PART ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

PART TWO

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

A note to fans of Little Golden America: as of issue No. 22, Admit Two adopted a PDF format, which means you will have to access individual back issues to get to further chapters of Ilf and Petrov's American adventure.

oLittle Golden America                     by    ILYA ILF AND EUGENE PETROV

_______________________________________________________________________

o

 o

Chapter Two…

                   …The First Evening in New York

THE CUSTOMS SHED at the docks of the French Line is immense. Under

the ceiling hang  large iron letters of the Latin alphabet. Each passen-

ger stops under the letter with which his surname begins. Here his

luggage will be brought to him from the ship and here it will be exam-

ined.

     The voices of the arrivals and of those meeting them, laughter and

kisses, resounded hollowly throughout the shed, the bare structural parts

of which made it seem rather like a shop where turbines were being

manufactured.

     We had not informed anyone of our impending arrival, and no one

met us. We waited under our letters for the customs clerk. Finally he

came. He was a calm and unhurried man. He was in no way affected

by our having just crossed an ocean in order to show him our suitcases.

He politely touched the upper layer of our belongings and did not look

any further. Then he stuck out his tongue, a most ordinary, moist

tongue, a tongue devoid of all gadgets whatsoever, wetted the huge

labels with it and pasted them o our traveling bags.

     When we finally freed ourselves it was already evening. A white taxi-

cab with three gleaming lanterns on its roof, looking like an old-fash-

ioned carriage, took us to the hotel. At first we were tormented by the

thought that because of our inexperience we had got into the wrong

taxi, into some antiquated vehicle, and that we were funny and pro-

mobiles with just as silly little lamps as ours were going in all direc-

tions back and forth. We quieted down a little. Later we were told

that these little lamps are placed on the roof, so that the taxi may be

more noticeable among a million other automobiles. For the same rea-

son taxis in America are painted in the most garish colors—orange,

canary, white.

     Our attempt to take a look at New York from an automobile failed.

We drove through quite dark and dreary streets. From time to time

something rumbled hellishly under our feet or something else thun-

dered overhead. Whenever we stopped before the traffic lights the sides

of the automobiles that stood beside us hid everything from view. The

chauffeur turned back several times and sked again for the address.

It seemed that he was somewhat anxious about our English. Now and

then he would look at us patronizingly, and his face seemed to say:

“Never mind, you won’t get lost! Nobody ever got lost in New York.”

     The thirty-two brick stories of our hotel merged with the rufous

nocturnal sky.

     While we were filling out short registration cards, two men of the

hotel service stood lovingly over our baggage. On the neck of one of

them hung a shining ring with the key of the room we had selected.

The elevator lifted us up to the twenty-seventh story. This was the

commodious and calm elevator of a hotel that was not very old and not

very  new, not very expensive and, to our regret, not very cheap.

     We liked the room, but we did not pause to explore it. Hurry into

the street, the city, the tumult! The curtains of the windows crackled

under the fresh sea wind. We threw our overcoats on the couch, ran

out into the narrow corridor covered with a patterned carpet, stepped into

the elevator, and the elevator, clicking softly, flew down. We looked

at each other significantly. After all, this really was a great event! For

the first time in our lives we were about to walk in New York.

     A thin, almost transparent national flag with stars and stripes hung

over the entrance to our hotel. Only a short distance away stood the

polished cube of the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria. In prospectuses it is called

the best hotel in the world. The windows of the “best hotel in the

world” sparkled blindingly, and over its entrance hung two national

flags. Right on the sidewalk, by the wall of the building, lay tomorrow’s

newspapers. Passers-by bent down, took a New York Times or Herald

Tribune and placed two cents on the ground beside the newspapers. The

news dealer had gone somewhere. The newspapers were held down with

a broken piece of brick, quite as it is done in Moscow by our old women

news vendors as they sit in their plywood kiosks. Cylindrical garbage

cans stood at each corner of the street crossings. A considerable flame

spouted out of one of the cans. Someone had evidently thrown a lighted

cigarette butt there, and so the New York refuse, which consists mostly

of newspapers, caught fire. An alarming red light illuminated the pol-

ished walls of the Waldorf-Astoria. Passers-by smiled an dropped re-

marks as they walked by. A policeman, his face set, was already mov-

ing toward the eventful spot. Having decided that our hotel was in no

danger of catching fire, we went on.

     At once a slight misfortune befell us. We thought we would walk

slowly, looking around attentively in order to study, to observe, to take

in, and so forth. But New York is not one of those cities where people

move slowly. The people who passed us did not walk, they ran. And

so we, too, ran. From that moment on we could not stop. We spent a

whole month in New York, and throughout that time we were con-

stantly racing somewhere at top speed. Simultaneously, we acquired

such a businesslike and preoccupied air that John Pierpont Morgan, Jr.,

himself might have envied us. At our rate of speed he would have

earned approximately sixty million dollars during that month. We

earned somewhat less. 

     In a word, we started off at a trot. We sped by sings on which in lights

were outlined the words: “Cafeteria” or “United Cigars” or “Drugs—

Soda” or something else equally enticing yet so far utterly incompre-

hensible. Thus we ran to Forty-second Street, and there we stopped.

