Maybe this fellow is right at that, I think.
Come in again sometime, I suggest, and we’ll have a little conversation about art. It is an inexhaustible subject; the more you talk about it, the more there is to say and unsay.
I return again, a bit sadly this time, to the short story I am supposed to be writing, but it is no use; the war will not allow me to write. It is like a shadow over every thought and it renders futile every hope for the future. Rather than sit and mope, I go outdoors and begin to walk, moving in the direction of the public library. I notice people, and I notice that something has come over them. They are not the way they were yesterday. It is a very subtle change, and it is hard to explain, but I can tell that they are not the same. I wonder if I am the same. Certainly I am the same, I say, but at the same time I cannot believe in what I am saying. The people, like myself, seem to be the same, but they are not. I can perceive the difference that has come over them, but I cannot identify the difference that has come over me. I am doing my best to remain the same, but in spite of my efforts it is not working very well. Each moment finds me slightly but definitely changed.
The change in the people is hysteria; it is not yet at a high pitch, but it is beginning to grow. The change in myself, I begin to hope, is not the beginning of hysteria. I am quite calm. Only I cannot deny that I am beginning to be a little angry, and unconsciously I have a desire to knock down the next young man who asks me to participate in the war; I believe unconsciously that this is the proper thing for me to do, to knock down such a fool.
In the evening I return to my room and find my cousin Kirk Minor listening to the phonograph. The music is Elegy, by Massenet, sung by Caruso. My cousin is smoking a cigarette, looking very calm, listening to the greatest singer the world has ever known, and, according to my cousin, one of the greatest men the world has ever known.
What about the war? I ask my cousin.
What about it? he replies.
How do you feel about it?
No opinions at all, says my cousin.
You’re not telling the truth, I say. How do you feel? You’re seventeen: they’ll be taking you before long. How do you feel about it?
I don’t like crowds, says my cousin.
But they’ll make you go.
No, he says. They won’t make me go. I hate walking in line. I don’t enjoy wars.
They don’t care about that, I say. They are working on the government and they will force you to go
No, says my cousin. I will refuse.
They will put you in jail, I tell him.
Let them, I won’t care, says my cousin.
Don’t you want to fight for the perpetuation of Democracy or something like that? I ask him.
No, says my cousin. I dislike walking in an army very much. It embarrasses me. I like to walk alone.
Well, I tell him, they sent two officers out here today, and I had to insult both of them.
That’s fine, says my cousin. You didn’t start the war. Let the men who started the war fight it. You’re supposed to be a writer of stories, though I doubt it.
That’s your opinion, I tell him. Get the hell out of here; I am going to start writing again.
A week later I am visited by a very stylishly dressed young woman who talks glibly and smokes cigarettes nervously.
We are determined to have your cooperation, Mr. Sturiza, she says. We have learned that you are a writer of short stories, and we should like to have you as a member of our local propaganda department. Your work will be to write human interest stories about young men volunteering to save civilization, heroic sacrifices of mothers, wives, sisters and daughters, and so on. You will be well remunerated, and there will be many opportunities for advancement.
I’m sorry, I say, I’m no good at human interest stories.
You needn’t worry about that, says the young lady. All the forms have been scientifically devised so that the maximum of emotional effect will be established in the feelings of the public, and you simply change the names, addresses and other minor details. It is very simple.
I can imagine, I say, but I don’t want the job.
It pays fifty dollars a week, says the young woman, and you have the rank of first lieutenant. You participate in all military social functions, and let me tell you you will meet a lot of people who will be useful to you after the war.
Fifty dollars a week is more money than I ever hoped to earn, and people are very interesting to me.
I’m sorry, I say, the job doesn’t interest me.
The young woman goes away, asking me to think the matter over. She is stopping at one of the best hotels in town, and wonders if I wouldn’t care to visit her some evening for a drink and a chat. I myself wonder.
Two months later my cousin Kirk Minor comes into my room with a morning paper. In the paper is the information that all able-bodied men will be forced to participate in the war which has not been going any too well for the side which is supposed to be our side. Our casualties have been almost as great as the casualties of the enemy: approximately one million men, twice that number injured. There have been liberty loan drives, mass meetings and thick headlines for weeks.
