Crash helmet, coveralls, Camels - they ' re "standard equipment " with this tank driver. That's a General behind him-a "General Lee."
Ski champion, U. S. Army model 1943. His cigarette is a flavor champion of many years' standing - Camelthe Army man's favorite.
"Tell it to the Marines!" And this Marine paratrooper, with his parachute pack, will tell you the favorite pack with Marines is Camel.
Dolphins on this sailor 's right sleeve mean unders ea service. "Pig boat " is his wor d for submarine- "Camel" fo r his favorite smoke.
IN THE ARMY
With men in the Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard, the favorite cigarette is CAMEL. (Based on actual sales
On land-on sea-yes, and in the air, coo, the favorit e is Camel. As this high- altitu de Army bomber pilot say s: " Camels suit me to a 'T '!"
Throat-is
THE MESSENGER
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND VOLUME
Editor-in-Chief
JOHN C. ZUBER
Westhampton College Co-Editors
ANNE BYRD TUCKER ROSE KOL TUKIAN
Westhampton College Associate Editors
LOUISE WILEY FRANCES ELLIS
FRANCES KENNARD JEN LEA GUTHRIE
FRANCES BEAZLEY
Richmond College Associate Editors
JOHN FIELDS BATTE JAMES BANKS
ROBERT PAINE
B11sinessManagers
JAMES WORSHAM LOIS KIRKWOOD
VOL. L Thumbnails
APRIL, 1943
i NUMBER 4
In ThisIssue
REVERIE
Milton Friedenburg MEMORY TO L.R.M.
APRIL, 1943 No. 4 VENGEANCE
Joel Harnett
We find several of our regular contributors in the issue again this month. Friedenburg presents a poem, Ellen Mercer Clark brings us another good story, and Ben Rouzie sent both a story and poem from the service. Ben has kept a high record in the material contributed this past year, and does not let up although he is training for active duty for our country. The Richmond College freshmen, represented by Joel Harnett, Caldwell Butler, and Louis Rubin, look like a promising class. Harnett brings a timely story with an impressive ending; Rubin writes a heavy line of poetry that is not easily forgotten. Butler presents the view of a thinking college man in respect to the formulation of a just peace in time to stop the forces that may work toward another world conflict. Linwood Horne, who is now a member of the staff, reviews another timely book in his thorough manner. Two Phi Beta Kappa girls of Westhampton College give their reaction in the different translations of the same poem. Ilse Schott and Pamela Carpenter are both language majors, and Miss Schott gives the exact translation while Miss Carpenter expresses herself in a poetic fashion.
We of the staff regret the loss of Allister MacKenzie and the others that have departed from the college while serving the MESSENGERfaithfully in these times of turmoil.
"THE PROPOSITION FOR PEACE"
M. Caldwell Butler
PORTRAIT.
Ellen Mercer Clark
OUR PROFS (Dr. Robert C. Astrop) .
NOCTURNO-( translations)
Ilse Schott
Pamela Carpenter
ELEGY
Anonymous
POEM
Ben Rouzie
THE STINKER
Ben Rauzie
BETWEEN THE BOOK-ENDS
Limvood Horne
Reuerie
By MILTON FRIEDENBURG
I
Dreams are made of stardust mixed with wme.
The many stardust facets all ashine, Are mirrors, brilliant ones, in which we see Ourselves as we would really like to be. The wine acts as a base, and it suspends The particles of stars. Then, too, it lends A heady atmosphere to those who dream. It fills our nostrils with a steady stream Of vapors, which intoxicate our soul And cause us to believe our dreamy role; Thus wine and stardust, mingled, cause surcease Of weighty cares, and bring us peace.
II
What's memory? Why, that's an angel's song That steals so softly in upon our thoughts, And with its subtle magic, rights each wrong And fills the empty places in our hearts. Then, when it's brought us happiness for pain, It steals so very softly out again.
Memory
The rains are falling, dripping, falling; like The tears of yesterday. And in my mind
The old thoughts wander-those I felt were long Since dead. They patter gently through my heart; Their pale, thin faces stare at me with soft Reproach--so sad, and yet so far away.
To L.R.M.
She was large and much too horse-faced to be Beautiful. And yet, the ease with which she Moved lent her an air of grace ( not rightly Hers, but few would notice that) . Besides, the Kindness of her heart was deep and rich and So refreshing that her friends would of ten stop to Cool their fevered minds and hearts within the Quiet, peaceful depths that were her soul.
Vengeance
By JOEL HARNETT
THE MUD splattered against the swastika of his tunic ; but everywhere mud splattered against the swastika, for the mighty Third Reich had fallen Lt. Wolfe hunched his broad shoulders and plodded steadily into the driving ra m.
He looked down at his uniform; it was torn, filthy , thoroughly worn out. The insignia, the braid , all were gone He thought fleetingly of the p ast ; when the German banner swept Europe in an all conquering onrush He thought of the great victory rally in the Sportspalast at Berlin when Warsaw fell. He thought of the smashing victo ries in France , and the time he wiped out a whole French battalion single handed. The Fuehrer had awarded him the iron cross for that. And as the rain beat peltingly onto his tired face, he thought of the happy leaves he spent in Vienna , of Greta, the soft blonde daughter of the innkeeper. Memories in him were stirred of the early days of victory in Russia; wine , blood , it all flowed the same The dress parade in Rostov had been a sig ht; how those Russian idiots had quaked. He wore the same uniform that day; but now it was d ifferent. This was no dress parade, there would be no more dress parades for Germans for many years.
He stopped for a moment and bent over. His fingers were jammed inside his right shoe , and a fter a brief second of groping, emerged holding a small piece of metal. It was a little iron piece, shaped like a cross A strand of ribbon was hanging freely "The Yankee souvenir hunters missed that little prize," he thought bitterly. "Fools, took everything I had, even the buttons, but they didn't find the Cross Never even thought of searching my shoes " He stood there staring at it for a while; "a whole battalion of French." Suddenly he reared his arm back and threw the piece of m etal far away, into a bush, out of sight. The battalion of French was gone , now the Cross was gone. He turned and continued on into the rain.