     In the store windows of Forty-second Street winter was in full swing.

In one window stood seven elegant wax ladies with silver faces. They

all wore wonderful astrakhan fur coats, and regarded each other quizzi-

cally. In another window stood twelve ladies in sports costumes, lean-

ing on ski poles. Their eyes were blue, their lips red, their ears pink.

In other windows stood young mannequins with gray hair, or dapper

gentlemen in inexpensive, and hence suspiciously resplendent, suits. But

we were really not impressed by all this store munificence. It was some-

thing else that  astonished us. 

     In all the large cities of the world one can always find a place where

people look at the moon through a telescope. Here, on Forty-second

Street, we also found a telescope. But it was mounted on an automobile.

     The telescope pointed at the sky. In charge of it was an ordinary mor-

tal, jut like the men at the telescopes in Athens, in Naples, or in

Odessa. And his was the joyless manner peculiar to all exploiters of

street telescopes throughout the world.

     The moon showed itself in the interstice between two sixty-storied

buildings. However, the curious onlooker, applying himself to the tube,

gazed not at the moon but considerably higher: he looked at the top

of the Empire State Building and its hundred and two stories. In the

light of the moon, the steel eminence of the Empire State seemed to be

covered with snow. The heart turned cold at the sight of this chaste

and noble building glistening like a sliver of artificial ice. We stood

there long, silently gazing up. The skyscrapers of New York make one

proud of all the people of science and of labor who build these splendid

edifices.

     The news vendors roared hoarsely. The earth trembled underfoot,

and through the grates in the sidewalk came a sudden gust of heat as

if from an engine room. That was because down there passed a train

of the New York metro—the subway, as it is called here.

     Through vents, placed in the pavement and covered with round me-

tallic covers, team broke out. For a long time we could not understand

where that steam came from. The red lights of the advertisements cast

an operatic light upon it. Almost at any moment one expected the vents

to open, Mephistopheles spring out of one of them, and, after clearing

his throat, begin to sing in deep bass, right out of Faust: “A sword at

my side, on my hat a gay feather; a cloak o’er my shoulder—and alto-

gether, why got up quite in the fashion!”

     We again rushed forward, deafened by the cries of the news vendors.

They shout with such desperation that, to use Leskov’s expression, it

is afterwards necessary for a whole week to dig the voice out with a

shovel.

     It cannot be said that the lighting of Forty-second Street was mediocre.

And yet Broadway, lighted by millions and perhaps even by billions of

electric lamps, filled with swirling and jumping advertisements con-

structed out of kilometers of colored neon tubes, appeared before us

just as unexpectedly as New York itself rears up out of the limitless

vacancy of the Atlantic Ocean.

     We stood at the most popular corner in the States, at the corner of

Forty-second and Broadway. The “Great White Way,” as Americans

call Broadway, stretched before us.

     Here electricity has been brought down (or brought up, if you like)

to the level of a trained circus animal. Here it has been forced to make

faces, to hurdle over obstacles, to wink, to dance. Edison’s sedate elec-

tricity has been converted into Durov’s[1] trained seal. It catches balls with

its nose. It does sleight-of-hand tricks, plays dead, comes to life, does

anything it is ordered to do. The electric parade never stops. The lights

of the advertisements flare up, whirl around, go out, and then again

light up: letters, large and small, white, red, and green endlessly run

away somewhere, only to return a second later and renew their frantic

race.

     On Broadway are concentrated the theaters, cinemas, and dance halls

of the city. Tens of thousands of people move along the sidewalks. New

York is one of the few cities of the world where the population prom-

enades on a definite street. The approaches to the cinemas are so brightly

lighted that, it seems, if anyone were to add one more little lamp the

whole thing would blow up from excessive light, all of it would go to

the devil’s dogs. But it would be impossible to squeeze in another little

lamp; there is no room for it. The news vendors raise such a howl that

for digging the voice out of it would require more than a week, more

likely years of persistent toil. High inn the sky, on some uncounted story

of the Paramount Building, flared the face of an electric clock. Neither

star nor moon was visible. The light of the advertisements eclipsed

everything else. In the display windows, among simple crisscross neck-

ties, small illuminated price tags turn around and go into a balancing act.

These are the microorganisms in the cosmos of Broadways’s electricity.

In the tumultuous uproar a calm beggar plays his saxophone. A gen-

tleman in a top hat walks into a theater, and with him is the inevitable 

lady, whose evening gown has a train. A blind man led by a dog moves

like a sleepwalker. Certain young men walk without hats. That is fash-

ionable. Their neatly combed hair glistenes under the street lamps. The

odor of cigars, nasty ones and expensive ones. 

     At that very moment, when it occurred to us that we were so far from

Moscow, before us floated the light of the Cameo motion-picture thea-

ter. The Soviet film, The New Gulliver, was being exhibited there.

     The surge of Broadway carried us several times back and forth, and

flung us unto a side street.

