Chapter 10

A friend said, "There's a man living in my hotel who should make a good story. He's been around the world. Worked in England, Bulgaria, Russia, Siberia, China and everywhere. Was cook on a tramp steamer in the south seas. A remarkable fellow, really."

In this way I came to call on Ginkel. I found him after work in his room. He was a short man, over 30, and looked uninteresting. I told him that we should be able to get some sort of story out of his travels and experiences. He nodded.

"Yes," he said, "I've been all around the world."

Then he became silent and looked at me hopefully.

I explained, "People like to read about travelers. They sit at home themselves and wonder what it would be like to travel. You probably had a lot of experiences that would give people a vicarious thrill. I understand you were a cook on a tramp steamer in the south seas."

"Oh, yes," said Ginkel, "I've been all over. I've been around the world."

* * * * *

We lighted pipes and Ginkel removed a book from a drawer in the dresser. He opened it and I saw it was a book of photographs--mostly pictures taken with a small camera.

"Here are some things you could use," he said. "You wanna look at them."

We went through the pictures together.

"This one here," said Ginkel, "is me in Vladivostok. It was taken on the corner there."

The photograph showed Ginkel dressed just as he was in the hotel room, standing near a lamp post on a street corner. There was visible a part of a store window.

"This one is interesting," said Ginkel, warming up. "It was taken in the archipelago. You know where. I forget the name of the town. But it was in the south seas."

We both studied it for a space. It showed Ginkel standing underneath something that looked like a palm tree. But the tree was slightly out of focus. So were Ginkel's feet.

"It is interesting," said Ginkel, "But it ain't such a good picture. The lower part is kind of blurred, you notice."

We looked through the album in silence for a while. Then Ginkel suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, I almost forgot," he said. "There's one I think you'll like. It was taken in Calcutta. You know where. Here it is."

He pointed proudly toward the end of the book. We studied it through the tobacco smoke. It was a photograph of Ginkel dressed in the same clothes as before and standing under a store awning.

"There was a good light on this," said Ginkel, "and you see how plain it comes out."

Then we continued without comment to study other photographs. There were at least several hundred. They were all of Ginkel. Most of them were blurred and showed odds and ends of backgrounds out of focus, such as trees, street cars, buildings, telephone poles. There was one that finally aroused Ginkel to comment:

"This would have been a good one, but it got light struck," he said. "It was taken in Bagdad."

* * * * *

When we had exhausted the album Ginkel felt more at ease. He offered me some tobacco from his pouch. I resumed the original line of questioning.

"Did you have any unusual adventures during your travels or did you get any ideas that we could fix up for a story," I asked.

"Well," said Ginkel, "I was always a camera bug, you know. I guess that's what gave me the bug for travelling. To take pictures, you know. I got a lot more than these, but I ain't mounted them yet."

"Are they like the ones in the book."

"Not quite so good, most of them," Ginkel answered. "They were taken when I hadn't had much experience."

"You must have been in Russia while the revolution was going on, weren't you?"

"Oh, yes. I got one there." He opened the book again. "Here," he said. "This was in Moscow. I was in Moscow when this was taken."

It was another picture of Ginkel slightly out of focus and standing against a store front. I asked him suddenly who had taken all the pictures.

"Oh, that was easy," he said. "I can always find somebody to do that. I take a picture of them first and then they take one of me. I always give them the one I take of them and keep the one they take of me."

"Did you see any of the revolution, Ginkel?"

"A lot of monkey business," said Ginkel. "I seen some of it. Not much."

The last thing I said was, "You must have come in for a lot of sights. We might fix up a story about that if you could give me a line on them." And the last thing Ginkel said was:

"Oh, yes, I've been around the world."

THUMBS UP AND DOWN

Later the art jury will sit on them. The art jury will discuss tone and modelling, rhythm and chiaroscuro and perspective. And in the light of these discussions and decisions the art jury will sort out the masterpieces that are to be hung in the Chicago artists' exhibition and the masterpieces that are not to be hung.

Right now, however, Louis and Mike are unwrapping them. Every day between nine and five Louis and Mike assemble in the basement of the Art Institute. The masterpieces arrive by the bushel, the truckload, the basketful. Louis unwraps them. Mike stacks them up. Louis then calls off their names and the names of geniuses responsible for them. Mike writes this vital information down in a book.

