Chapter Three

48At last, on a Saturday night, I began the journey together with my comrades from the Balta circle. I had spent three weeks in Brod. Other emigrants had waited there several months.

— Long live the Balta Am Olam (Eternal People)! — people shouted.
— A happy journey and a happy future! Long live the American republic!

More than anything, people hailed “the Republic,” or “Freedom.” For Russian subjects these were magic words. People delighted in their sound.

I remember the expression on the face of a young man who was the last to take leave of me through the little window of my railcar. Earlier we had kept our distance from each other. He was a dandy and an empty braggart, and was forever mimicking the Litvaks. Once I came upon a conversation in which he spoke with contempt about us. I took the floor; I mocked his foolish self-importance and exposed his ignorance and narrow-mindedness. The listeners were Volhynians. Yet they applauded me. From that time on he 49avoided me. Now, however, he had come to take leave of me.

— All the best to you! Long live the Balta Am Olam! — he shouted in Russian. — Good luck to your colony!

We shook hands firmly. His good wishes made the strongest impression on me.

We all traveled third class. In my car were several of the young couples — Russian emigrants with their Galician little wives. “Honeymoon” scenes took place.

The train went slowly. It took a whole night before we reached Lemberg.

In Lemberg a committee of local householders awaited us. They treated us to tea and rolls. Later — to soup and meat. We stood there a whole day, and many of us slipped down into the town. The center of Lemberg, with the green meadows of a small park, was pleasant to see. To the left of it begins the Jewish quarter; so I set off thither.

— It looks exactly like Vilna! — I said to my companion. And he — I do not remember who it was — answered with impatience:

— Everything looks to him only like Vilna! As if no other city existed in the world at all.

In the small park we then met a young man who wore a soft black hat with a very broad brim and held an ear-trumpet to his ear. He was deaf. He introduced himself to us as Walter, one of the founders of the Kiev “Am Olam.” 50He himself had had to leave Kiev because of revolutionary connections.

Back to our train we rode on the horse-tram. And to this day there rings in my ears the whistle with which the conductor gave his signals; and to this day I see the gleaming brass handle of the screw with which the driver controlled the horses. The tram-car was brand-new.

In Krakow we arrived in the morning, and again a committee received us. They treated us to tea and rolls. The Lemberg committee I do not remember personally at all; of the Krakow committee I remember one Jew: a fat, pot-bellied Hasid with a fine, kind, girlish face, with curled sidelocks. With the corners of his long coat tucked into his belt, he bustled about us in the role of a server.

A week earlier the “Kiev Am Olam” had passed through Lemberg and Krakow. It was much larger than the Balta circle, and far more of a parade was made over it than over us. Details of its journey I heard partly now, when we passed through the same places, and partly later, in New York, from the Am-Olamniks themselves.

The Kiev “Am Olam” carried with it a Torah scroll — not as a religious sanctum, but as a national banner. When the party halted at a square, it carried out the Torah scroll, truly like a flag.

The Kiev “Am Olam” made itself heard throughout all Europe. Everywhere it was received with parade, and in Lemberg and in Krakow — with speeches and with gifts. In Lemberg it remained over a 51week's time. The leaders of the committee there were two young men of the highest intelligentsia, Diamant and Nassig. They showed tireless hospitality to the guests, chiefly to the more intelligent members of the “Am Olam,” young men and girls, who were lodged with the most respected householders of the town.^*

In Krakow there was at that time a Christian, a Pole, by the name of Onuprowicz, who took a friendly interest in the Jewish emigration. His name was known to us already from Russia, for he knew Russian well and was the Krakow correspondent of the Russian-Jewish weekly “Russky Yevrey” (The Russian Jew). He came to welcome the “Kiev Am Olam” at the station, and as a gift he brought them a richly bound book: Karl Marx's “Capital” in a French translation.

