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Boxing may be liked or disliked. That is the private affair of every man. Boxing is a sport, perhaps a rough and even an unnecessary sport, but still a sport. As for the American wrestling match, that is a spectacle which is in no way sporting, however astounding it may be.
We saw such a wrestling match in the same Madison Square Garden.
According to the rules of American wrestling… As a matter of fact, why speak of rules, when the peculiarity of this combat consists precisely in that it has no rules whatever? You may do anything you like: break your opponent’s arm; shove fingers into his mouth in an effort to tear it, while at the same time the opponent tries to bite off the fingers; pull the hair; simply beat him up; tear the face with finger-nails, pull off ears; choke his throat – everything is permitted. This form of combat is called wrestling, and there are actually people who evince a genuine interest in it.
The fighters roll in the ring, pressing against each other, and lie like that for ten minutes at a stretch. They weep in anguish and anger, they snort, spit, scream, and in general carry on in a disgusting and shameless manner – like sinners in hell.
The disgust is increased when a half-hour later you begin to understand that all this is the silliest kind of sham, that it is not even a street light between two drunken hooligans. When one strong man really wants to break the arm of another he can do it at any time with a certain twist. In wrestling, however, despite all the frightful gestures, there is never any harm done to the parts of the body. But Americans, like children, believe this naive deception and are frantic with delight.
Even if wrestling were carried on seriously it would merit nothing but contempt.
Certainly, this vulgar spectacle cannot compare with the competition of the cowboys! In this same rectangular arena, sullied by wrestling, we once saw a rodeo, a competition of Western cowherds.
This time there was no ring and there were no chairs. Clean sand lay from one end to the other of the huge arena. On a stand sat musicians in cowboy hats and blew for all they were worth into their horns and fifes. The gates opened into the wooden enclosure, and out came the parade of the participants.
On fine little horses rode the representatives of the romantic states of America, cowboys and cowgirls from Texas, Arizona, Nevada. The brims of the heroic hats swayed. The girls greeted the public by raising their arms in a mannish salute. There were already several hundred riders in the arena, yet more cowboys continued to ride in.
When the gala part of the performance was over, the artistic part began.
The cowboys took their turns in riding out of the gates atop short, but wildly jumping, steers. In all probability these steers had been hurt before and were brought into the arena because they bucked with incredible persistence. The task of the rider was to stay on the back of the animal as long as possible, without catching on with his hands and while holding his hat in his right hand. From the ceiling hung a huge stop clock which the entire hall could watch. One cowboy held on to an infuriated bull for seventeen seconds, another for twenty-five. Some riders were thrown to the ground after two or three seconds. The winner managed to hang on for something like forty seconds. The cowboys had the intent, bashful faces of country lads who did not want to disgrace themselves before their guests.
Later, one after the other, the cowboys rode out on their horses, swinging a lasso wound in a circle. In front of the horse, its little tail up, a calf hopped around in an exhilarating gallop. Again the stop clock went into action. Unexpectedly the rope flew out from the hands of the cowboys. The loop hung in the air like something alive. For a second the calf lay on the ground, and the cowboy hurried to it in order as quickly as possible to bind it according to all the rules of the Texas science and to transform it into a well-tied, although a desperately bellowing, bundle.
The rodeo fans yelled and put down in their little books the seconds and fractions of seconds.
The most difficult feat was left to the end. Here the cowboys had something to work on. An angry, bucking cow was led out of the gates. She dashed over the arena with a speed one would never expect of any domesticated animal. The mounted cowboy pursued the cow, jumped on her neck at full gallop, and, seizing her by the horns, forced her to the ground. The most important and the most difficult part was to throw the cow to the ground. Many did not succeed in that. Having felled the cow, it was necessary to bind all her four legs and to milk a little milk into a little bottle, which the cowboy hurriedly pulled out of his pocket. He was allowed only one minute for all this. Having milked the cow, the cowboy triumphantly lifted the little bottle over his head and cheerily ran behind the barrier.