But the cold fog could never blot out the other thoughts which tormented him. The cold days
before Stalingrad; with men dying by the hundreds of thousands; the retreat before Rostov, when the once invincible war machine started to come apart. How could he ever forget the bloody fiasco at Warsaw-Warsaw, the scene of the first great German triumph, WarsawwheretheGerman legions were cut to ribbons by the relentless Russians The end was in sight. And then came the last days, his division was recalled to Berlin. He would remember the last battle until his dying day.
His machine gun crew was on a height above the city, facing a long plain on the other side. The attack was to come from there; it was a machine gunner ' s ideal. Nothing but long rolling plains, nothing behind which the enemy could hide .
The sky was black with enemy aircraft; the Lu£twaffe had been driven from the sky weeks before. The attack came suddenly in the middle of the afternoon . They had expected it after nightfall, but they were ready. The first of the attackers were British armored divisions , supported by endless lines of British brown clad Tommies. The German artillery opened up with the fury of old; and the savage accuracy that all had thought died in the debacles at Stalingrad, Rostov , and Warsaw, returned Wolfe grinned despite the rain. The British were surprised; they thought it would be easy. After a day and a night of furious struggle , the English fell back , and the sector was quiet.
But the respite was short lived. The next attack brought American troops. Wolfe had heard of American soldiers from his father who fought in the last war. They were the men who laughed at war; it was a game to them . His father had always said that the Americans were dare devils, they would take a chance on anything, but they were no good in mass attacks , they could not follow orders
He had never fought the troops from across the ocean; but they had a fearsome reputation. He sighted the long khaki lines through the sights
[ 3 J
of his machine gun. The Yankees were not laughing. They looked fresher than the British, but there was no light heartedness about them. Were these truly Americans? A shell thudded into the ground close to the nest, covering Wolfe and his men with debris.
The battle was really under way; the machine gun was belching death furiously; and accurate Yank gunfire had wiped out most of the crew. Suddenly, a grenade hit the gun, blowing it to a million pieces Wolfe's head was on fire, lights were bursting inside it; that terrible noise; he was nauseous; then blackness.
The rain grew more intense; lightning cut across the sky, followed by long resonating claps of thunder. He saw a farmhouse down the road , about a hundred yards away. He started running towards it.
The war had been over for six months now , but he had been in the hospital longer than that. He thought back to the months in the hospital, blind, constantly in pain. He remembered how he smiled the day the doctor had said he was cured , and told him how lucky he had been that the blindness was only temporary. It was nice of the doctor, he thought, to give him money for train fare home. And he grimaced at the sight of his home town. It was in eastern Germany, and the Poles had cut the place apart. It was terrible, but he never thought of the frenzied faces of the Poles who massacred half the village.
He had started to walk to his farm, for although it was two miles outside of the town , there were no cars or wagons in sight. The rain was very heavy, and he still was not strong, but he had to see his home, his mother, his sisters; they thought him dead.
He reached the gate of the farm house; but staggered weakly. He grasped the fence post for support. He was weaker than he thought, his head was heavy. A sudden jag of lightning lit up the misty gloom . In that brief instant he read the sign post. HERR HERMAN GOTTLIEB. But the startling thing was not in the name itself. A faint outline persisted, paint which could not be completely eradicated, " JUDE."
Wolfe stood stock still. He could never go into the house; all over Germany the Nazis were being ruthlessly hunted out by revengers. Could
he go into this house of a Jew? After all he and his kind had done , he could never expect any mercy from a Jew of all people. His grip tightened on the fence, as he swayed slightly. Then with a choking little cry he abruptly fell over in a faint. The rain beat down on his prostrate body, and a little stream rushing along the road side poured over his outstretched arm .
A light kept shining in his eyes; he shook his head but it did not go away. He opened his eyes, lifted his head, then fell back. What manner of place was this? Where was he? The room was obviously an attic, the roof was slanted The walls were whitewashed and spotlessly clean. The bed, the only piece of furniture in the room besides a straight backed chair , stood on a bare floor.
Wolfe jerked his head towards the door as he heard it creak open. A bent old man with sparse , greying hair peered into the room. He saw Wolfe was awake and walked over to him He just stared, said nothing "Hello," ventured the sick man .
No answer came from the old man . He was obviously Jewish.
"I want to thank you for taking care of me this way I feel much better. "
Still the old man said nothing. Then he turned and left the room Presently he returned carrying a bowl of broth . Silently he offered the bowl to the other man.
' Tm really too weak to eat this myself ."
The old man drew the chair next to the bed and proceeded to feed the other as though he were a small child. The feeding task being done , the old man turned to leave.
"Herr Gottlieb"; the old man faced the officer, "My name is Lt. Otto Wolfe; you probably know from my uniform that I am a Nazi officer." Gottlieb turned away without uttering a sound, or without a flicker of emotion on his face, and left the room.
For an entire week the same routine was repeated. Gottlieb entered the room carrying food
In time Wolfe was able to eat by himself, but Gottlieb never spoke. Sometimes he sat in the straight backed chair and watched the younger man eat. Wolfe finally gave up speaking to his benefactor, for all his efforts to make conversation fell upon unresponsive ears
The bells pealing from the tower of a country (C o n t in ued o n p age 16)
[ 4 ]
ttThePropositionforPeace"
By M. CALDWELL BUTLER, '46
IN EVERY SENSE of the word, the United States is involved in a world war. It is the third such international conflict in the last century An examination of history shows that a fter every war there has been an effort toward international peace. Yet the very existence of this w ar points quite clearly to the fact that these attempts at peace in the past have been failures. At the same time , it is not difficult to see that war is becoming increasingly more destructive in scope. Therefore , the time has come when we must find the formula for a lasting peace if we wish to prev ent another war which might completely destroy civilization a s we know it. We must find it by eliminating the causes of war. We must insure it by profiting by past mistakes.