* * * * *

Art is a contagious business. Perfectly normal and marvelously wholesome-minded people are as likely to succumb to it as anybody else. It is significant that the Purity League meeting in the city a few weeks ago discussed the dangers which lay in exposing even decent, law-abiding people to art, any kind of art.

The insidious influence of art cannot, as a matter of fact, be exaggerated. I personally know of a number of very fine and highly respected citizens who have been lured away from their very business by art.

However, this is no place to sound the alarm. I will some day talk on the subject before the Rotary Club. To return to Louis and Mike. After Mike writes the vital information down in a book Louis carts the canvas over to a truck and it is ready for the jury room.

When they started on the job Louis and Mike were frankly indifferent. They might just as well have been unwrapping herring cases. And they were exceedingly efficient. They unwrapped them and catalogued them as fast as they came.

In three days, however, the workmanlike morale with which Louis and Mike started on the job has been undermined. They have grown more leisurely. They no longer bundle the pictures around like herring cases. Instead they look at them, try them this way and that way until they find out which way is right side up. Then they pass judgment.

Louis unwraps them. I was standing by in the basement with Bert Elliott, who has submitted a modernistic picture of Michigan Avenue, the Wrigley Building and the sky, called "Up, Straight and Across."

"'The Home of the Muskrat,'" Louis called. Mike wrote it down. "Wanna look at it, Mike?"

"Yeah, let's see." Time out for critical inspection. "Say, this guy never saw a muskrat house. That ain't the way."

"'Isle of Dreams,'" called Louis. "Hm! You can't tell which is right side up. I guess it goes like this."

"No. The other," said Mike. "Try it on its side. There, I told you so. 'Isle of Dreams.' I don't see no isle."

"Here's a cuckoo," called Louis, suddenly. "'Mist.'"

"What?"

"'Mist,' it says, only 'Mist,' Mike. I'll say he missed. It ain't no picture at all. That's a swell idee. Draw a picture in a fog and have the fog so heavy you can't see nothing, then you don't have to put any picture in. Can you beat it?"

"Go on. Try another."

"All right. Here's one. 'The Faithful Friend.' Now there's what I call a picture. I knowed a guy who owned a dog that looked just like this. A setter or something."

"Go on. That ain't a setter. It's a spaniel."

"You're cuckoo, Mike. Tell me it's a spaniel! Let's put it up ahead. It's probably one of the prize winners. Here's a daffy one. 'At Play.' What's at play? I don't see nothin' at play. Take a look, Mike."

"It's a sea picture. There's the sea, the gray part."

"You're nuts. Hennessey has a sea picture over the bar with some gals on the rocks. You know the one I mean. And if this is a sea picture I'm a orang-outang."

"Well, Louis, it's probably a different sea. Can you imagine anybody sending a thing like that in? It ain't hardly worth the work of unwrapping it. Hurry up, Louis, we're way behind."

"Well, take this, then. 'Children of the Ice.' Hm, I don't see no kids. I suppose this stuff here is the ice. But where's the kids?"

"He probably means the birds over there, Louis."

"If he means the birds why don't he say birds instead of children? Why don't he say 'birds of the ice'? What's the sense of saying 'children of the ice' when he means birds?"

"Go on, Louis. Don't argue with me. Hurry up."

"Here's some photographs."

"Them ain't photographs, you nut. They're portraits."

"Well, they look almost as good as photographs. 'My Favorite Pupil.' It's pretty good, Mike. See, there's the violin. He's a violin pupil. You can tell. Got it?"

"Yeah. Bring on the next."

* * * * *

A silence came over Louis. He stood for several minutes staring at something.

"Hurry up," called Mike. "It's getting late."

"This is a mistake," called Louis. "Here's one that's a mistake."

"How come, Louis?"

"Well, look at it. You can see for yourself. The guy made a mistake."

"What does it read on the back? Hurry, we can't waste no more time."

"It reads 'Up, Down and Across' or something. It's a mistake though." Louis remained eyeing the canvas raptly. "It ain't finished, Mike. We ought to send it back."