The brilliant exercises of the cowboys, their songs sung in a minor key, and their black guitars, made us forget the heavy thuds of boxing gloves, the dripping maws, and the tear-smeared faces of the wrestlers.
The colonel was right. In his arena one could see both the good and the bad.
9. We Purchase an Automobile and Depart
ON THE way to Sing Sing and even before that, during lunch with Mr. Adams, we began urging him to join us in a great trip across America. Since we had no real arguments to offer, we repeated monotonously one and the same refrain:
“Come, come with us! It will be very interesting.”
We coaxed him just as a young man coaxes a young girl to love him. There is no reason for it, but he wants someone to fall in love with him, so he presses his suit.
Mr. Adams did not say anything to it. He looked as coy as a young girl and tried to change the subject.
Then we increased the pressure. We even thought up a torture to which we subjected this good-natured elderly gentleman throughout an entire week.
“Remember, Mr. Adams, that you will be responsible if we come to a bad end. We are likely to get lost in that country filled with gangsters, petrol pumps, and ham and eggs. We shall get lousy right before your eyes in this New York, and that will be the end of us.”
“No, no, gentlemen!” said Mr. Adams. “No! You mustn’t press me so hard. It is most inconsiderate of you. You don’t understand that, Mr. Ilf and Mr. Petrov!”
But we persisted, pitilessly egging our new friend on to the point of wavering, and then as soon as possible we would strike this fat iron, incased in a neat grey suit, while it was hot.
Mr. Adams and his wife belonged to that sort of loving couples who understand each other from the first glance.
In Mrs. Adams’s glance could be read:
“I know that you want very much to go. You are scarcely able to contain yourself from starting on a journey with the first people you meet. Such is your nature. It means nothing to you to abandon Baby and me. You are as curious as a little piccaninny, although you are already sixty-three years old. Just think of the number of times you have crossed America by automobile and by train! You know the country as well as you know your own apartment. But if you want to take another look at it, go ahead; I am ready to do anything for you. But one thing I cannot understand: which one of you will drive the car? However, do the best you can and don’t bother about me at all!”
“No, no, Becky!” One could read the response in Mr. Adams’s glance. “It would be unfair and presumptuous to think of me so harshly. I don’t want to go anywhere at all. I merely want to help these people. Besides, I would be lost without you. You had better go with us – that would be best. You are ever so much more curious than I. Everybody knows that. Come along. Incidentally, you will drive the car.”
“And the baby?” replied Mrs. Adams’s glance.
“Yes, yes! The baby! That’s terrible! I quite forgot!”
Whenever the wordless conversation reached that point, Mr. Adams turned toward us and exclaimed:
“No, no! “It is quite impossible!”
“Why impossible?” we asked plaintively. “Everything is possible. It will be so nice, so very nice. We’ll travel, stop to see places, stay in hotels.”
“Whoever heard of anybody stopping in hotels?” Mr. Adams suddenly cried out. “We will stop in tourist houses or in camps.”
“There! You see!” we caught him up. “You know everything! Come along with us! Please come with us! We beg you! Mrs. Adams, you come with us! Come with the whole family!”
“And the baby?” cried both parents.
We answered cavalierly:
“You can put the baby in a public nursery.”
“No, no, gentlemen! Oh, no! You forgot; there are no nurseries here. You are not in Moscow!”
That was right. We were not in Moscow. From the windows of the Adams apartment could be seen the denuded trees of Central Park and from the Zoological Garden came the hoarse cries of parrots in imitation of automobile horns.
“Then leave her with your friends,” we continued.
Husband and wife became thoughtful. At this point everything was spoiled by the baby herself entering the room in a night-suit with a Mickey Mouse embroidered on the chest. She came to say good-night before going to bed. With groans the parents ran to their little daughter. They embraced her, kissed her, and each time turned to us. Now you could read the same thing in the glances of both of them:
“What? To exchange this beautiful little daughter of ours for these two foreigners? Never!”
The appearance of the baby threw us back to where we had started. We had to begin all over again. So we launched new attacks.
“What a fine baby! How old is she? Is she really only two years old? Why, she looks as if she were eight! What an amazingly independent child! You should really give her more freedom! Don’t you think that the constant care of parents retards the development of a child?”