In his current book, "The Making of Tomorrow ," Raoul de Roussy de Sales has presented a careful analysis of the present world conflict. Mr. de Sales finds three distinct trends which have led to this war and with which we must contend in the planning of the post-war world . These trends , or more rightly, forces are referred to as nationalism, collectivism, and pacifism. It is best to consider these one by one.
We might call nationalism simply the development of nations toward self-sufficient, independent populations. Clarence K. Streit in "Union Now" says, however, that "nationalism in its zeal to make our nations instead of ourselves selfsufficing and independent is centralizing government , giving it more and more power over the citizen ' s business and life , putting more and more of that power in one man's hand, freeing the gove rnment from its dependence on the citizen while making him more and more dependent on it." There it is! Nationalism presents itself as primarily a question of individual liberty. The world must decide whether the individual should continue to sacrifice his freedom to the state or whether the state shall remain dependent of its citizens.
We can examine this nationalism with respect to the possibilities of future world order. The most primitive course would be what the news-
papers call isolation. It is primitive in that it is an attempt at perfect nationalism , that is , complete self-sufficiency. What it fails to account for is that perfect nationalism means complete loss of individual freedom. However , there is no such thing as international isolation because there are two forces forever present to oppose it: the movement of a nation into the world and the world's movement into it. We may be able to combat that force from within, but we will never be able to defeat it from the outside. We have thought we could. The Japanese bombs on Pearl Harbor exploded that myth!
Eliminating isolation, there are two alternative methods of world government: the league or alliance method and the union method.
The league or alliance method, which has been tried in the Leagues of Nations, is based primarily on cooperative force. This means that each nation of the League can develop its own armed forces. In the event that the League is violated, the group decides to take action. Inasmuch as each nation retains its individual national sovereignty, a unanimous vote must be had before any action can take place Therefore, a nation of the size of El Salvador with one and a half million citizens and the United States , with one hundred and thirty million, have equal representation in the League, or a citizen of El Salvador must have eighty five times the voice in the League as has a citizen of the United States. Then, under the League of Nations, we have accepted nationalism by limiting this individual freedom
The union presents itself as an alternative to the League By union, of course we imply an international federation with one central government and the member states retaining only local authority. Naturally such a group must at first include only the victor nations after this war. But even this would decidedly have the control of the world, without excessive armament, and without each of the member states having to be armed to the teeth in order to be prepared for any emergency.
Of course, under a federal union, control of interstate commerce is a property of the central au-
[ 5 J
thority. Therefore, although it might not come immediately, free trade would certainly be a natural outgrowth of such a system. The elimination of tariff walls, an equal access to raw materials, and the opportunity to obtain products from all over the whole world woul .d mean additional freedom for the individual. Federal Union would likewise mean the development of a standard monetary system. As citizens of a world federation, we would be able to travel without hindrance to all parts of the union. We would have the freedom to correspond, to telephone, and to radio to all parts of the world.
We can say, then, that today we are sacrificing our individual freedom in defense , in trade, in money, in citizenship, in communications. In five fields , we are sacrificing to nationalism what we could readily have under a federal union of the world.
Collectivism is a relatively new trend in our modern civilization. It has come as a direct outgrowth of the industrial revolution . Mr. de Sales v used the term "to designate in a most general way the tendency to integrate the individual into the complex organization of our modern industrial society in such a manner as to obtain more efficiency from, and, if possible , more security for that individual. " We can say then that our system of mass production is a part of the collectivist system.
We know, too , that out of this system has developed our ever present conflicts between capital and labor. In the period immediately following the first great World War, capital was the more powerful. In our country , it even rivalled the power of the federal government. By a series of unusual developments, labor is gradually assuming the dominant role. The era of capitalism has definitely passed.
The first break for freedom by the laboring man came with the organization of the first labor unions. It gained gradual force and reached ultimate victory with the depression of 1929. The victory was not proven , however , until 1940 when the President of the United States, the champion of labor, completely broke with precedent and was elected for a third successive term.
Today we are involved in a war. Mr. Wallace, our Vice-President, calls it "the People's Revolution." It is a revolt of the common man in an effort for security Mr. Roosevelt calls this security "freedom from want. " The National Resources
Planning Board Report to the President of the United States, and the Beveridge Plans in England are more detailed in their presentation of this idea. Nevertheless , the people demand their security and they must and will have it.
This brings it to a question of in what way shall we attain this individual security for the laborer . We have already proven how nations can remain secure under a Federal Union, but we have not shown how "freedom from want" can be assured to all peoples. We have tried both isolation and a League of Nations, and both have failed. We must again turn to a World Federation for our answer. Having already explained that free trade would be a natural outgrowth of this union , we can easily see how it would increase trade the world over. With increased trade would come increased employment. The coal miner , the mill worker , the ship builder, and the farmer could each go about his work assured that there would be a market for his product. It would be an opportunity for education and progress to enter the backward regions of China, Russia , and Latin America, and to develop their vast untold resources. A Federal Union would then mean trade , employment, and progress the world over.
After every war there comes a strong swing toward pacifism. It starts when the desire for peace overcomes the desire for complete victory . At first, there is a great hate for the enemy ; then, it becomes a feeling that it is not the people but their leaders we are fighting, and once they are done away with , peace forever can be assured. It was this feeling which drove our country to isolation after the last war
The League of Nations was founded with the idea that it could simply threaten a nation into submission. In this, it completely failed. This left but one resource : active conflict. However, the vote of the people is required for democracies to enter a war, and it took too long a time for moral indignation to overcome pacifism . A League of Nations will never be able to act either quickly or effectively.