"Let's see, Louis." Time out for critical inspection. "You're right. It is a mistake. 'Up, Down and Across,' you said. Well, we'll let it ride. It's not our fault. What's the name of the guy?"

"Bert Elliott," called Louis. A laugh followed. Louis turned to me and my friend.

"You see this?" he said. "I get it now. That's the Wrigley Building over there. What do you know about that?"

Louis seized his sides and doubled up. Mr. Elliott, beside me, cleared his throat and glanced apprehensively at his canvas.

"I'll say it's the first one he laughed at," said Mr. Elliott, pensively. "He didn't laugh at any of the others. Look, he's still looking at it. That's longer than he looked at any of the others."

"All right, Louis," from Mike. "Come on."

"Ho, ho," Louis went on, "I'd like to see this guy Elliott. Anybody who would draw a picture like that. Hold your horses, Mike, here's another. 'The Faun." What's a faun, Mike? I guess he means fern. It looks like a fern."

"It does that, Louis. But we'll have to let it go as a faun. It's probably a foreign word. Most of these artists are foreigners, anyway."

Mr. Elliott and I left, Mr. Elliott remarking on the way down the Institute steps, "Ho, hum."

ORNAMENTS

Ornaments change, and perhaps not for the best. The scherzo architecture of Villon's Paris, the gabled caprice of Shakespeare's London, the Rip Van Winkle jauntiness of a vanished New York, these are ghosts that wander among the skyscrapers and dynamo beltings of modernity.

One by one the charming blunders of the past have been set to rights. Highways are no longer the casual folderols of adventure, but the reposeful and efficient arteries of traffic. The roofs of the town are no longer a rumble of idiotic hats cocked at a devil-may-care angle. Windows no longer wink lopsidedly at one another. Doorways and chimneys, railings and lanterns have changed. Cobblestones and dirt have vanished, at least officially.

Towns once were like improvised little melodramas. Men once wore their backgrounds as they wore their clothes--to fit their moods. A cap and feather, a gable and a latticed window for romance. A glove and rapier, a turret and a postern gate for adventure. And for our immemorial friend Routine a humpty-dumpty jumble of alleys, feather pens, cobblestones, echoing stairways and bouncing milk carts.

* * * * *

These things have all been properly corrected. Today the city frowns from one end to the other like a highly efficient and insanely practical platitude. Mood has given way to mode. An essential evolution, alas! D'Artagnan wore his Paris as a cloak. And perhaps Mr. Insull wears his Chicago as a shirt front. But most of us have parted company with the town. It is a background designed and marvelously executed for our conveniences. The great metronomes of the loop with their million windows, the deft crisscross of streets, the utilitarian miracles of plumbing, doorways, heating systems and passenger carriers--these are monuments to our collective sanity.

But if one is insane, if one has inherited one's grandfather's characteristics as idler, loafer, lounger, dreamer, lover or picaroon, what then? Eh, one stays at home and tells it to the typewriter or, more likely, one gets run down, chewed up and bespattered while darting across State Street in quest of an invigorating vanilla phosphate.

* * * * *

Nevertheless--there's a word that speaks innate optimism, nevertheless, there are things which do not change as logically as do ornaments. Men and women, for instance. And although the town wears its mask of deplorable sanity and though Sunnyside Avenue seems suavely reminiscent of Von Bissing's troops goose-stepping through Belgium--there are men and women.

One naturally inquires, where? Quite so, where are there men and women in the city? One sees crowds. But men and women are lost. One observes crowds answering the advertisements. The advertisements say, come here, go there. And one sees men and women devotedly bent upon rewarding the advertisers.

Again, nevertheless, there are other observations to make. There are the taxicabs. Here in the taxicabs one may still observe men and women. Villon's Paris, Shakespeare's London and vanished New York, these are crowded into the taxicabs. In the taxicabs men and women still wear the furtive, illogical, questing, mysterious devil-may-care, wasterel adventure masks of their grandfathers' yesterdays.

* * * * *

What ho! A devilishly involved argument, that, when the taxicab owners plume themselves upon being the last word in the matter of deplorable efficiency, the ultimate gasp in the business of convenience! Nevertheless, although Mr. Hertz points with proper scorn to the sedan chair, the palanquin, the ox cart and the Ringling Brothers' racing chariots, we sweep a three-dollar fedora across the ground, raise our eyebrows and smile mysteriously to ourselves.

