"You see, I raced in express trains! From the train to the ship! From the ship to the train! From the train again to the ship! From the ship, and again to the train! Through Europe, the Atlantic, America, the Pacific, Japan, the Far East... I arrive, as wet as a wet hen, but Kolchak is no longer there. They have made short shrift of him. So I tore back from the train to the ship, from the ship to the train, from the train again to the ship. Bang! While still in America, I learn it's all over with Denikin, he had transferred his command to Wrangel. The devil take it! Again I go from the train to the ship, from the ship to the train. I arrive in Paris—but it is all over with Wrangel too. Well, I thought to myself, all of you can go wherever you like, while I myself backed up to America. Now I am a traveller and a lecturer ..."

The captain took out a fat cigarette-case and began to treat us to Russian cigarettes with mouthpieces.

"I fill them myself," he said. "I import the cigarette wrappers from Bulgaria. I refuse to put this American trash in my mouth."

And right there and then, without the slightest transition, he informed us:

"Do you see the skin on my face? A remarkable skin, isn't it? Amazingly smooth and pink. Just like a milk-fed porkling's. I'll tell you a secret. In 1916, at the front near Kovel, a gun explosion tore the skin off my face to the devil's mother! Shshsh . . . They had to graft some skin from my behind. Ah! How do you like that? Well done! A marvel of medicine! Remarkable skin! What ? Of course, I never tell a word of it to the ladies, but to you, as writers and psychologists, I have told about it. But, please, not a word of it to anybody!"

Then he compelled both of us in turn to hold his cane.

"Splendid! What?" he cried eagerly. "Twenty-two pounds of pure iron. I was ill, was forbidden to engage in sports, so I carry this cane, that my muscles shouldn't weaken."

In farewell he informed us that not so long ago, before departing for South America, he had to have seven of his teeth filled at one time.

"I simply didn't have the time! You see, I was so preoccupied prior to my departure, so tired, that I fell asleep in a dentist's chair. I awakened an hour later, and what do you think? All the seven teeth were filled, and I didn't even know anything about it. A marvel of medicine! What?"

When we were going up the stairway, the captain was loudly shouting after us:

"Now, please, gentlemen, not a whisper to the ladies!"

Saying this, he pointed to his pink cheeks and in farewell waved his twenty-two-pound cane.

37 Hollywood Serfs

WE WERE SITTING with one of the American motion-picture folk in a small Hollywood cafe decorated, like many of them, in something like Baghdad style. It was a sultry December evening and the entrance doors of the cafe were wide open. The dry wind rattled the leaves of the street palms.

"You want to know," the motion-picture man was saying, "why, with all our remarkable technique, with all our excellent actors, with our directors, among whom are the best artists of the world, why we, who now and then, but very rarely, make excellent films, why we spend day arid night preparing our revolting, idiotic pictures, which little by little stupefy the spectator? You want to know that? Let me tell you, then."

The motion-picture man ordered a glass of sherry.

"You have to remember who used to be the villain in the old American motion-picture drama. He was almost always the banker. In those cinema plays he used to be the villain. Now look at thousands of films made in Hollywood during the last few years and you will see that the banker has disappeared as a negative personage. He has even become an attractive type. He is now the kindly sympathetic businessman who helps the poor or the lovers. This has happened because bankers, big capitalists, have become the bosses of Hollywood. They, as you can readily see, will riot permit that they be portrayed as villains in their films. I'll tell you more. American motion pictures are perhaps the only industry into which capitalists have come not for profit alone. It is no accident that we make idiotic films. We are told to make them. They are made on purpose. Hollywood systematically stuffs the heads of Americans, befogs them with its films. Not one serious problem of life will be touched in a Hollywood film—I'll guarantee you that. Our bosses will not allow it. This work of many years has already yielded a frightful harvest. American spectators have completely unlearned to think. Today any motion-picturegoer stands on an unusually low level. It is very hard for him to sit through something more significant than a tap-dancing film or a pseudo-historical play. He will not even bother to see an intelligent picture, but will rather take his girl and go to the neighbouring motion-picture theatre. Therefore, European films, in which after all there is more sense than in the American ones, enjoy a pitiful distribution here. I am telling you horrible things, but such is the actual state of affairs. It would take many years of hard work to restore to the American motion-picture fan his proper taste. But who is going to do that? The bosses of Hollywood?"

The' man we were talking to spoke sincerely. Evidently this subject continually tormented him.

"We have not a single independent man except Chaplin. We serve our bosses and do everything that they tell us to do. You will ask me, how is it then that occasionally appear a few good pictures made in Hollywood? They appear against the will of the boss. They are an accidental success, a concession by the boss to a servant whom he values highly, to keep that servant from foolishly giving up his job. Occasionally it is necessary to hide a good film from the bosses, so that they will not have an opportunity to spoil it. Do you know Lewis Milestone? When he was making All Quiet on the Western Front, being afraid of his bosses, who have the habit of coming in during the filming to offer their advice, he spread the rumour that there were constant explosions during filming that were a menace to life and limb. The bosses were frightened and left the wily Milestone in peace. But even then he did not succeed in hiding everything to the end. Once he was called out by his worried and excited boss and asked:

"'Listen, Lewis, they say there's an unhappy ending in your film. Is that right?'

'"Yes, that's so,' Milestone admitted.

"' But that's impossible!' cried the boss. ' The American public won't go to see a film with such an ending. You must attach another ending.'

"'But we're taking the film according to the famous book by Remarque, and there the ending is unhappy,' replied Milestone.

"I don't know anything about that,' said the boss impatiently. I never read that Remarque, and it has nothing to do with me. It's enough that we paid a lot of money for filming rights. But I repeat to you, the American public will not go to see a picture with such an ending.'

"'All right,' said Milestone. 'I'll make another ending.'

"' Now that's fine!' said the boss, overjoyed. ' How is it going to come out now?'

"'Very simple. In Remarque's book the French win, as it actually happened. But since you insist on changing the ending, I'll make it so that the Germans win the war.'

"It was only with this witty rejoinder that Milestone saved his picture. It had a tremendous success. But that happens rarely. Usually even a well-known, even a famous director is compelled to do everything that he is ordered to do. At this particular time—it happened only a few days ago—one of the cinema directors who is famous throughout the world received a scenario that he liked. For several years he has been looking for something significant to produce. Can you imagine his satisfaction and joy when he finally found it? But in that picture the Hollywood star, Marlene Dietrich, had to be filmed. She read the scenario and decided that the roles of the other artists were too big and too well turned out and that they would interfere with her starring in the picture. And so the inimitable Marlene demanded that these roles be cut. The play was irretrievably spoiled. The director refused to work with the scenario in this mutilated form. You can well imagine that the director I am telling you about is so great and famous that he dares to refuse a job that does not please him. There are only a few such people in Hollywood. But the star won, because for our bosses the star is the main thing. The American public goes to see the star, not the director. If the advertisements bear the name of Marlene Dietrich, or Greta Garbo, or Fredric March, the public will bring its millions to the box office, no matter what nonsense these remarkable artists might portray. It all ended very simply. They called in another director, who did not dare refuse anything for fear of losing his job altogether, and they commissioned him to produce the spoiled scenario. He cursed his pathetic fate and began to 'shoot' the picture.