The best way to assure peace is to make attack hopeless. And this is exactly what Federal Union can do. Starting with the twenty-nine United Nations as a nucleus, we would even then have economic control of the world, a great majority of the world's population , control of every ocean except ( Co ntinu ed o n /1age 14)
PORTR~IT
By ELLEN MERCER CLARK
THE afternoon sun shone in a single band of light through the window and across the foot of the bed. The furniture was heavy mahogany, even the small table by the bed was massive. Three books, the Bible, Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, and a modern biography of Alexander had been pushed aside to make room on it for the bottles and glasses of the sick room. The pendulum clock on the mantle ticked rhythmically and the breathing of the man on the bed kept slow pace with it.
Dr. Penny sat in the rocking chair by the bed and watched his patient anxiously. Judge Arnold lay quietly, his eyes half-closed, with one thin white hand outside the covers. Even sickness had not relaxed the strong lines of his hawk-like face. His firm, thin lips were white, but he could still smile sardonically as the Doctor leaned forward to count his pulse. "It's no use, Ralph. This is one case neither of us can help." The voice which had stirred many crowded courtrooms was mobile and full even when it could not be raised much above a whisper.
"Shall I call Dr. Brown, Judge?" He stood up.
"And add the ministry to our learned gathering?"
Ralph Penny looked quickly at the man on the bed: he had always distrusted his friend's humour a little. It made him feel nai:ve and uncertain as to what the accomplished man would say next.
"Sit down, Ralph." The Doctor sat down without a word. Their attitude wai; strangely unlike that of doctor and patient; the looking for guidance and the questioning were all on the part of the man in the chair. His patient, still the showman even at the closing of what he had termed so cynically his last case, fixed his sharp eyes under their straight, bushy eyebrows on the light coming in across the foot of the bed, spaced his voice to the measured impersonal chant of the clock, and began.
"What I want to tell you goes back to the time when I was still young-just thirty-five. I had, I believed, .a brilliant future before me. I was am-
bitious and I knew what I wanted. I wanted fame and position in my chosen profession. I wanted, in time, wealth, a fine house, and a wife who could grace that home and position. I was in love and as soon as I could support the woman of my choice I intended to marry." He was silent for a moment, and the doctor who had known him for twenty years without ever hearing him make a personal reference kept his blue eyes grave and impersonal in his round, normally cheerful face.
"She was a beautiful woman." Years of remembrance and regret hung in the overtones of the slow voice. Then the words came quicker. "I proved to her by every logic I knew that she was meant to be my wife; I pleaded better than I had ever pleaded before any judge; I shaped a better case than I have ever put in any summing up to a jury." The fierce eyes closed for a moment, but then a smile twisted the thin lips. "Who ever knew a woman to follow logic? She married a younger man because she liked his smile." The judge's voice caught in a gasp of anger. His breath was coming in shorter, agonizing pants. "How I hated him! Hated them both. I vowed she'd regret that she'd made a fool of me. I admired cleverness-always have-and men who get what they want. Now I determined to show her that I could rise to heights the man she had chosen could never dream of."
Dr. Penny leaned forward, his expression comically mingling concern for his patient and keen interest in the story that was exhausting the last dregs of his strength. He kept his voice steady with an effort. "Yes, Judge?"
The dying man scarcely heard him. Eyes halfclosed, yet fixed on the beam of light, he went on telling the story over to himself, dropping each word into the room like a drop of acid poured carefully from one beaker to another. "I was not content only with success for myself; I did not want him to succeed. I wanted her to see how much more I could do-how much better man I was. But I did nothing against them openly. Indeed I was a friend of the family. But when a position, a position of great advancement, was [ 7 J
open to him, I saw that he did not get it. That first surreptitious checking of his career was all I needed to do. He never rose from his first position." The judge closed his thin lips firmly.
The doctor's face showed his perplexity. There was so little feeling in that cold voice that he was left wondering whether he was listening to a deathbed confession or the far off reminiscences of an old man.
"Ralph!" The judge's voice from the bed answered the question. For the first time in his acquaintanceship Ralph Penny heard a note of entreaty in the vibrant tones which were more accustomed to give advice or pronounce judgment. "Man! I was young and my temper has never been cool. Do you think they would have been happier if he had had that position? I think of her so often now, with her smile and her soft brown hair. Did I make her unhappy?" His keen eyes searched his friend's face for a moment. "Have you been happy? You are just a country doctor. You've never had a position in a great hospital where you could become known in some special line of work. Have you and Margaret been happy?"
For once the doctor could answer his strange friend at once. "Yes. Yes, of course." That was all he said, but his thoughts went jumping back to the white house on the country road with a warm sun setting over the trees and Margaret coming, smiling, to the door, and the old judge read the best answer on his face, and the hard lines of his own smoothed out slowly.
"Thank you, Ralph." The judge's voice was steady now as he continued. "Don't think too harshly of me man, and don't pity me. Love of her made me bitter first, and I deadened my heart with legal phrases." He smiled with a fl.ash of his old humour. "I took everything hard all my life, just because I went after it, and the harder
a thing was to do the more I tried. I nearly broke myself over her. I ran for the state legislature and played politics to the top of my hard bent. Well, at forty I had the fame and some of the wealth, and she was a pretty wife with a four year-old son." The judge's blue-veined tapering hands clenched slowly. "Ralph, time doesn't heal deep wounds to the heart, but it does cool hurt pride. I was king of the bench, and I was beginning to see that there was more in justice than the written laws of the state. Pride in myself made me bitter. Pride in my ability to control my feelings by justice at last conquered my bitterness. For thirtyfive years I've been truly their friend. I've helped educate their children, not only because he never had the money of the higher position he might have had, but also because I grew to like them. And I believe I have been just in other things. I'm not afraid of death now. When I can meet things face to face, I can go on."
His eyes closed for a moment, and then he said softly. "The drawer of the desk over there. The bottom one with the lock. The key is in my wallet. Get me the miniature; it's in a case." As the doctor moved, he made one faint gesture.
"Don't look at it please."
Dr. Penny found the key at once, but he had some trouble with the drawer-bending over was a little difficult for one of his shape-but he found the trick of the lock soon and brought the small miniature back to the bed and put it in the judge's hand.