     We knew nothing yet about the city. Therefore, we cannot mention

the streets here. We remember only that we stood under the trestle of an

elevated railway. An autobus passed, and without much ado we boarded

it.

     Even several days later, when we began to orient ourselves in the New

York whirlpool, we could not remember where the autobus took us

that first evening. It seems to us that it was the Chinese section, but it is

quite possible that it was an Italian or a Jewish section.

     We walked along narrow, smelly streets. No, the electricity here was

ordinary, not like a trained animal. It shone rather dimly, and it did

not indulge in any hurdles. A large policeman stood against the wall

of a house. On the cap over his broad, imperious face gleamed the silver

shield of the City of New York. Having noticed the uncertainty with

which we walked down the street, he came to us; but, receiving no

inquiry, again returned to his vantage point at the wall, ever the stiff

and stately minion of the law.

     From one shabby little house came dull singing. The man who stood

at the entrance to the house told us that this was the night lodging of

the Salvation Army. 

     “Who may sleep here?”

     “Anyone. No one is asked his name. No one is asked about his occu-

pation or his past. Here night lodgers receive bed, coffee, and bread free

of charge. In the morning they also get coffee and read. Then they

are free to go away. The sole condition is that they must take part in

the evening and morning prayers.”

     The singing that reached us from the house gave evidence of the

fact that at this very moment this sole condition was being fulfilled. We

went in.

     Previously, about twenty-five years ago, there was a Chinese opium

smoking den in this dwelling. It had been a dirty and dismal den of

iniquity. Since then it had become cleaner, but, while losing its erst-

while exoticism, it did not become less dismal. The upper part of the

former den of iniquity was devoted to prayer meetings, while below,

the sleeping quarters consisted of bare walls, a bare stone floor, and

canvas folding cots. That odor of coffee and dampness, which is always

a part of hospital and charity cleanliness, permeated all. In a word, this

was an American staging of Gorky’s Lower Depths.

     In this bedraggled hall the night lodgers sat stiffly on benches that

came down in an amphitheater toward a small stage. As soon as the

singing stopped, the next number on the program began.

     Between an American national flag, which stood on the stage, and

Biblical texts, which hung all over the walls, a pinkish old man in a

black suit jumped like a clown. He talked and gesticulated with such

passion that he gave the impression of selling something. Yet he was

merely telling the instructive history of his life, telling about the benefi-

cent crisis when he turned his heart back to God.

     He had been a tramp (“as frightful a tramp as you, old devils!”), he

had carried on horribly, had used profane language (”remember your

own habits, my friends”), he stole—yes, all of that happened, too, alas!

But now it was all done with. Now he owned his own home and lived

like a decent man (“Hasn’t God created us in his own image, in his

own manner?”). Not long ago he had even bought himself a radio

receiving set. And all this he had received directly with the help of God.

     The old man talked with extraordinary facility; it seemed therefore

that he was now appearing for at least the thousandth time. He clicked

his fingers, laughed hoarsely, sang religious ditties, and ended up with

great enthusiasm, shouting:

     “Let’s sing, brothers!”

     Again the dull, humdrum singing began.

     The night lodgers were appalling. Almost all of them were no longer

young. Unshaven, with lusterless eyes, they swayed on their crude

benches. They sang submissively and lazily. Some of them could not

overcome the fatigue of the day, and slept.

     We vividly imagined to ourselves the wanderings through the fright-

ful places of New York, the days passed at bridges and warehouses,

in the midst of garbage, in the everlasting nebulousness of human de-

generation. To sit after that in a night lodging and sing hymns was

sheer torture. 

     Then before the audience appeared a fellow as hale and healthy as

a policeman. He had a lilac-colored vaudevillian nose and the voice of

a skipper. He was as bold and jaunty as anyone could possibly be. Again

began a tale about the benefits of turning to God. The skipper, it

seemed, head also been quite a sinner at one time. His fantasy was not

great, however, and he soon ended up with the declaration that now,

thanks go God’s help, he, too, had a radio receiving set.

     Again they sang. The skipper waved his arms, displaying considerable

experience as an orchestra leader. Two hundred men ground to powder

by life again listened to this conscienceless twaddle. These poor people

were not offered work, they were offered only God—a God as spiteful

and exacting as the Devil.

     The night lodgers did not object. Any god with a cup of coffee and

a slice of bread was fairly acceptable. Let us sing then, brothers, to the

glory of the coffee god!

     And the throats, which for half a century had belched forth only

horrible oaths, drowsily began to blare now the glory of the Lord.

     We again walked through some slums and again did not know where

we were. With thunder and lightning, trains raced overhead along the

railroad stockades of the elevated railway. Young men in light-colored

hats crowded around drugstores, exchanging curt phrases. Their man.

ner was exactly like that of the young men who in Warsaw populate

Krakhmalnaya Street. In Warsaw a gentleman from Krakhmalnaya

is not considered exactly God’s precious little ewe lamb. It is sheer luck

if he turns out to be merely a thief, for he might be something much

worse than that.

     Late at night we returned to our hotel, not yet disappointed with New

York nor elated over it, but rather disturbed by its hugeness, its wealth,

and its poverty.