For on the days when our insanities grow somewhat persistent there is a solace in the spectacle of taxicabs that none of the advertisements of Mr. Hertz or his; contemporaries can take away. For odds bodkins! gaze you through the little windows of these taxicabs. Pretty gals leaning forward eager-eyed, lips parted, with an air of piquing rendezvous to the parasols clutched in their dainty hands. Plump, heavy-jowled dandies reclining like tailored paladins in the leather cushions. Keen-eyed youths surrounded with heaps of bags and cases on a carefully linened quest. Nervous old women, mysteriously ragged creatures, rakish silk hats, bundles of children with staring fingers, strangely mustachioed and ribald-necked gentry.

* * * * *

A goodly company. A teasing procession for the eye and the thought. The cabs shoot by, caracoling through the orderly lines of traffic; zigzags of yellow, green, blue, lavender, black and white snorting along with a fine disdain. They speak of destinations reminiscent of the postern gate and the latticed window; of the waiting barque and the glowing tavern.

Of the crowds on the pavements; of the crowds in the passenger cars, elevators, lobbies, one wonders little where they are going. Answering advertisements, forsooth. Vertebrate brothers of the codfish. But these others! Ah, one stands on the curb with the vanilla phosphate playing havoc with one's blood and wonders a hatful.

These sybarites of the taxis are going somewhere. Make no doubt of that. These insanely assorted creatures bouncing on the leather cushions are launched upon mysterious and important enterprises. And these bold-looking jehus, black eyed, hard mouthed--a fetching tribe! A cross between Acroceraunian bandits and Samaritans. One may stare at a taxi scooting by and think with no incongruity of Carlyle's "Night of Spurs"--with Louis and his harried Antoinette flying the guillotine. And of other things which our inefficient memory prevents us from jotting down at this moment. But of other things.

Journalism is incomplete without its moral or at least its overtones of morals. And we come to that now as an honest reporter should. Our moral is very simple. Any good platitudinarian will already have forestalled it. It is that the goodly company riding about in these taxicabs upon which we have been speculating are none other than these codfish of the pavements. The same, messieurs. A fact which gives us hope; briefly, hope for the fact that the world is not as sane as it looks and that, despite all the fine strivings of construction engineers, plumbers, advertisers and the like, men and women still preserve the quaint spirit of disorder and melodrama which once lived in the ornaments of the town.

THE WATCH FIXER

The wooden counter in front of Gustave is littered with tiny pieces of spring, tiny keys, almost invisible screws and odd-looking tools. Gustave himself is a large man with ponderous eyebrows and a thick nose. He stands behind his counter in the North Wells Street repair shop looking much too large for the store itself and grotesquely out of proportion with the springs, keys, screws and miniature tools before him.

Attached to Gustave's right eye is a microscope. It is fastened on by aid of straps round his large head. When he works he moves the instrument over his eye and when he rests he raises it so that it sticks out of his eyebrow.

Gustave is a watchmaker. When he was young he made watches of curious design. But for years he has had to content himself with repairing watches. Incased in his old-fashioned leather apron that hangs from his shoulders, the venerable and somewhat Gargantuan Gustave stands most of the day peering into the tiny mechanisms of watches brought into the old furniture shop. Gustave's partner is responsible for the furniture end of the business. As Gustave grows older he seems to lose interest in things that do not pertain to the delicate intricacies of watches.

* * * * *

I had a watch that was being fixed. Gustave said it would be ready in a half-hour. He slipped the microscope over his eye and, bending in his heavy round-shouldered way above the small watch, began to pry with his thick fingers. A pair of tiny pincers, a fragile-looking screwdriver and a set of things that looked like dolls' tools occupied him.

We talked, Gustave answering and evading questions and offering comments as he worked.

"Not zo hard ven you ged used to it," he said. "Und I am used to it. Vatches are my friends. I like to look into dem und make dem go. Yes, I have been vorking on vatches for a long time. Years und years.

"No, I vas vunce in the manufagturing business. Long ago. It vas ven I vas married und had children. I come over from the old country den und I start in. Preddy soon ve had money to spare. Ve came oud here to Chicago und got a house. A very nice house.