Next we stopped in Breslau, Germany. There too a committee came to us, but already of an entirely different sort. The members were German Jews, finely dressed in the European style, and clean-shaven. They treated us to a good dinner.

We had a few hours' time, so I ran out to look at the town, and here I 52for the first time noticed the difference between a highly civilized country and a country such as Russia. I admired the cleanliness and trim neatness of everyone and everything. I was astonished.

In Petersburg I had seen, on the most important streets, many people who wore coarse boots and no collars or neckties. Here everyone went dressed like a nobleman — such was the impression I received.

From Breslau we traveled to Berlin. There a committee again welcomed us. Among the rich members was a banker, a brunette, by the name of Magnum. He gave Mashbir several gold coins to buy books for the circle, to learn English.

We did not have much time here. I only managed to take a look at a couple of streets, not of the most important ones.

From Berlin our train went off to Hamburg, and there we went straight from the station to the ship that was to carry us as far as England. We arrived at night, and we were led through narrow, dirty harbor alleys — that is all we got to see of the beautiful city of Hamburg.

On the ship our company, with few exceptions, suffered from seasickness. I was one of the small minority. It was terrible to look at the sufferers. I had never yet seen such a scene. The sea disappointed me. From all that I had read about it, I had pictured it to myself 53as something majestic, wondrously beautiful; and here it produces such ghastly scenes!

The sky was overcast and everything looked gray, wrapped in a fog. Of beauty there could be no talk. The waves made on me an impression of ugly, evil creatures, like “unclean spirits.”

We came down from the ship in Hull, a port town on the east coast of England. There we stood only an hour. All I remember of that hour is how I and a couple of other emigrants went in to buy something in a shop. The shopkeeper was a German Jew. And he said to us: “In a couple of years you will be brilliant American merchants.”

From Hull we cut across by rail the whole breadth of England. We came to Liverpool.

Brod had made a strange impression on me; the same was the case with Liverpool, only in a different way.

A modern city, a large one, a rich one, a bustling one; and yet I could scarcely believe that I was in Europe. Lemberg, Krakow, Breslau, Berlin, Petersburg, Vitebsk, Vilna — each of them is different from the others. But compared with Liverpool they were all the same. Liverpool was entirely different. Almost everything I saw here was not as it was there. Wherever 54I just turned, I opened my eyes wide with wonder.

A surprising novelty to me were the bicycles (velocipedes). Outside England one did not yet see them at that time in Europe. The bicycles of that day were much larger than today's — one very large wheel and one tiny one. The rider rode on the big one, up high. From a distance it looked as though he were standing in the air and so carried himself along.

Then the “izvoshchikes” (cabs)! A droshky that has only two wheels, both monstrously large! And the coachman sits on a high, high seat, and not in front, but behind the droshky; the reins stretch over the droshky's roof; when the coachman wants to give the horses a flick, he reaches them over the roof with a long whip. These “hansom cabs” one still sees in England today, and a few years ago one could still see them in New York too. In other countries, however, they were never used.

Of the many other things that astonished us, I remember the “boot-blacks” (poor boys who shine shoes in the middle of the sidewalk). I had read about these shoe-shiners in Vodovozova's “The Life of the European Peoples.” But reading is one thing, and seeing with one's own eyes is another.

We marveled also at the Liverpool railway stations. We used to stand and watch how trains came in and went off. Out of a clear sky a long, long “poyezd” (train) glides in, without preparations, without fuss. The same with the train that is to depart. There it stands, and there — it's gone! In Russia, before a train departs, there is a ringing of bells, a running about, a kissing and a weeping; and 55gendarmes with side-whiskers, with big mustaches, stroll about with “strashny” (fearsome) tread, jingling their spurs. And here a train departs without any noise, without ceremonies, as if it were not even meant.

Various other things astonished me. Perhaps the unfamiliar sound of the English language had a part in these strange impressions, but along with them we felt signs of freedom, even more than in Austria.

