Little Golden America

"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, a

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 ca

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, Sava

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: