The Bomb Engel I Knew We Should Get on Together
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cialist, George Engel, who keeps a toyshop between here and the station. He told me he wanted a lodger. He has two good rooms, I believe, and I am sure you’ll like him. Suppose we go and see him.” I assented, and we set off, my companion talking the while with engaging frankness of his own plans and hopes. As soon as I saw The Bomb Engel I knew we should get on together. He had a round, heavy, good-natured face; he was perhaps forty-five or fifty years of age; his brown hair was getting thin on top. He showed me the rooms, Frank Harris which were clean and quiet. He was evidently delighted to talk Ger- man, and proposed to take my checks and bring my baggage from the depot, and thus leave me free. I thanked him in our Bavarian dialect, and his eyes filled with tears. “Ach du liebster Junge!” he cried, and shook me by both hands. I felt I had won a friend, and turning to Spies said, “Now we can sup together.” Though it was getting late, he took me off at once toaGerman restaurant, where we had a good meal. Spies was an excellent com- panion; he talked well, was indeed, on occasion, both interesting and persuasive. Besides, he knew the circumstances of the foreign workers in Chicago better than perhaps any one. He had genuine pity, too, for their wants and faults, sincere sympathy with their sufferings. “Whether they come from Norway or Germany or South Rus- sia,” he told me, “they are cheated for the first two or three years by everyone. In fact, till they learn to speak American freely they are mere prey. I want to start a sort of Labour Bureau for them, in which they can get information in their mother tongue on all subjects that concern them. It is their own ignorance which makes them slaves — pigeons to be plucked.” “Is the life very hard?” I asked. “In winter dreadfully hard,” he replied. “About thirty-five per cent of working men are always out of employment; that entails 1908 a sediment of misery, and our winters here are terrible… 56 the mere name, and distinction as well. I would become an Ameri- can, and — my thoughts returned on themselves — and a girl’s face fashioned itself before my eyes, dainty-dark, provocative, willful… My year’s work in the open air had made me steel-strong. I was strung tense now with the mere thought of a kiss, of an embrace. I looked down and took stock of myself. I was roughly, but not badly dressed; just above the middle height, five feet nine or so; strongly built, with broad shoulders; my hair was fair, eyes blue, a small moustache was just beginning to show itself as golden down. She would love me, too; she … the blood in me grew hot; my tem- ples throbbed. I rose and walked through the car to throw off my emotion; but I walked on air, glancing at every woman as I passed. I had to read to compose myself, and even then her face kept coming between me and the printed page. I reached Chicago late in the evening, after a forty hours’ jour- ney. I was not tired, and in order to save expense I went at once in search of Spies, after leaving my baggage at the depot. Ifound him at the office of the “Arbeiter Zeitung.” The office wasmuch smaller and meaner than Dr. Goldschmidt’s; but Spies made an ex- cellent impression on me. He was physically a fine, well set up fellow, a little taller than I was, though perhaps not very strong. He was well educated, and spoke English almost as fluently as his mother tongue, though with a slight German accent. His face was attractive; he had thick, curly brown hair, dark blue eyes, andlong moustaches; he wore a pointed beard, too, which seemed to accen- tuate the thin triangle of his face. I found out, bit by bit, that he was very emotional and sentimental. His chin was round and soft, like a girl’s. His actions were always dictated by his feelings at the moment. He met me with a frank kindliness which was charming; said that he had read my articles in “Vorwaerts,” and hoped I would do some work for him. “We are not rich,” he said, “but I can pay you something, and you must grow up with the paper,” and he laughed. He proposed that we should go out and sup; but when I told him I wanted lodgings he exclaimed: “That fits exactly. There is aSo- 55 Chapter II Contents The long train journey and the great land spaces seemed topush An Introduction by John Dos Passos 5 my New York life into the background. I had been in America con- siderably over a year. I had gone to New York a raw youth, filled Foreword to the First American Edition (1909) 15 with vague hopes and unlimited ambitions; I was leaving it a man, who knew what he could do, if he did not know yet what he wanted. Afterword to the Second American Edition (1920) 17 By the by, what did I want? A little easier life and larger pay— that would come, I felt — and what else? I had noticed going about Chapter I 25 the streets of New York that the women and girls were prettier, Chapter II 54 daintier, better gowned than any I had been accustomed to seein Germany. Many of them, too, were dark, and dark eyes drew me Chapter III 71 irresistibly. They seemed proud and reserved, and didn’t appear to notice me, and, strange to say, that attracted me as much as any- Chapter IV 85 thing. Now that the struggle for existence left me a little breathing space, I would try, I said to myself, to get to know some pretty Chapter V 104 girl, and make up to her. How is it, I wonder, that life always gives you your heart’s desire? You may fashion your ideal to your fancy; Chapter VI 114 ask for what eyes and skin and figure you like; if you have only a little patience, life will bring your beauty to the meeting. Allour Chapter VII 126 prayers are granted in this world; that is one of the tragedies of Chapter VIII 141 life. But I did not know that at the time. I simply said to myself that now I could speak American fluently, I would make love to Chapter IX 158 some pretty girl, and win her. Of course I had to find out, too,all about the conditions of labour in Chicago, for that was what Gold- Chapter X 175 schmidt wanted in my weekly articles, and I must learn to speak and write American perfectly. Already in my thoughts I had begun Chapter XI 187 to call myself an American, so strongly did the great land with its careless freedom and rude equality attract me. There was power in Chapter XII 202 54 3 Chapter XIII 208 “I should like to go to Chicago,” I said to Raben. “Could you give me an introduction to anyone?” Chapter XIV 217 “Sure,” he said, “to August Spies, the owner and editor of the ‘Arbeiter Zeitung.’ He is a first-rate fellow, a Saxon, too, a Dres- dener. He would be sure to take you. All you South Germans hang together.” I called for pen and paper, and got him to write me a letter of introduction to Spies then and there. The same evening, I think, I went to see Dr Goldschmidt, and asked him if I might write him a weekly letter from Chicago, about labor matters, and he arranged that he would take one a week from me, at ten dollars a letter; but he told me that I must make it agood two columns — two or three thousand words for ten dollars — the pay was not high; but it ensured me against poverty, and that was the main thing. On the morrow I packed my little trunk, and started for Chicago… 4 53 I took rooms up town, but on the east side, very simple rooms, which cost me, with breakfast and tea, about ten dollars a week, and went to work with my pen. I soon found that labor with the pick and shovel in the bitter weather had made it almost impossible for me to use the pen at all. My brain seemed tired, words came slowly, An Introduction by John Dos and I soon grew sleepy. Thinking, too, is a function that needs exer- cise, or it becomes rusty. But in a week or two I wrote more freely, Passos and in a month had finished a series of German articles embodying my experiences as a “tenderfoot,” and sent them to Goldschmidt. He liked them, said they were excellent, and gave me a hundred (1963) dollars for them. When I received his letter I felt that at long last Frank Harris was an objectionable little man. He was sallow as I had come into my own and found my proper work. The articles a gypsy. He had bat ears, dark hair with a crinkle in it that grew made a sort of sensation, and I got two hundred dollars more for low on the forehead, and a truculent mustache. People remarked them in book form. For the next three or four months it was easy on the richness of his bass voice.