I read the news and sit down to smoke another cigarette.
Well, I say, this means that they’re going to get me after all.
What do you intend to do? my cousin asks.
I have decided, I say, not to allow myself to become involved.
Five days later I receive a letter ordering me to be at regimental headquarters the following morning at eight. The following morning at eight I am in my room, trying to write a short story. At eleven minutes past two in the afternoon Mr. Covington, the small man who visited me first, and four other men like him enter my room. In the hall are two military policemen, and downstairs are two large and expensive automobiles.
Enrico Sturiza? says Mr. Covington.
Yes, I reply.
As chairman of the Committee for the Study of Cases of Desertion in this district, which is the 47th district of San Francisco, it is my duty to question you in regard to your failure to appear for mobilization this morning. Did you receive official letter number 247-Z?
I suppose the letter I received was official letter number 247-Z, I reply.
Did you read it?
Yes, I read it.
Then why, if you please, did you not report this morning for mobilization?
Yes, says another of the small men, why?
Yes, why? says another.
Yes, why? says the third.
The fourth, I think, is incapable of speech. He says nothing.
I had a short story to write, I reply to the Committee, and I was engaged in writing it when I was honored by your visit.
I shall have to ask you, says Mr. Covington, to make direct replies. Were you so ill that you could not report for mobilization?
No, I reply, I was very well, and still am. I never felt better in my life.
Then, says Mr. Covington, I regret to inform you that you are now under arrest as a deserter.
I am standing over my typewriter and looking down on a bundle of clean yellow paper, and I am thinking to myself this is my room and I have created a small civilization in this room, and this place is the universe to me, and I have no desire to be taken away from this place, and suddenly I know that I have struck Mr. Covington and that he has fallen to the floor of my room, and that I am doing my best to strike the other members of the Committee, and they are holding my arms, the four members of the Committee and the two military police, and the only thing I can think is why in hell don’t you bastards fight your own war, you old fogies who destroyed millions of men in the last war, why don’t you fight your own God damn wars, but I cannot say anything, and one of the members of the Committee is telling me, if Mr. Covington dies, we shall have to shoot you, Mr. Sturiza, it will be our painful duty to shoot you, Mr. Sturiza; if Mr. Covington does not die, you may get off with twenty years in the penitentiary, Mr. Sturiza, but i
f he dies, it will be our painful duty to shoot you; and going down the stairs this small old man is saying this to me over and over again.
Common Prayer
The plains, Lord, and all the silences of mind, lost corridors, pillars, the places where we walked, the faces we saw, and the singing of little children. But most of all hieroglyphics, the holiness, the figure in stone, the simple line, our language, the articulated curve of, let us say, leaf and dream and smile, the fall of hand, touch of limbs, love of universes, no fear of death and some longing. Yea, and the light, our sun, Lord, and the sun of unknown men, the mornings lost in time of giants and pigmies everywhere, a man named Bach, a man named Cezanne, and the others with lost names, the multitudes now come together as one, nameless, our face, the mourning of anonymous mobs, our form, stature, men walking in the light, in several places, Asia to begin with, Europe, Africa, and across that sea of mind and fluid, Atlantic, westward to this place, America, and the marching of Marines, and the grinning of pale Wilson, freedom for Lithuania, hail Poland, and the counties of Texas, sweet melons and poverty, our thanks, Lord. And for numerals, so that a record of our grief may be made, one for sorrow, two for pain, three for madness, and a thousand and ten thousand and the reckoning of eternity, light years, the beard of Darwin, let us say, the eyes of Einstein, let us assume, the fingers of the great polish pianist, and let us assume all things numerically, the wealth of Ford, of Mellon, the poverty of—let us think of a worthy name—of Pound, shall we say, or shall we say, the unknown, the nameless young man of Clay County, Iowa, sitting alone, writing stories for God and the Saturday Evening Post—that is, the idea of the thing, the anonymity of the horror, the loneliness, waiting for fame and a brief note, you, the name, my lad, you are famous, a story in the Post, thank you, Lord.
