Thomas Wolfe, page 339
Old Fuss-and-Fidget arose, however, and, followed by the woman and her companion, went out on the platform for a little fresh air and exercise.
George and the dapper young man in the corner were now left alone together. The latter had put down his book and was looking out of the window, but after a minute or two he turned to George and said in English, marked by a slight accent:
“Where are we now?”
George told him they were at Hanover.
“I’m tired of traveling,” the young man said with a sigh. “I shall be glad when I get home.”
“And where is home for you?” George asked.
“New York,” he said, and, seeing a look of slight surprise on George’s face, he added quickly: “Of course I am not American by birth, as you can see from the way I talk. But I am a naturalized American, and my home is in New York.”
George told him that he lived there, too. Then the young man asked if George had been long in Germany.
“All summer,” George replied. “I arrived in May.”
“And you have been here ever since—in Germany?”
“Yes,” said George, “except for ten days in the Tyrol.”
“When you came in this morning I thought at first that you were German. I believe I saw you on the platform with some German people.”
“Yes, they were friends of mine.”
“But then when you spoke I saw you could not be a German from your accent. When I saw you reading the Paris Herald I concluded that you were English or American.”
“I am American, of course.”
“Yes, I can see that now. I,” he said, “am Polish by birth. I went to America when I was fifteen years old, but my family still lives in Poland.”
“And you have been to see them, naturally?”
“Yes. I have made a practice of coming over every year or so to visit them. I have two brothers living in the country.” It was evident that he came from landed people. “I am returning from there now,” he said. He was silent for a moment, and then said with some emphasis: “But not again! Not for a long time will I visit them. I have told them that it is enough—if they want to see me now, they must come to New York. I am sick of Europe,” he went on. “Every time I come I am fed up. I am tired of all this foolish business, these politics, this hate, these armies, and this talk of war—the whole damned stuffy atmosphere here!” he cried indignantly and impatiently, and, thrusting his hand into his breast pocket, he pulled out a paper—“Will you look at this?”
“What is it?” George said.
“A paper—a permit—the damn thing stamped and signed which allows me to take twenty-three marks out of Germany. Twenty-three marks!” he repeated scornfully—“as if I want their God-damn money!”
“I know,” George said. “You’ve got to get a paper every time you turn around. You have to declare your money when you come in, you have to declare it when you go out. If you send home for money, you have to get a paper for that, too. I made a little trip to Austria as I told you. It took three days to get the papers that would allow me to take my own money out. Look here!” he cried, and reached in his pocket and pulled out a fistful of papers. “I got all of these in one summer.”
The ice was broken now. Upon a mutual grievance they began to warm up to each other. It quickly became evident to George that his new acquaintance, with the patriotic fervor of his race, was passionately American. He had married an American girl, he said. New York, he asserted, was the most magnificent city on earth, the only place he cared to live, the place he never wished to leave again, the place to which he was aching to return.
And America?
“Oh,” he said, “it will be good after all this to be back there where all is peace and freedom—where all is friendship—where all is love.”
George felt some reservations to this blanket endorsement of his native land, but he did not utter them. The man’s fervor was so genuine that it would have been unkind to try to qualify it. And besides, George, too, was homesick now, and the man’s words, generous and whole-hearted as they were, warmed him with their pleasant glow. He also felt, beneath the extravagance of the comparison, a certain truth. During the past summer, in this country which he had known so well, whose haunting beauty and magnificence had stirred him more deeply than had any other he had ever known, and for whose people he had always had the most affectionate understanding, he had sensed for the first time the poisonous constrictions of incurable hatreds and insoluble politics, the whole dense weave of intrigue and ambition in which the tormented geography of Europe was again enmeshed, the volcanic imminence of catastrophe with which the very air was laden, and which threatened to erupt at any moment.
And George, like the other man, was weary and sick at heart, exhausted by these pressures, worn out with these tensions of the nerves and spirit, depleted by the cancer of these cureless hates which had not only poisoned the life of nations but had eaten in one way or another into the private lives of all his friends, of almost everyone that he had known here. So, like his new-found fellow countryman, he too felt, beneath the extravagance and intemperance of the man’s language, a certain justice in the comparison. He was aware, as indeed the other must have been, of the huge sum of all America’s lacks. He knew that all, alas, was not friendship, was not freedom, was not love beyond the Atlantic. But he felt, as his new friend must also have felt, that the essence of America’s hope had not been wholly ruined, its promise of fulfillment not shattered utterly. And like the other man, he felt that it would be very good to be back home again, out of the poisonous constrictions of this atmosphere—back home where, whatever America might lack, there was still air to breathe in, and winds to clear the air.
His new friend now said that he was engaged in business in New York. He was a member of a brokerage concern in Wall Street. This seemed to call for some similar identification on George’s part, and he gave the most apt and truthful statement he could make, which was that he worked for a publishing house. The other then remarked that he knew the family of a New York publisher, that they were, in fact, good friends of his. George asked him who these people were, and he answered:
“The Edwards family.”