"My vife was a danzer in the old country. Maybe you have heard of her. But never mind. I had dis vatch factory over here by the river. Dat vas thirty years ago. Und we had a barn und horses.

"But you know how it is! Vat you have today you don't have tomorrow. Not so? My vife first. The nice house und the children vasn't enough for her. She must danze also. I vas younger und my head vas harder den. Und I said, 'No.' Alzo she vent avay. Yes, she vent avay. Und der vas two kids. My youngest a girl und my oldest a boy."

The microscope fastened itself closely to the inanimate springs and keys and screws. Gustave's thick fingers reached for a pair of baby pincers. And he continued now without the aid of questions in a low, gutteral voice:

"Vell, business got bad und I gave up the factory. Und I starded in someding else. Den my youngest she died. Yes, dat's how it goes. First vun ding und den anoder ding. Und preddy soon you have nodings.

"I tried to find my vife, but she vas hiding from me. Perhaps I vas hard headed in dem days. Ven you are young you are like dat. Now id is diff'rend. She iss dead und I am alive. Und if she had been my vife righd along she vould still be dead now. Alzo vat matter does it make?

"Dat vas maybe tventy years ago or maybe more. Maybe tventy-five years ago. Dings got all mixed up and my businesses got vorse und vorse. Und den my son ran avay und wrides me he become a sailor. So I vas alone."

"Dis vatch," sighed Gustave, "is very hard to figx. It iss an old vatch und not much good to begin vit. But I figx him. Vat vas ve talking aboud? Oh, my business. Yes, yes. It goes like dat. I don't hear from my vife und I don't hear from my son. Und my liddle vun iss dead. Und so I lose my fine house und the horses und everyding.

"Preddy soon I got no job even und preddy soon I am almost a bum. I hang around saloons und drink beer und do noding but spend a little money I pick up now un den by doing liddle jobs. Ah, now I have it. It vas de liddle spring. See? Zo. Most of dese vatches iss no good vatsoever. Dey make vatches diff'rend now as dey used to. Chust vun minute or two more und I have him figxed so he don'd break no more for a vile. Und vat vas we talking aboud?

"Ah, yes. Aboud how I drink beer und vas a bum. Dat's how it goes. Ven you are young you have less sense den ven you are old. Und I used to go around thinking I vould commit suicide. Yes, at night ven I vas all alone I used to think like dat. Everyding vas so oopside down und so inside oud. Vat's de use of living und vy go on drinking beer und becoming a vorse und bigger bum?

"Yes, it goes like dat. Ven I vas rich und happy und had my factory und my vife und children und horses und fine house I used to think vat a fine place the vorld vas und how simple it vas to be happy. Und den ven everyding vent avay I vas chust as big a fool und I used to think how terrible the vorld vas und how unhappiness vas all you could get.

* * * * *

"Yes, ten years ago, it vas. I started in again. I started in on vatches again. I got a job figxing vatches und a friend says he vould give me a chance. Und here I am. Still figxing vatches. Dey are my friends. Inside dey are all broken. Dey have liddle tings wrong vid dem und are inside oud und oopside down und I figx dem.

"I don' know vy, but figxing vatches made a new man from me. I don' think no more aboud my troubles und how oopside down and impozzible everyding is. But I look all de time into vatches und make dem go again. Yes, it iss like you say, a delicate business, und my fingers iss getting old for it, maybe. But I like dese liddle tools und all dese liddle things aboud a vatch I like to look at und hold und figx up.

"Because it iss so simple. Ezpecially ven you get acquainted vid how dey run und vy dey stop. Und der are zo many busted vatches. Zo nice outside und zo busted inside. I can'd explain maybe how it iss. But it iss like dat. Ven I hold de busted vatches under the micgrozcope, I feel happy I don' know. Some time maybe somebody pick me up like I vas a busted vatch und hold me under a micgrozcope und figx me up until I go tick tick again. Maybe dat's vy. Here. All done."

Gustave shifted the microscope up over his eyebrow and smiled ponderously across the counter.

"Put it on," he said, "but be careful. Dat's how vatches iss busted alvays. By bumping und paying no attention to dem."

SCHOPENHAUER'S SON