"There's nothing more you can do for me. Call Joe and tell him I won't need supper."
"Yes, Judge."
Left alone the old Judge held the miniature of Margaret Penny-firmly in his hand-he did not need to look at it-and closed his eyes. Only the ticking of the clock marked the silence.
Biography
Few ripples touch the calmness of my pool And only one has left its imprint there But time will soon efface that too And leave the surface still and bare. [ 8]
OURPROFS
THE SUN climbed heavenward through the shimmering April mist; somewhere a robin lifted his shrill voice in song, and with a sigh, Dr. Robert Astrop turned slowly from the window, bowed to his class in true Virginia style and began, "What a beautiful Virginia morning." He walked to the desk and was about to take his place before this sea of variegated personalities when this gentleman from Virginia, Surry County to be exact, paused just four and one half inches above the chair and directed his attention once more toward the spring landscape-seemingly dissatisfied with his former discourse on weather conditions. The pause extended into a purposeful stride, and our professor resumed his position at the window.
"Oh, yes, since we have such a fine gathering of alert young people, I suppose this day warrants a discussion of claustrophobia. Where did we stop last time, Miss Patterson? Number seven wasn't it?"
Male voice boomed from out of the intellectual silence, "Yes, sir."
"Thank you, Miss Patterson, I see that the age of miracles isn't over yet."
After a few of the "eight-thirty" eyes began to open, Dr. Astrop went back to his desk, parted his hair, smoothed his mustache, crossed his legs and then graced the chair.
As the day was not conducive to a study of claustrophobia, our teacher of psychology, in true psychological fashion, concluded that he must lead the class into the subject gently.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, this reminds me of the sort of day that little Jimmy would take his mother shopping. After hopping a few trollies and then sliding into the Sixth street base of Thalhimer's at · precisely nine thirty-one (for all conventional purposes, Jimmy was in the lead) he
made the the toy department, fifth floor, by nine thirty two and promptly planted himself on a 'rhalhimers most exclusive hobby horse.
"At five twenty-nine his mother politely tapped Jimmy on the left shoulder and suggested that the store probably closed in exactly one minute and that it was probably time to leave. At this, Jimmy immediately became indignant and in like manner informed his mother that he didn't want to go home. 'Ride 'em. Bookaty-bookaty-book.'
"While depriving her fingernails of several layers of Revelon's exotic Scarlet Slipper, his mother nervously clutched a near-by clerk who was forced to perform the same painful duty. Whereupon little Jimmy merely screamed, 'Ride 'em! Bookatybookaty-book.' After going through a series of sales clerks, floorwalkers, and managers, in like manner, a psychologist was hastily summoned. The gentleman appeared in a well known 'leave-itto-me' attitude, and knowingly approached his subject. He whispered a few short sentences in Jimmy's ear. Jimmy dashed from the store and was calmly finishing the last chapter of Gone With the Wind when his mother arrived home.
"Unable to curb her natural curiosity, she asked Jimmy, 'Why the sudden departure, son?'
"Putting aside Gone With the Wind he gravely spoke, 'Oh, the nice man just told me something.'
" 'And what was that?'
"'Well, he told me that if I didn't go home, he was going to spank the hell out of me.' "
The class was now ready for the morning lecture.
But seriously, the students of the University of Richmond owe to Dr. Robert Astrop a vote of gratitude not only for his presentations of the field of psychology, his sense of humor, but also for his ability to instill in his students a realization of their rightful places in a democratic community. [9]
Nocturno
By JOSE ASUNCION SILVA (Poesias, 1908)
(Translation by Ilse Schott)
One night full of fragrance , and murmurs, and warmth, '§ you walked by my side, pale and silent,
as though you were stirred to the depths of your
by fears of a near bitter future . The moon spread her silver glow over the skies; and your shadow , ) languid, and my shadow , ill~,
merged on the sands of the path and united.
Tonight, alone with my mem ' ries ,
with grief and with sorrow of your bitter death,
{ parted from you by the grave, time , and distance, lonely I walked. Dogs barked to the pale moon. Frogs croaked.
( I felt cold. )
Cold as your cheeks and your hands and your body , stretched under shrouds white as snow.
( It was the cold of death, of nothingness
( My shadow walked abandoned, ) prof ected by the moon; and your shadow approached it, ( languid, ) and together they walked in a night full of fragrance.
( The shadows of bodies search the shadows of ) souls ( in a night full of longing, of sadness, and of tears.
Nocturno
By JOSE ASUNCION SILVA
(Translation by Pamela Carpenter)
A night there was , A night alive with murmurs , fragrance, flutt' ring wmgs; A night
When glowed in the nuptial shadow the firefly' s emerald lightSlowly by my side , beside me-wraithlike , pale and silent ,
As though forebodings of eternal agony
Rent the deepest fibres o f thy heart , Thou didst traverse the flowery pl a in; The mooned orb
Cleft a zure blue of heav ' n and bathed Infinity in silver li g ht;
Thy slender shade and frail
And mine
Shadows on the mournful sandy way
Hovering there in Diane's shimm ' ring ray
Entwined wereMade one , Made one , A single shadow were . Tonight alone ; My ag oni zin g soul of thee bereft By Time and tomb and Space, Did grope its brooding way In blackness fathomless, Unbroken by the echo of thy voice ,
Where beastlike plaints rose whining to the moon , Wan moon ,
And dirging frogs did stir the pall of gloom. That cold I felt-the chill that on thy couch
On bosom, cheeks and blessed hands doth lie, Hands clasped beneath chaste sheets
Of mortuary white .
Sepulchral blast - the frost of death , The cold of everlasting Nothingness. And my shadow
Ling' ring in the Cynthian beam , Moved on alone, Alone,
Alone it travelled o ' er the desolate plain; Thy phantom frail and slender, W raithlike, pale,
As on that scented night of perished Spring A n~ght alive with murmurs, fragrance, flutt' ring wmgs , Came , mingled with my shadow; made its way
And walked with mine, with mine , with mine.
Oh! the twined shadesYe soul-shades joined with spirit of the flesh!
Alas for shadows blindly seeking; Nights of sadness and of tears! [ 11]
ANONYM OUS
A gruesome truth we face is fate, The ebbing life currents then abate , The rolling , roaring billows cease, The mortal body is laid in peace.
Man, like a flower which blooms and grows , And withers as the leaves repose , And shrinks into the fatal mold , One more in death to be enrolled .
This is the stream whose narrow tide , The known and unknown worlds divide , The impelling force which is the course , Deaf to censure and remorse.
Such is the destiny of flesh and soul , The mortal realm evolved in cold , Death , terminal of this mundane strife, The force that breaks the thread of life
Death concludes this earthly tale, And gasps of horror foretell the gale , Blown by death, which chills the weak and bold , The poor, the rich, the young, the old .
And when the palsied limbs shall fai l , And death ' s cold hand on our brow assails, The p ul se grows faulty in its beat , Its action ends, it shan ' t repeat.
The knell of parting life at last , Our treasures, loves , and knowledge past, All is as futile as the body laid, Beneath the earth in perpetual shade.
Enclosed by the grim and cheerless wall , Where shrouds of fate shall then apall , And none can look with tranquil stare , On these dismal sights beyond compare
Our close companion has struck at last , The mighty perish beneath the blast , The bells of death then knoll the g loom , As sounds the prelude to the tomb
Such scenes are left to pall the soul, Of those yet spared of death ' s great toll , But the sanguine flow shall cease in them, And their "song of life ," a requiem.
Poem
By BEN ROUZIE
Love is a sun-born butterfly With drops of sunlight on the wings , That flit before my love r -eye And leave their rays in flower strin g s
But if I catch this flitting love And grasp it with wood-fingers tight, My hand will gain a sun-flake gloveBut crush my passion into night.
The Stinker
By BEN ROUZIE
ITHINK the guy must've given his own mother a lot of hotfoots when he was little, because he sure was a trained stinker when I came to know him. He was in the next bed to me-a big g uy with dirty-looking whiskers no matter how often he shaved-and in five weeks I got a little too much of him and his ways.
The first night I was in the seamen's hospital , h e took my seamen ' s papers out of the locker and looked at them and called me a green-grass sailor just because I hadn't been all the way across to R ussia or Europe or Australia . I was feeling pretty sick then , and I didn't argue with him , but later he bega n to get on my nerves. He got on everybody's n erves.
Nobody really hated him , though, until he got ol d Pop thrown out for drinking, which was a hell of a crummy thing to do; because Pop didn ' t have any money to get in a private hospital and we all knew it. It happened when he insisted on Pop's dri nking some liquor the orderly had smuggled in Pop had been in the merchant service all his lif e , and his great weakness - just about his only one-was liquor. He went nuts when he'd had a few sniffters of liquor, and moreover it was against the hospital rules to drink any alcoholic beverages the re or even to bring them into the hospital. That wa s a government reservation.
There wasn ' t anything the head surgeon could do, of course, but kick the _ old man out. Everybody in the ward knew about it, and even in the ward down the hall they knew. Pop, when he ' d gotten a few drinks in his belly, had chased a nurse all the way down there So out the old man went , and all of us felt like hell about it-all except the Stinker.
Of course there was an investigation, with all kinds of United States Public Health officers asking all kinds of questions - more stripes than we'd ever seen in one bunch. They asked us who brought the liquor in , who had it in their locker , and who else drank any except Pop Nobody knew a dern thing.
Then they spotted the top off one of the half-
pint bottles under the Stinker's locker, and they concentrated on him.
" Whose liquor was that?" a lieutenant-commander asked him.
He said he couldn ' t rightly say.
" Did you drink any of it?" the officer asked.
"No," he told them, "I didn't touch it. I got a time and place for everything, and I'm in here to get well. "
" Then how did this bottle cap get under your locker? "
"I heard something roll across the floor last night ," he said "Maybe that was it."
The officers went away and talked it over, and I could see the Stinker begin to squirm. When they got back, he asked them to go out in the nurses' office with him and he'd tell them everything that went on . Nobody heard that but me.
When he came back in the ward, he looked relieved and happy. I knew just what he'd done. Everybody knew what he'd done when a new orderly came in the next morning .
A few days after that, when I was just about getting fed up with the Stinker and his cigarette bumming and his big talk, a new nurse came into our ward. She was sort of small, and pretty, and quiet-from somewhere in the deep South. And she did all right, too, until she got to the Stinker ' s bed You could see she was new at the job, the way she handled the thermometers and took puls~s, but she did all right. When she got around to my bed, she seemed to have enough confidence in herself to work like a veteran asking the necessary questions and writing down the pulse count and temperature . Then she went to the Stinker.
She took his pulse and wrote that down, trying all the time to make him keep his mouth shut while she was taking his temperature. You could see the remarks he was making got on her nerves
" How do you feel this morning? " she asked him.
"Come a little closer , Baby, and I'll show you ," he cracked back.
[ 13 J
She ignored that and went on with the questions. "Did your bowels move this morning?" she asked him, blushing a little more than she' cl blushed at the other beds.
"Yeh, did yours?"
She stepped back and stared at him for a little while, and he winked like a guy winks at a barmaid when she tells him a smutty joke. Then she ran out of the ward and never came back. We never saw her again in that ward or any other ward in the hospital.
The ward surgeon came in not long after that and told him to leave the nurses alone, that he could get kicked out of there for molesting nurses. The doc also told him he had to have a stomach operation and gave him some papers to sign so that the hospital wouldn't be responsible for anything that happened in the operating room. The doc had one hell of a time talking the guy into signing the papers, but he did it.
Then he started keeping everybody awake. He ' d sit up in bed after we ' d all gone to sleep , and he'd let out the Godawfullest yells I ever heard.