Instantly, a thrill of recognition pierced George. A light flashed on, and suddenly he knew the man. He said:
“I know the Edwardses. They are among the best friends I have, and Mr. Edwards is my publisher. And you—” George said—“your name is Johnnie, isn’t it? I have forgotten your last name, but I have heard it.”
He nodded quickly, smiling. “Yes, Johnnie Adamowski,” he said. “And you?—what is your name?”
George told him.
“Of course,” he said. “I know of you.”
So instantly they were shaking hands delightedly, with that kind of stunned but exuberant surprise which reduces people to the banal conclusion that “It’s a small world after all.” George’s remark was simply: “I’ll be damned!” Adamowski’s, more urbane, was: “It is quite astonishing to meet you in this way. It is very strange—and yet in life it always happens.”
And now, indeed, they began to establish contact at many points. They found that they knew in common scores of people. They discussed them enthusiastically, almost joyfully. Adamowski had been away from home just one short month, and George but five, but now, like an explorer returning from the isolation of a polar voyage that had lasted several years, George eagerly demanded news of his friends, news from America, news from home.
By the time the other people returned to the compartment and the train began to move again, George and Adamowski were deep in conversation. Their three companions looked somewhat startled to hear this rapid fire of talk and to see this evidence of acquaintance between two people who had apparently been strangers just ten minutes before. The little blonde woman smiled at them and took her seat; the young man also. Old Fuss-and-Fidget glanced quickly, sharply, from one to the other of them and listened attentively to all they said, as if he thought that by straining his ears to catch every strange syllable he might be able somehow to fathom the mystery of this sudden friendship.
The cross fire of their talk went back and forth, from George’s corner of the compartment to Adamowski’s. George felt a sense of embarrassment at the sudden intrusion of this intimacy in a foreign language among fellow travelers with whom he had heretofore maintained a restrained formality. But Johnnie Adamowski was evidently a creature of great social ease and geniality. He was troubled not at all. From time to time he smiled in a friendly fashion at the three Germans as if they, too, were parties to the conversation and could understand every word of it.
Under this engaging influence, everyone began to thaw out visibly. The little blonde woman began to talk in an animated way to her young man. After a while Fuss-and-Fidget chimed in with those two, so that the whole compartment was humming with the rapid interplay of English and German.
Adamowski now asked George if he would not like some refreshment.
“Of course I myself am not hungry,” Adamowski said indifferently. “In Poland I have had to eat too much. They eat all the time, these Polish people. I had decided that I would eat no more until I got to Paris. I am sick of food. But would you like some Polish fruits?” he said, indicating a large paper-covered package at his side. “I believe they have prepared some things for me,” he said casually—“some fruits from my brother’s estate, some chickens and some partridges. I do not care for them myself. I have no appetite. But wouldn’t you like something?”
George told him no, that he was not hungry either. Thereupon Adamowski suggested that they might seek out the Speisewagen and get a drink.
“I still have these marks,” he said indifferently. “I spent a few for breakfast, but there are seventeen or eighteen left. I shall not want them any longer. I should not have used them. But now that I have met you, I think it would be nice if I could spend them. Shall we go and see what we can find?”
To this George agreed. They arose, excused themselves to their companions, and were about to go out when old Fuss-and-Fidget surprised them by speaking up in broken English and asking Adamowski if he would mind changing seats. He said with a nervous, forced smile that was meant to be ingratiating that Adamowski and the other gentleman, nodding at George, could talk more easily if they were opposite each other, and that for himself, he would be glad of the chance to look out the window. Adamowski answered indifferently, and with just a trace of the unconscious contempt with which a Polish nobleman might speak to someone in whom he felt no interest:
“Yes, take my seat, of course. It does not matter to me where I sit.”
They went out and walked forward through several coaches of the hurtling train, carefully squeezing past those passsengers who, in Europe, seem to spend as much time standing in the narrow corridors and staring out of the windows as in their own seats, and who flatten themselves against the wall or obligingly step back into the doors of compartments as one passes. Finally they reached the Speisewagen, skirted the hot breath of the kitchen, and seated themselves at a table in the beautiful, bright, clean coach of the Mitropa service.
Adamowski ordered brandy lavishly. He seemed to have a Polish gentleman’s liberal capacity for drink. He tossed his glass off at a single gulp, remarking rather plaintively:
“It is very small. But it is good and does no harm. We shall have more.”
Pleasantly warmed by brandy, and talking together with the ease and confidence of people who had known each other for many years—for, indeed, the circumstances of their meeting and the discovery of their many common friends did give them just that feeling of old intimacy—they now began to discuss the three strangers in their compartment.
“The little woman—she is rather nice,” said Adamowski, in a tone which somehow conveyed the impression that he was no novice in such appraisals. “I think she is not very young, and yet, quite charming, isn’t she? A personality.”