The
Shepherd’s
Daughter
It is the opinion of my grandmother, God bless her, that all men should labor, and at the table, a moment ago, she said to me: You must learn to do some good work, the making of some item useful to man, something out of clay, or out of wood, or metal, or cloth. It is not proper for a young man to be ignorant of an honorable craft. Is there anything you can make? Can you make a simple table, a chair, a plain dish, a rug, a coffee pot? Is there anything you can do?
And my grandmother looked at me with anger.
I know, she said, you are supposed to be a writer, and I suppose you are. You certainly smoke enough cigarettes to be anything, and the whole house is full of the smoke, but you must learn to make solid things, things that can be used, that can be seen and touched.
There was a king of the Persians, said my grandmother, and he had a son, and this boy fell in love with a shepherd’s daughter. He went to his father and he said, My lord, I love a shepherd’s daughter, and I would have her for my wife. And the king said, I am king and you are my son and when I die you shall be king, how can it be that you would marry the daughter of a shepherd? And the son said, My lord, I do not know but I know that I love this girl and would have her for my queen.
The king saw that his son’s love for the girl was from God, and he said, I will send a message to her. And he called a messenger to him and he said, Go to the shepherd’s daughter and say that my son loves her and would have her for his wife. And the messenger went to the girl and he said, The king’s son loves you and would have you for his wife. And the girl said, What labor does he do? And the messenger said, Why, he is the son of the king; he does no labor. And the girl said, He must learn to do some labor. And the messenger returned to the king and spoke the words of the shepherd’s daughter.
The king said to his son, The shepherd’s daughter wishes you to learn some craft. Would you still have her for your wife? And the son said, Yes, I will learn to weave straw rugs. And the boy was taught to weave rugs of straw, in patterns and in colors and with ornamental designs, and at the end of three days he was making very fine straw rugs, and the messenger returned to the shepherd’s daughter, and he said, These rugs of straw are the work of the king’s son.
And the girl went with the messenger to the king’s palace, and she became the wife of the king’s son.
One day, said my grandmother, the king’s son was walking through the streets of Bagdad, and he came upon an eating place which was so clean and cool that he entered it and sat at a table.
This place, said my grandmother, was a place of thieves and murderers, and they took the king’s son and placed him in a large dungeon where many great men of the city were being held, and the thieves and murderers were killing the fattest of the men and feeding them to the leanest of them, and making sport of it. The king’s son was of the leanest of the men, and it was not known that he was the son of the king of the Persians, so his life was spared, and he said to the thieves and murderers, I am a weaver of straw rugs and these rugs have great value. And they brought him straw and asked him to weave and in three days he weaved three rugs, and he said, Carry these rugs to the palace of the king of the Persians, and for each rug he will give you a hundred gold pieces of money. And the rugs were carried to the palace of the king, and when the king saw the rugs he saw that they were the work of his son and he took the rugs to the shepherd’s daughter and he said, These rugs were brought to the palace and they are the work of my son who is lost. And the shepherd’s daughter took each rug and looked at it closely and in the design of each rug she saw in the written language of the Persians a message from her husband, and she related this message to the king.
And the king, said my grandmother, sent many soldiers to the place of the thieves and murderers, and the soldiers rescued all the captives and killed all the thieves and murderers, and the king’s son was returned safely to the palace of his father, and to the company of his wife, the little shepherd’s daughter. And when the boy went into the palace and saw again his wife, he humbled himself before her and he embraced her feet, and he said, My love, it is because of you that I am alive, and the king was greatly pleased with the shepherd’s daughter.
Now, said my grandmother, do you see why every man should learn an honorable craft?
I see very clearly, I said, and as soon as I earn enough money to buy a saw and a hammer and a piece of lumber I shall do my best to make a simple chair or a shelf for books.
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories
Copyright 1934, 1941 by The Modern Library, Inc.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First published as New Directions Paperbook 852 in 1997
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited
eISBN: 978-0-8112-2533-5
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze Page 18
