town. It even had its Main Street.