“And the young man with her?” George inquired. “What do you make of him? You don’t think he is her husband?”
“No, of course not,” replied Adamowski instantly. “It is most curious,” he went on in a puzzled tone. “He is much younger, obviously, and not the same—he is much simpler than the lady.”
“Yes. It’s almost as if he were a young fellow from the country, and she——”
“Is like someone in the theatre,” Adamowski nodded. “An actress. Or perhaps some music-hall performer.”
“Yes, exactly. She is very nice, and yet I think she knows a great deal more than he does.”
“I should like to know about them,” Adamowski went on speculatively, in the manner of a man who has a genuine interest in the world about him. “These people that one meets on trains and ships—they fascinate me. You see some strange things. And these two—they interest me. I should like so much to know who they are.”
“And the other man?” George said. “The little one? The nervous, fidgety fellow who keeps staring at us—who do you suppose he is?”
“Oh, that one,” said Adamowski indifferently, impatiently. “I do not know. I do not care. He is some stuffy little man—it doesn’t matter. . . . But shall we go back now?” he said. “Let’s talk to them and see if we can find out who they are. We shall never see them again after this. I like to talk to people in trains.”
George agreed. So his Polish friend called the waiter, asked for the bill, and paid it—and still had ten or twelve marks left of his waning twenty-three. Then they got up and went back through the speeding train to their compartment.
[¬]
CHAPTER 42
THE FAMILY OF EARTH
The woman smiled at them as they came in, and all three of their fellow passengers looked at them in a way that showed wakened curiosity and increased interest. It was evident that George and Adamowski had themselves been subjects of speculation during their absence.
Adamowski now spoke to the others. His German was not very good but it was coherent, and his deficiencies did not bother him at all. He was so self-assured, so confirmed in his self-possession, that he could plunge boldly into conversation in a foreign language with no sense whatever of personal handicap. Thus encouraged, the three Germans now gave free expression to their curiosity, to the speculations which the meeting of George and Adamowski and their apparent recognition of each other had aroused.
The woman asked Adamowski where he came from—“Was für ein Landsmann sind sie?”
He replied that he was an American.
“Ach, so?” She looked surprised, then added quickly: “But not by birth? You were not born in America?”
“No,” said Adamowski. “I am Polish by birth. But I live in America now. And my friend here—” they all turned to stare curiously at George—“is an American by birth.”
They nodded in satisfaction. And the woman, smiling with good-humored and eager interest, said:
“And your friend—he is an artist, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Adamowski.
“A painter?” The woman’s tone was almost gleeful as she pursued further confirmation of her own predictions.
“He is not a painter. He is ein Dichter.”
The word means “poet,” and George quickly amended it to “ein Schriftsteller”—a writer.
All three of them thereupon looked at one another with nods of satisfaction, saying, ah, they thought so, it was evident. Old Fuss-and-Fidget even spoke up now, making the sage observation that it was apparent “from the head.” The others nodded again, and the woman then turned once more to Adamowski, saying:
“But you—you are not an artist, are you? You do something else?”
He replied that he was a business man—“ein Geschäftsmann”—that he lived in New York, and that his business was in Wall Street. The name apparently had imposing connotations for them, for they all nodded in an impressed manner and said “Ah!” again.
George and Adamowski went on then and told them of the manner of their meeting, how they had never seen each other before that morning, but how each of them had known of the other through many mutual friends. This news delighted everyone. It was a complete confirmation of what they had themselves inferred. The little blonde lady nodded triumphantly, and burst out in excited conversation with her companion and with Fuss-and-Fidget, saying:
“What did I tell you? I said the same thing, didn’t I? It’s a small world after all, isn’t it?”
Now they were all really wonderfully at ease with one another, all talking eagerly, excitedly, naturally, like old friends who had just met after a long separation. The little lady began to tell them all about herself. She and her husband, she said, were proprietors of a business near the Alexander-platz. No—smiling—the young man was not her husband. He, too, was a young artist, and was employed by her. In what sort of business? She laughed—one would never guess. She and her husband manufactured manikins for show-window displays. No, it was not a shop, exactly—there was a trace of modest pride here—it was more like a little factory. They made their own figures. Their business, she implied, was quite a large one. She said that they employed over fifty workers, and formerly had had almost a hundred. That was why she had to go to Paris as often as she could, for Paris set the fashion in manikins just as it did in clothes.
Of course, they did not buy the Paris models. Mein Gott!—that was impossible with the money situation what it was. Nowadays it was hard enough for a German business person even to get out of his own country, much less buy anything abroad. Nevertheless, hard as it was, she had to get to Paris somehow once or twice a year, just in order to keep up with “what was going on.” She always took an artist with her, and this young man was making his first trip in this capacity. He was a sculptor by profession, but he earned money for his art by doing commercial work in her business. He would make designs and draw models of the latest show-window manikins in Paris, and would duplicate them when he returned; then the factory would turn them out by the hundreds.