"Christ!" he'd say "Christ, I can ' t stand it!"
It was all stuff he'd gotten from the movies. He kept pointing out that three guys had had stomach operations in the past two weeks , and two of them had died and the third one was up the hall under an oxygen tent. He kept saying he didn't want to die, he was too young to die. A spunky little guy across the ward told him one night that guys like him were never too young to die The Stinker threatened to drag the little guy out of bed and beat him over the head with the big cast on his leg.
But that shut him up for a while , and he started writing letters. I didn ' t know how many he was writing, but it seemed to me that every time I looked at him he was scribbling something on his pad. The clay before he was to go under the knife he handed two letters to a nurse.
"Say, do something for a man that's about to die maybe ," he said "If I don't come out of this mess alive, mail these letters."
The nurse said she would.
"But if I don ' t die, you be sure and tear 'em up good, " he told her.
She promised to do that, too .
Well, he lived, all right. He walked out of the hospita l two weeks l ater with all his gear, and it was like heaving a pile of rotten potatoes overboard. I was up and around the hospital by then, banging around the nurses' office most of the time talking to one of the swellest bunch of women I've ever known. One of them was clearing out a drawer when she came across the guy's two letters.
"Will you take these out and throw them in the waste chute?" She gave them to me.
And I took them out . I poked them into the waste chute and was ready to drop them when I thought about what a stinker the guy was and all that, and-well, I was a stinker then too. It wasn ' t as if some nice fellow had left the letters , I said to myself , because if ever there was a rotten guy it was the Stinker. So I pulled the letters back out of the chute and opened them up.
They were addressed to women-one in Boston, the other in Norfolk. The first letter I read bad a lot of fancy talk about love and souls and all that. At the end of it he told her he loved her -madly, madly-that be didn ' t love anybody else and never could love anybody else.
And the other letter, the one to the woman in Norfolk , was exactly like it .
"Proposition for Peace"
( Contin u ed from /1age 6)
that part of the Pacific surrounding Japan, and potentially unimaginable military strength This force would be able to act as one unit , dominatin g the world in peace and freedom
The world's course now becomes quite clear. Either we can adopt a system of world federation , or we can prepare for the next war; twenty years or so hence . A Federal Union is the only way we can conquer the forces of war-nationalism , collectivism, and pacifism-and convert them to a lasting peace If the world will adopt this plan , we can look forward to an era of peace and prosperity unprecedented in all history. We believe that this union can insure the era of the common man. We believe that a world federation can assure peace, democracy and freedom to all the world We believe that this is worth fighting for !
The Human Comedy. By William Saroyan, New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1943.
Reviewed by Linwood T. Horne '44
"Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. Do not be disturbed because of your imperfections, and always rise up bravely from a fall." These are the words of a saint, Francis De Sales, written to men of his day to give them the courage to live their daily lives and inspire in them the perseverance to make new beginnings when things have gone wrong
If these words be the mark of a saint, then such must be the white-aproned gentle lady who presides over her household at 2226 Santa Clara Avenue, Ithaca , California. Who is to say that she is not? To her son she was the " most wonde rful person that anybody could ever know ." To her son she imparts these words of advice and wisdom-"No matter what the mistakes are that you must make, do not be afraid of having made the m or of making more of them Trust your heart , whic h is a good one , to be right, and go ahead. Do n ' t stop. If you fall, tricked or tripped by others, or by yourself even, get up and don ' t turn back. Ma ny times you will laugh and many times you will weep, but always you will laugh and weep tog ether. "
The Macauleys are a poor , but happy family , fro m mother to youngest son There is Bess, who went to State College and played the piano; Marc us, the eldest son away in the Army; Homer, the fourteen year old son gifted with a deep sense of insight far beyond his age; and the little Ulysses, a four year old edition of "information plea se" who goes around getting himself lost and caug ht in bear traps
The Human Com edy is an extremely human story of a simple family-it could be any average fam ily and hence every family-and as the chapters unfold, this fact is indelibly stamped on your mind. The story is presented in episode formlit tle pictures and impressions-and from these are ga thered the heart-warming story of the things most important in the lives of the Macauleys. Saroyan lends his own special treatment to the
book. Freshness and vitality spring from every page, simplicity and tenderness seep into your senses, and as a consequence, you adopt Ulysses as your kid brother and Mrs. Macauley becomes your own mother.
There is not much semblance of a plot - actually , I suppose there is none. The story just proceeds from page to page, carrying itself along in the light of the reader's own increased interest. The story is bound together in the person of Homer Macauley, the boy of fourteen, who holds a job as messenger for the local telegraph office. On Homer has fallen the responsibility of helping to support his family, a situation brought about by the death of his father and the departure of his brother to the Army Homer is a typical fourteen year old, who knows nothing of the world's harshness and the pain that living in such a world is sometimes apt to bring Homer's boyish security is shattered on the very first day at his job when he delivers a message-from the War Departmentto a widowed mother in the town, informing her of the death of her son in action . From that bewildering moment when he sees war making its impact on a human heart, Homer begins to fight against that vague, uncertain feeling that threatens to overwhelm him .
To Homer the telegraph office becomes a fascinating place, and still more fascinating are the two characters who inhabit its important domain - Mr. Spangler, Manager of the office-energetic and benevolent Mr. Spangler whose philosophy is that "if you give to a thief, he cannot steal from you, and he is then no longer a thief" ; the other, the night-shift telegraph operator and wire-chief, Willie Grogan. Willie is an old time operator, aged 67, a man who "has memories of many wondrous worlds gone by, " Willie, making the best of things with "hymns and whiskey and day old lunch counter pies. "
In the dimly lit room of the office that lends an ear to the occasional rattling of the telegraph box, young Homer and old Grogan strike up a warm friendship , Homer becoming the proud recipient of some of the old man ' s cryptic philosophy on war and life and things in general.