As a result there took shape in my head a notion that a country which enjoys more or less freedom cannot at all look like Russia, or Germany. And since America was still freer than England (so we then thought), and the language there is also English, the peculiarities of Liverpool seemed to me like a sample of the country in which I was going to settle.

On our ship we had to wait over a week's time.

The books that had been bought with Magnum's gift were “self-teachers” of the English language for Germans. But I wanted to have a textbook for Russians, and also a dictionary of English into Russian and of Russian into English. And on the very first day I went off to look for a bookshop. I dragged myself about for a few hours through the streets and wore myself out asking where there was a bookshop. Since I did not know a single word of English, I tried speaking German and French. I poured out all the French words about books that I could recall (in Vilna I had, after all, taken lessons in French, and in 56Velizh I had continued to study French on my own).

I gestured with my hands, with my eyes, shouted, sighed in despair, and might as well have cried out to God! No one understood me. But the patience and friendliness with which everyone heard me out made on me an impression that Englishmen are people of diamond. Probably the Americans are also so, — I thought.

From Hamburg to Liverpool there had traveled with us a Jew from Courland, a well-dressed man, with shaven cheeks and a black “Spanish goatee.” He was traveling on business — so he told us — and he was sure he could speak English. Now, while searching for the bookshop, I met him by chance. I was overjoyed. And he indeed wanted to help me; but his English the Englishmen understood no better than my German and French.

At last I met an old sailor who knew a little Russian. It was as if the Messiah had suddenly sprung up from under the earth! The sailor led me to a book-shop.

There I bought a Russian-English and English-Russian dictionary (in a binding of gleaming black leather) and a Russian “self-teacher” of the English language.

I set about listening to how English is spoken. The language seemed to me so unnatural, like the bicycles, the “hansom cabs,” and the “boot-blacks.” It seemed to me that the Englishmen's mouths were built entirely differently from ours. The lips are no lips, the tongue no tongue.

57I remember how Mashbir and I went to talk things over with the Liverpool emigrants' committee. They addressed us through a German interpreter; and while they spoke, I studied their lips and tongues. One of the committee I remember. He was entirely clean-shaven and wore gold spectacles and a fine neck-cloth. He was neither tall nor at all thin. He looked like a dumpling. When he spoke, it seemed to me that his words were chopped up as if with a chopping-knife into tiny little bits, which sprayed out of his mouth like sparks from a smith's anvil. This crazy tongue I shall, after all, have to learn! — I reflected, almost in despair.

Then the Englishmen themselves! Good people, but their calmness and composure at times drove me out of patience. Such cold “lung-and-livers” (phlegmatic souls) I had never imagined. Liverpool both drew me and repelled me. And all this I took as a sample of America.

I remember how we were sitting in our lodging, several of us, and the landlady's daughter came in to us with a child on her arm. She began to speak to us; we, naturally, did not understand a word. All we did understand was that she spoke very politely. Young as we were, we took to joking. I and a couple of others spoke to her in Russian, and our fellow travelers choked with laughter. But she did not laugh; she did not even take offense; and to everything we said to her she politely answered: “Yes, yes.”

58For three days running we did not stop mimicking her: “Yes, yes.”

There is no emigrant who has not read the words “ice-cream” as “itse cream.” With me too it happened. But that was only later. In Liverpool I made fun in this way of other English signs. Some words we twisted around in an indecent manner.

I did, however, begin to learn English quite seriously, and indeed there in Liverpool. The little French I knew now came in useful, although the French words that the English language contains are pronounced in it quite differently than in French. I listened to our landlord, to his wife, to their son, to their daughter; I tried to observe how they pronounced the words.

In English pronunciation there is a great difference between various regions. The masses in London, for example, fumble the “h,” just as do the Jews of Grodno or of many towns in southern Russia. My hosts were probably Londoners, for their “h” was missing where it was needed, and it would appear precisely where it was not reckoned on. But that these were errors I did not know. I listened attentively to their pronunciation as far as I could; and I labored to repeat after them, with all their errors and all.