“Yes, yes, gentlemen!” said the happy father, pressing the child to his stomach. “You are only joking!”
When the child was put to bed we talked for about five minutes of [his and that, for the sake of appearances, and then we again began to press our suit.
We proposed a number of things about the baby, but not one of them was suitable. In utter despair we suddenly said, as if remarking, idly:
“Don’t you know some respectable lady who could live with the baby during our absence?”
There was, it seemed, such a lady. We began to develop the idea, when Mr. Adams rose suddenly. The lenses of his spectacles began to gleam. He grew serious.
“Gentlemen, we need two days to decide this question.”
For two days we wandered around New York, annoying each other with questions as to what might happen in case the Adamses refused to go on the journey with us. Where will we then find our ideal creature? And we spent a long time in front of stores that sold things for the road. Scotch cloth bags with zippers, rucksacks of sailcloth, soft leather suitcases, plaids, and thermos bottles – everything reminded one of a journey and lured one to start on it.
Exactly at the appointed hour, Mr. Adams appeared in our hotel room. He was unrecognizable. He was solemn and deliberate. All the buttons of his vest were buttoned. Thus the ambassador of a neighbouring friendly power comes to call on the minister of foreign affairs and declares that the government of his excellency considers itself now in a state of war with the power the representative of which is the above-mentioned minister of foreign affairs.
“Mr. Ilf and Mr. Petrov,” said the little fat man, puffing and wiping icy sweat off his bald head, “we have decided to accept your proposal.”
We wanted to embrace him, but he wouldn’t let us, saying:
“This is too serious an occasion, gentlemen. We cannot lose any more time. You must understand it.”
In the course of those two days Mr. Adams not only made up his mind and reached a decision, but he worked out our itinerary in detail. The itinerary made our heads go around.
At first we were to cross the long and narrow state of New York throughout its length, stopping in Schenectady, the city of the electric industry. The next important stop was to be Buffalo.
“It may seem too trivial to take a look at Niagara Falls, gentlemen, but it must be seen.”
Then, along the shore of Lake Erie, we were to proceed to Detroit. There we were to examine the Ford plants. Then on to Chicago. After that the road was to take us into Kansas City. Through Oklahoma we would drive into Texas. From Texas to Santa Fe in the state of New Mexico. Here we visit the Indian territory. Beyond Albuquerque we cross the Rocky Mountains and drive into the Grand Canyon. Then Las Vegas and the famous dam on the Colorado River, Boulder Dam. Then on to California after crossing the Sierra Nevada range. Coming back from the shores of the Pacific Ocean we return along the Mexican border through El Paso, San Antonio, and Houston. Here we go along the Gulf of Mexico. We are now in the Black Belt: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. We stop in New Orleans, and across the northern corner of Florida, through Tallahassee, Savannah, and Charleston, we move toward Washington, the capital of the United States.
Now it is easy to write about it. But then… how many shouts, arguments, attempts to persuade one another! We wanted to go everywhere, but we were limited by time. The entire automobile journey had to be made in two months, not a day longer. The Adamses declared firmly that they could part from their baby for sixty days and no more.
The difficulty now was an automobile: what kind of an automobile to buy?
Although we knew beforehand that we would buy the cheapest automobile that we could find anywhere in the United States, we nevertheless decided to visit the automobile show of 1936. It was the month of November, 1935, and the show had just opened.
On the two stories of the exhibition building, as if by sleight-of-hand, were gathered all the fairy-tale constellations of the American automobile world. There were no orchestras, no palms, no refreshment stands – in a word, there were no additional attractions. The automobiles themselves were so beautiful that nothing else was needed. The chastity of the American technical style consists in this: that the essence of the thing is not spoiled with anything extraneous. An automobile is the object for which people came here, so only that was here. One was free to touch it, one could sit in it, turn its wheel, light its lamps, examine its motor.