( 15 J
The story moves along easily without any forceful attempts by the author to push bis creation upon you. Scene after scene spreads itself out over the panorama of your page, and you catch yourself drinking in all objects around it and looking past the edges of the page , wondering what is beyond and questioning with yourself if you have gotten the fullest implication of what you have read. There is that continual feeling that there is something intended far higher and mightier than what comes at the first reading.
The simple description and easy language are catching .
Marcus writes a letter home from the Army to the family and another to Homer , and the event is the occasion for a family celebration . But Marcus ' letter is the letter of all letters - the letter of wartime American youth snatched from its fun-loving pursuits and compelled to perform a task which all know is necessary but for which none have any glorious feelings The book contains 291 pages, but actually it is three times that long, for between the lines are untold paragraphs of unspoken feelings and emotions that cannot be expressed.
It is amazing with what seriousness the author treats with the incidents of juvenile life. There is Homer putting himself through the intricacies of a mail-order house stretching apparatus, with Ulysses looking solemnly on; newsboy August Gottlieb shouting the lead lines from his position on the street corner; or Auggie leading a smallscale "commando raid" on old man Henderson's apricot tree. In a surprising fashion are recorded the simplest things , sounds and actions, that one would most usually not even think about until attention is called to them-the dog barking at Homer as he pedals his bike, the sound he makes when he jolts his wheel to see if he has enough air in the tires.
The book doesn ' t go on in any distasteful rambling, even though it does not approach a fixed plot. But there is , hovering over the whole comedy, that tenseness that will make the reader sense the inevitability of its conclusion. Human feelings are not easily drawn , but Saroyan has cut a fine emotional pattern of pity and joy. If you will let yourself, you'll be carried along in the stream of his thought. The author puts a gentle arm around your shoulder, and gives you comfort for whatever trials there are before you. In particular does
he make of the tragic shadows warm sunbeams of light and hope.
Something should be said of the chapter heading illustrations of Don Freeman , which contribute the final touches to complete your mental picture One reviewer calls them " perfect of their kind." They are just that. To be fully appreciated , they must be referred to after each chapter is finished.
Saroyan has presented a " wartime novel of the home front , and succeeds in capturing the modesty of ordinary human beings . It is a very simple novel , a very great achievement. " Read it for its touches of noble sympathetic understandin g and for the impact it will make on your spirit. Read it and pride yourself that you have read a sure portrayal of all the qualities of "warmth, cheer , and humanity "
Vengeance
(Continued from /1age 4)
church told Wolfe that it was Sunday . He decided to leave; and just as he rose to tell his host of his intention, Gottlieb entered carrying the uniform He tossed it onto the bed and again left without speaking The unifo r m was cleaned up , and even appeared to have been pressed. Wolfe climbed into it and hurried downst a irs.
It was a very plain house , he noticed , as be passed through to the front door. He found Gottlieb at the door. Wolfe halted . He looked squarely at Gottlieb.
"Thank you again for all you have done for me And, Herr Gottlieb , I don ' t blame you at a ll for not talking to me. After all we Nazis have done to your people, there is little we can expect. Not speaking to me is too understandable . Goodbye , and . . . thanks ." He offered his hand to Gottlieb, ·but the old man just stared at it . He stepped back and shut the door.
Wolfe shrugged and stepped down the porch stairs. He walked slowly through the garden, and at the gate he met an old lady coming towards the house. "Just visiting Herr Gottlieb ? He' s been very lonely since his wife died. "
" Ahh .. hh . . yes."
"Too bad about the poor man , isn ' t it ?"
"Why? What do you mean? "
"Oh , don ' t you know? The Na zis cut out bi s tongue in a concentration camp last year."
( 16}
FloodWaters
By LOUIS D. RUBIN, JR.
The land was peace . Beneath the warming sun
The people basked , content to loll and rest. They cared alone for p leasure , and desired To be left , undisturbed by cares and pains
And high above the meadows, in the peaks, Up where the mountains jut into the sky, The reservoir of hatred and destruction
Grew steadily in size. At first 'twas small And hardly noticed. But at length ' twas seen But not considered . Rather, left ignored
By those who were content to overlook
The threat and rather bathe in the sunlight. They would not drain the deepening pools that lay
Ever increasing They would not take pause
From joyous acts to fortify the dam
For they wished to let havoc grow , and hope Th a t it would soon of its own actions die . And such was not a possibility , But still they liked to think that it was so
And greater still the cesspools grew. And grew And wider still and wider were its bounds It overflowed in spots , and often drenched The nearby lands , but still the people slept. And larger still the dark destruction grew.
And then the torrent burst! En g ulfed the land. It swept across the fertile , peaceful plains And roared out from the mountains and the peaks. On , on it rushed , Forever growing large And burying a continent beneath.
The flood tide rose. It swept across the sea And joined with other flood tides , hurtled on , And beat against the ancient eastern shores
And still it spread , destruction in its wake
Was rampant. In the swirls of angry waves
Were strewn the fruits of centuries of peace. No other floods like this had ever rose And none so dreadful in the strength and scope
And here and there an island stood above The churning torrents that engulfed the world. And one remained and even held its own
Though swept by spray and pounded by the waves. And still another stood, though half submerged Beneath the growing darkness and despair. And yet one more, slow to realize its plight but once aroused, well-nigh unquenchable, and proud, as it fought off the sudden blows .
On roared the flood tide Seemingly forever
Until at last the force began to slack And turbulent whirlpools began to lose
Their strength , and by and by grew weak And then receded , slowly at the first Then faster as the ebb began to pull
Upon the mass of water, Then the drain produced small rivulets. At length small pools Were all that still remained upon the land
And these were in their time dried up and gone
At last the land was free. The sunlight shone
Upon the countryside , and soon appeared
The green , long-dormant grasses and the fruits. And all was good. And all was quiet , too
And rivers , peaceful now , flowed down the plains and beauteous they were , as on they rolled
Majestic still , and stately in their bearing , Yet ever ready , if the need aros e
To sweep the flood tides down upon the land And be the highroads for the new deluge.