I learned to say “'alf” (half) instead of “haaf,” or “hask” (ask) instead of “ask.” The Americans have no trouble with the “h”s, and with them it is not “haaf,” but “haef.” But of that later.

59Once, walking along the street, I caught sight of a young man from Vilna, a former gymnasium student, by the name of Braz. At home we had scarcely been acquainted. Here, however, we embraced like close friends. He too was traveling to America, to an aunt. From him I learned a piece of news that was for me a very pleasant surprise: from Vilna there had set out for America a group of Jewish revolutionaries from my circle. The leader of the group was Boris Kospe, the elder of the two brothers, gymnasium students, whom I used to visit often.

And among the other members of the group were my comrades Shaul Badanes and Solomon Menasker, and a few more good acquaintances. The young man from Vilna also told me that the younger Kospe would come a few months later, with a second Vilna group.

It meant that I was not the only one from our circle who had joined the “Americans.” This was for me a source of moral satisfaction. The main thing, however, was the thought that in New York I would find comrades from home. I would no longer be forlorn there.

At last they led us, with the whole “Balta Am Olam” and a great number of other emigrants, off to the ship that was to carry us to America. It was called “The British Queen” (the British Queen). 60We traveled, naturally, steerage (third class).

We had been told that one must buy many citrons (lemons), so I bought a whole two dozen; but since I did not suffer from seasickness, I never once touched them.

Once I see on the “deck” a young little fellow, going from passenger to passenger and begging that someone give him a “lemon” for his wife, who was suffering badly. I gave him all twenty-four. They did not stop thanking me. The little woman told me that I had saved her life.^*

The captain we saw seldom, and only from afar. To the steerage passengers he was a mysterious, majestic power. A real power, not a mysterious one, was over us in the steerage-steward. He fed us and served us and reigned over us. He was, however, not a wicked king. The steerage passengers were so dependent on him that it seemed to them that in his hands lay their fate, above all the fate of the sick and helpless.

The unintelligent travelers, having heard him called “mister,” thought that this was his name. I explained to them that it means only “Herr,” or “gospodin” (sir); it did not help, however. Even when he was not present, they would also call him 61“mister”: “I'll tell mister,” or “the devil knows him, mister.”

This “mister” was my first teacher in the English language. I would point out to him a word in my dictionary or “self-teacher,” and he would show me how to pronounce it. It was not easy for me to repeat after him. For the English vowels had for me an indefinite sound, nothing at all like in a human language. A “kometz” (the vowel a) is no kometz, a “patach” no patach. And “mister's” pronunciation did not even agree with my book. I show him a word, and when he reads it over, an entirely different word comes out — so it appeared.

Each time I would be amazed. I used to say, in jest, that I write “Benjamin” and he reads it “Yankel.”

Still, mister brought me much benefit. The ship went thirteen days, and every day I learned something from him.

When he had to say something to an emigrant, he would lead the emigrant to me and write down the words, and I would look up the meaning in my dictionary. Then I would explain to the emigrant what he wants. Conversely, when an emigrant wanted to ask something of him, I would look up the words in the Russian-English part of my dictionary and show them to him.^*

In the course of our journey on the ship came Shavuoth. The holiday is bound up in my memory with the 62figure of a robust blond youth, an Odessan, with broad shoulders and a trimmed yellow little beard. He was usually a merry fellow, and from his mouth there often came indecent talk. Suddenly I see him standing with a prayer-book in hand, praying. I also noticed that he was dressed up. He saw that I was looking at him. When he had finished the Shemoneh Esreh (the Amidah prayer), he said to me with a serious face:

— Good Yom Tov (holiday)! It is, after all, Shavuoth. We are, after all, on the water. Anything can happen....

