We, too, were puffed up with satisfaction at having managed to pick out the very best automobile out of the twenty-five million automobiles in America.
We spent the last night with the Adamses.
We decided to rise as early as possible and drive off while poor Baby was still asleep. But we failed in that. The little girl discovered us in the act of moving suitcases. It was pitiful to look at the Adamses. With lying voices they assured Baby that they would return in an hour. The Negress wept. We felt that we were utter scoundrels.
The machine glided over the damp asphalt of Central Park West. The speedometer began to register miles. We started on our long trek.
Part II. Through the eastern states
10. On the Automobile Highway
THE PROUD towers of New York were behind us. Framed in stainless steel, the facets of the Empire State Building shone in the morning murkiness hovering over the gigantic city. A thin mist enveloped the summits of Radio City, Chrysler, Woolworth, and other skyscrapers, named and unnamed. Now we were driving through a lively and unpretentious suburb.
Muddy water ran over the pavement, which was lined with parallel strips. The green iron trestle of the elevated railway slit the street lengthwise at the height of the fifth story. The high-strung people of New York raced in their automobiles on their sundry errands. A striped barber pole flashed by; it was a revolving glass cylinder with green, red, and blue stripes. In a red-brick house toasted sandwiches were sold. As a matter of fact, all the houses here were brick and all were red. What can one like here, what can one learn to love here?
Like all the large cities of the world, New York is an appalling city. Here millions of people bravely struggle for mere existence. There is too much money in this city. Some people have too much while others have too little. And it is this that casts a tragic light on all that happens in New York.
We parted from the city for two months.
The route of the first day was clear. We were going to Schenectady along U.S. Highway No. 9, through Poughkeepsie (it actually takes twelve letters to write that word in English), the Hudson, and the capital of the state of New York, Albany.
The regimen of the journey was also clear. We had at our disposal sixty days, and we had approximately ten thousand miles to cover in that time. Even if we were to drive at the rate of two hundred and fifty miles a day, we would cover that distance in forty days. We set aside fifteen days for surveys, sightseeing, and so forth. All told, fifty-five days. That left us with five days in reserve for unforeseen developments. To this it should be added that a mile consists of one and six-tenth kilometres.
The suitcase with our belongings was placed in the baggage rack located under our back seat. In it were our shirts, handkerchiefs, and, most important of all, letters of introduction – new letters of introduction to cover the entire route. Again, the addressees were professors, people of the theatre, poets, engineers, politicians) governors, and senators.
To the numerous letters received from Dos Passos was attached a long list with the characteristics of each addressee, who he was, what was his occupation, and in what way he could be useful to us.
In brief, we had a lot of recommendational merchandise.
It is high time to keep our promise and write a separate chapter about American roads. They deserve it. Maybe they deserve even more— a whole inspired book.
This was not our first time on an automobile road. Yet, although since then we have become used to munificent highway arrangements, our first impression remains ineradicable. We drove over a white iron and concrete plate, eleven inches thick. This ideally even surface, being slightly rough, had a large coefficient of traction. Rain did not make it slippery. We drove over it with the ease and noiselessness with which a drop of rain runs down glass. Along its length the road was marked with white, thick stripes. Four automobiles could travel down this road at once in both directions. These roads, like the roads of ancient Rome, are built practically for eternity.
Mrs. Adams looked at us appealingly from time to time, but we pretended we did not understand her glances, although we really did. Mrs. Adams wanted to drive faster. But at the time he sold us the machine, the dealer recommended that the first few days it be driven no faster than forty miles an hour. This is necessary so as not to damage the motor before it has time to get under way. Mr. Adams glanced at the speedometer and, seeing the beautiful thin arrow wavering close to the figure 50, became anxious at once:
“No, no, Becky, it’s impossible! It’s impossible! The car is too stiff. You must be very, very careful with it. Isn’t it so, gentlemen?”
Not understanding anything yet about the treatment of automobiles, we merely nodded, without taking our eyes off the white stripes of the road.
Oh, that road! For two months it ran to meet us – concrete, asphalt, or grained, made of gravel and permeated with heavy oil.
It is madness to think that it is possible to drive slowly down an American federal highway. It is not enough to have the desire to be careful. Side by side with your machine pass hundreds of other machines, and thousands push from behind. You meet with tens of thousands passing by, and all of them drive for all they are worth, sweeping you along with them in their satanic flight. All of America speeds somewhere, and evidently never will stop. Steel dogs and birds gleam on the noses of its machines.
Among the millions of automobiles flying from ocean to ocean, we, too, were a grain of dust chased by a petrol storm which has been raging for ever so many years over America.
Our machine raced past rows of petrol stations, each of which had six, eight, or even ten red or yellow pumps. We stopped at one of these to fill our tank.
From a small neat building, in the large glass show window of which could be seen all kinds of automobile greases and cleaning powders, came a man in a cap with a striped top and in striped overalls, the unbuttoned upper part of which revealed a striped collar with a black leather bow tie. Such is the style of mechanics – to wear leather ties. He placed a rubber spigot into the opening of the tank, and the columnlike pump began to count off automatically the number of gallons swallowed by our automobile. Simultaneously, figures jumped out on the counting machine of the little column, indicating the cost of the petrol. With each new gallon the apparatus gave off a melodic ring. This ringing is mere mechanical smartness. One can get along without it.
The tank was filled and we were ready to drive on, but the gentleman in the striped cap and leather necktie did not consider his task completed, although he had done everything that he was supposed to do. He had sold us eleven gallons of petrol, exactly as much as we had asked for. But only then did the great American service begin.
The man from the petrol station lifts the hood of the machine and tests the level of oil in the motor with a calibrated metallic ruler. If it is necessary to add oil, he brings it at once in a handsome tin can or a tall wide-necked bottle.
Then he tests the air pressure in the tires. We carried a pressure of thirty-five pounds in the front tyres and thirty in the rear. He will let out extra air or add as much as is needed.
Then the striped gentleman turns his attention to the windshield. He wipes it with a clean soft rag. If the pane is very dirty, he rubs it with a special powder.
All of this is done quickly but without any fuss. While this work is going on, which does not cost the traveller a single cent, the man at the petrol station will tell you about the road and about the weather you may expect to encounter on your route.
After everything is in order and it seems that nothing else could be added in the way of service rendered to the automobile, the traveller, spoiled by service, begins to imagine that the right front door of his machine does not close tightly enough. Smiling his good wishes, the striped gentleman pulls instruments from his rear pockets – and in two minutes the door is in order.
Besides that, the traveller receives an excellent map of the state printed by the oil companies that sell petrol on the roads. There are road maps published by Standard Oil, Shell, Socony, Conoco, and Esso. All these are beautifully printed