The long bodies of expensive Packards, Cadillacs, and Rolls-Royces stood on mirrored stands. On special platforms were specially polished chassis and motors. Nickelled wheels, displaying the elasticity of the springs, were spun around, and gears were shifted to demonstrate their smooth meshing.
Each firm demonstrated its own technical trick, its one improvement, designed to clinch the enticement of the purchaser – upset his, but chiefly his wife’s, equanimity. All the automobiles displayed by the Chrysler firm were gold coloured – there are such bugs, coffee-gold in colour. These automobiles were surrounded by one huge moan. Thin pretty little American women with the blue eyes of vestal virgins were ready to commit murder for the sake of owning such a machine. Their husbands turned pale at the thought that that night they would have to remain alone with their wives, with nowhere to run to. Many, many are the conversations in New York at night after the opening of an automobile show! It goes ill with a man on the opening day of such an exhibit. He will wander for a long time around the marital couch where, cuddling like a kitten, the beloved creature sobs while he pleads:
“But, Mabel, our Plymouth has gone only twenty thousand miles. It’s an ideal car.”
But the lovely creature does not even listen to her husband. She will repeat one thing over and over:
“I want a golden Chrysler!”
And that night the marital couch will be transformed for the husband into an Indian fakir’s couch covered with spikes.
But the low powerful Cords with crystal lights, which during the day are hidden in the fenders for better streamlining, compel one to forget the golden bugs. American women walk into these machines and sit in them by the hour. But they have not the strength to walk out. Their emotions are completely disturbed. They press a button, and the lamps triumphantly creep out of the fenders. They again touch the button, and the lamps hide in their nests, and again nothing is seen on the outside, except the chaste, shining fender.
But everything dims – even the gold and the crystal – before the rare and apparently old-fashioned forms of the huge Rolls-Royces. At first you want to go past these machines. At first you are even surprised that, in the midst of these slick models, hidden lights and golden colours, stand these black simple machines. But on looking closely you discover that therein precisely lies their distinctiveness. Here is a machine for the rest of your life, the machine for exceedingly wealthy old ladies, the machine for princes. Here Mabel discovers that she will never attain complete happiness, that she will never be a princess. Her Frank earns altogether too little money in his office.
Never will this automobile be out of fashion. Never will it grow old, just as diamonds and sables never grow old. Ah, it is terrible even to sit in it! You feel like the lord protector of the seal who has lost the seal and will be instantly dismissed.
We sat a while in a Rolls-Royce, but decided not to buy it. It was too luxurious for us. It would have been of hardly any use on that trying journey which was before us. Besides, it cost many thousands of dollars.
Then we moved from automobile to automobile. We sat in a blue Buick and in a small and cheap Chevrolet. We called forth Cord lights out of their hiding places by pressing a button, we passed our hands over Plymouths, Oldsmobiles, Studebakers, Hudsons, Nashes. We even pressed the horn of a Cadillac, assuming the air that on that alone depended our decision to buy or not to buy. But after evoking a truly marvellous and mighty roar of the steppes from the nether regions of the machine, we walked away. No! We would not buy it! It was not within our means!
We visited other automobile showrooms. They were located for the most part under the open sky on vacant city lots, but all their grandeur was spoiled by a huge sign reading, “Used Automobiles”.
Here also were Studebakers, Oldsmobiles, Hudsons, and Plymouths. But what time had done to them! No repair work could hide their respectable old age.
“These machines are for very wealthy people,” Mr. Adams said suddenly. “I advise you to buy a new Ford. A used car costs little, but you never can tell how many times you will have to repair it on the road nor how much petrol and oil it consumes. No, no, gentlemen! It would be a foolish thing to buy second-hand stuff.”
Although in every one of these markets under a special shed stood an automobile decorated with the attractive placard “Today’s Bargain,” and although we were insanely intent on acquiring this bargain (the price was incredibly low and it looked simply remarkable), Mr. Adams was implacable and restrained us from a dangerous purchase.
We bought a new Ford.
At first we wanted to buy a Ford with a radio set, but we were dissuaded by a terrible story. Not long ago an accident occurred. In the mountains an automobile was smashed. The wounded people lay in it for several hours under the sound of fox-trots broadcast by the surviving radio set. After hearing that we refused to buy a radio. Incidentally, it cost only forty-two dollars.