The captain of the ship I do not remember. His officers either. I remember only an old sailor who used to stand on the bridge of the ship and observe the weather; with the outer side of his hand laid to his brow and his eyes fixed on the distance, he would gaze and gaze. This used to enchant me. He would look at the sky and I at him. For ten or fifteen minutes at a stretch I would stand as one riveted, not lowering my eyes from him. But I would look much more at the sea.

When one had grown used to the rocking of the ship and to the smell of the third class — the stifling, salty, terrible smell of the cellar that was called “steerage”; and when the sick had grown well, and had crawled out of the flat wooden boxes that were called beds, — the company used to sit whole days on the “deck.”

I never grew sick of looking at the waves and at the endless expanse of water in general. For hours at a time I would stand at the railing of the ship and gaze, gaze. Like one in a dream, like one frozen by a spell.

63It would not be believed that there would ever come an end to the water.

At home the Dnieper was the largest river I had ever seen. I had traveled over it three days; but the whole time both banks were still visible — villages, houses, people. While in Petersburg, I had traveled with Sokolov's brother on a steamboat to Kronstadt and back. That water was a part of the sea, and it made a great impression on me. But the shore I saw almost the whole time of the short journey. And here — hours, and hours and hours went by, and nothing but water was to be seen.

From the hours days became. One day, a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and round about all there was nothing but water. At first it could not be believed that there could be so much water. Yes, it absolutely could not be believed. And afterward, when one had grown used to it, it could not be believed that there would ever come an end to the water. It could not be believed that there was an America somewhere.

In the evening, when the sky was clear, we used to look at the magic colors of the sunset — to look and to express our delight.

Later, when the wondrous colors gradually faded, the heart would go out from longing. We used to gather together and sing Russian folk songs, the mournful, yearning melodies of Great-Russian or Little-Russian (Ukrainian) villages.

Others of the passengers, mostly Norwegians and Swedes, and some Englishmen, used to listen to our singing. Or if not, the Englishmen would sing and we would listen. The Norwegians danced more than they sang, and often we would stand around and 64look at their couples. One couple of the dancers I see now as if alive. The cavalier — a light-blond Norwegian — wore a pince-nez which, from the dancing, fell off his nose every little while. Rocking to the beat, he would each time catch it up, put it back on his nose, hold it a bit with his hand, then let it go again until it fell off, and again catch it up.

The feeling with which the emigrant first catches sight of American land from the ship (especially after having been at sea for thirteen days) I have already described on another occasion.^* I want only to say that when the “British Queen” came near the shore, and colors and forms of dry land could already be clearly seen, I became literally spellbound.

The green banks lit by a golden sun, the paradisiacal blueness of water and sky, the lighthouses on the sea, the noisy companies of sea-birds — all this composed in my mind a picture truly as of a magic world. The endless sea had astonished and enchanted me; the approach to the shore — even more.

The reader must not forget that for the present-day emigrant America is not the same as it was for us. He has there many countrymen, relatives, acquaintances. From America come millions of letters and hundreds of guests. About America one does not stop reading and talking. The country is no longer a secret. One may, perhaps, have of 65it no correct conception. But one knows about it thousands of things, and one is bound to it through thousands of people and facts. It is a reality.

All this was not so in those times. A letter from America was a museum piece, and a guest from there — an impossibility. America was, in our imagination, a mystery in the full sense of the word.

As a dream-land I had previously imagined America, and the images that unrolled before my eyes now, when the “British Queen” swam up to Philadelphia, made on me too such an impression.

The Americans I had pictured in my imagination as tall, slim people, with yellow trousers and tall hats. Why exactly so, I do not know; perhaps one of the Americans about whom I had read somewhere looked so. One of the books that Makhaver's younger son had brought me from the Mogilev library was a novel of American life (in a Russian translation), by a writer named Emma Fiers. Perhaps the hero of that novel looked so. In any case, such a figure had taken shape in my mind. And so I now expected to see such people.