We also declined to purchase a heater. What’s the use of a heater when you have to keep a window open anyway? Otherwise the wind-shield will sweat. Besides, the heater cost a lot – twelve dollars.
An ash-tray was inexpensive, but we didn’t have the time to buy one.
In a word, we bought the most ordinary Ford, without a radio, without a heater, without an ash-tray, without a rear trunk, but with an electric lighter.
It was sold to us by a dealer in the lower part of town, somewhere on Second Avenue, corner First Street – not the most aristocratic part of the city. Our new automobile, or, as they say in America, the “car,” stood in an empty garage. The garage was dark and dirty, and the dealer looked like a gangster and didn’t even express any special desire to sell us the machine. If we buy it, all right! If we don’t, don’t! Nevertheless, we saw at once that this was just what we had sought. The automobile was quite new, of a sedate mouse colour, looked expensive, yet cost little. What else can one ask in an automobile? Free cakes? – as Mayakovsky used to say. There are no such wonders in the world! We bought it at once.
We fell in love with our new car, and when all the arrangements were over, when we received the documents entitling us to the possession of the machine, when it already had its yellow number 30-99-74, and the inscription “New York,” and was insured against the possibility of our running into anyone, and also against the possibility of someone running into us, when for the first time we drove with our own machine through New York and Mrs. Adams sat at the wheel, while Mr. Adams himself sat beside her – we were very proud and did not understand why the great city did not say anything about it. To make us feel good, old man Adams said that in all his life he had never, never seen a better, more comfortable, and easier riding, and more economical, automobile than ours.
“Yes, it is remarkably comfortable, and it is easy to drive. You were very fortunate that you bought this and no other automobile,” Mrs. Adams confirmed.
We, too, were puffed up with satisfaction at having managed to pick out the very best automobile out of the twenty-five million automobiles in America.
We spent the last night with the Adamses.
We decided to rise as early as possible and drive off while poor Baby was still asleep. But we failed in that. The little girl discovered us in the act of moving suitcases. It was pitiful to look at the Adamses. With lying voices they assured Baby that they would return in an hour. The Negress wept. We felt that we were utter scoundrels.
The machine glided over the damp asphalt of Central Park West. The speedometer began to register miles. We started on our long trek.
Part II. Through the eastern states
10. On the Automobile Highway
THE PROUD towers of New York were behind us. Framed in stainless steel, the facets of the Empire State Building shone in the morning murkiness hovering over the gigantic city. A thin mist enveloped the summits of Radio City, Chrysler, Woolworth, and other skyscrapers, named and unnamed. Now we were driving through a lively and unpretentious suburb.
Muddy water ran over the pavement, which was lined with parallel strips. The green iron trestle of the elevated railway slit the street lengthwise at the height of the fifth story. The high-strung people of New York raced in their automobiles on their sundry errands. A striped barber pole flashed by; it was a revolving glass cylinder with green, red, and blue stripes. In a red-brick house toasted sandwiches were sold. As a matter of fact, all the houses here were brick and all were red. What can one like here, what can one learn to love here?
Like all the large cities of the world, New York is an appalling city. Here millions of people bravely struggle for mere existence. There is too much money in this city. Some people have too much while others have too little. And it is this that casts a tragic light on all that happens in New York.
We parted from the city for two months.
The route of the first day was clear. We were going to Schenectady along U.S. Highway No. 9, through Poughkeepsie (it actually takes twelve letters to write that word in English), the Hudson, and the capital of the state of New York, Albany.
The regimen of the journey was also clear. We had at our disposal sixty days, and we had approximately ten thousand miles to cover in that time. Even if we were to drive at the rate of two hundred and fifty miles a day, we would cover that distance in forty days. We set aside fifteen days for surveys, sightseeing, and so forth. All told, fifty-five days. That left us with five days in reserve for unforeseen developments. To this it should be added that a mile consists of one and six-tenth kilometres.
