Fun In A Chinese Laundry [1 ed.] 043655500X, 9780436555008

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CHAPTER 1
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The discoverer of Marlene Dietrich and the director of such memorable films as Blue Angel and Morocco:· Jos~f von Sternberg is one of the most brilliant and controversial pioneers of the motion picture. Written with the originality that characterized his work as a director, Fun in a Chinese Laundry is his own delightfully unconventional autobiography and the unvarnished story of his conflicts. Born in Vienna at the end of the last century, he was introduced to America as a young and penniless immigrant. He made his first film in 1924, ten years after mending his first broken film sprocket. Instead of the conventional cardboard set, he used a giant dredge working in the port of Los Angeles, and instead of prominent actors he used extras: it was ~eralded as a work of genius. There followed Underworld, The Last Command, Docks of New York, Shanghai Express, Scarlet Empress, The Devil Is a Woman, and other films that were famous from the first day they were shown. Sternberg not only describes his own development and work as a director, but the whole fascinating profession of motion pictures as well. Chaplin, Eisenstein, D. W. Griffith, von Stroheim, Douglas Fairbanks, Greta Garbo, great and not so great actors, actresses, directors- -, . ◄ (Continued on l

(Continued from front flap)

writers of the Golden Age of Hollywood have a place in his memoirs. He tells how and why he found Marlene Dietrich in the midst of a turbulent postwar Berlin: to this day she attributes her amazing success to his influence and direction. His search for new material took him from the courts of Europe to the brothels of the Orient (and his observations are always original). The whole kaleidoscope of the film industry is reflected in his numerous colorful anecdotes: the hazardous and comical early methods of filming; the change from silent to soundtrack films (with actors who had not been taught to speak but to mumble); the problems of forcing a famous actor to enter through a door; the fantastic maneuvers of Emil Jannings; Charles Laughton tearing a movie apart; the ecstasy of acting; the problem of directing in a madhouse; reluctant producers; flamboyant actors; even the private lives of those who dwell in the Tropic of Hollywood. A textbook for teachers, a primer for students, it is an honest report on the world of the cinema. Illustrated with photographs

1••'"r

;Jacket design.I Anoona/Gianakos

he Macmillan Company 41_ Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10011

Josef von Sternberg

Fun in a Chinese Laundry

THE

MACMILLAN

COMPANY,

NEW

YORK

The author ~ishes to thank E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc. for permission to quote from "Six Characters in Search of an Author" in Naked Masks: Five Plays by Luigi Pirandello, published in Everyman's Library, 1952. COPYRIGHT @ JOSEF VON STERNBERG

1965

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system,, without permission in writing from the Publisher. First Printing The l'vfacmillan Company, New York Collier-Macmillan Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Ontario Library of Congress catalog card number: 65-I r574 Printed in the United States of America

CHAPTER

1

No man is so great that he need make himself small. SOURCE UNKNOWN

THERE is a method made famous by Rorschach whose ten symmetrical inkblots can be used to reveal much that might otherwise remain unnoticed. Were enough artists prevailed upon to submit to this test, some specific disorder peculiar only to the artist might then be classified. In the interim the only available symptom is the inkblot the artist himself makes when he creates, and which is often amazingly different from that of others in his field. But somewhere there is a common denominator. There is a marble sculpture by Michelangelo and a head in bronze by an unknown member of the Benin tribe. Both were made about the same time. It is inconceivable that one knew of the other, but entirely plausible that both were beset by the same problem. Each dealt with the problem in his own fashion; both performed an act of creation, the same ritual, a sort of prayer as passionate as that of a woman seeking salvation on her knees; with both it was an act of love; both were seeking a bridge to the unknown, and both sought approval from a drive he alone contained. The great Italian and the anonymous Negro were both masters of art. "Art" is a word which leads into a semantic fog. The dictionaries fumble its meaning, and some propose that it is a skill employed in gratifying taste and in the production of beauty. This is not only incorrect but misleading. "Beauty" I

and "taste" are slippery words without any known standard, and they may have nothing to do with art. All reference books seem to agree that art requires uncommon skill, though this too is open to debate, as skill often reveals shallow content. Nowhere is it stated that art might, perhaps, be a hygienic search for obscure values, or a cultural memorandum, or an attempt to rival creation, an orderly investigation of chaos, or, at best, a compression of infinite power, spiritual power, into a confined space. With humor and brevity it has been said that "the artist's ambition is to be a god." I myself achieved this ambition only once, when a group of Chinese acting in a film of mine elevated me to godhood. (The Chinese religion permits that sort of promotion, and also allows for demotion. By the time the film had ended I had lost my distinction. The Chinese players rejoiced that I was no longer a deity, and so did their director.) Certainly, to disembody human beings into shadowgraphs of my concepts of them is no labor of love. To enclose them in an ever-shifting frame imperceptible to them, to persuade or compel them to conceal their bewilderment, to force them to walk the chalk line of a vision alien to many who move in front of a camera, is not conducive to "creative ecstasy." Nothing has ever been invented that is more cumbersome to make than the motion picture. Here are no ordinary tools, no material that keeps its shape more than a brief second. The exercise of an art requires the use of tools that obey, that serve the intended purpose, that do not obstruct or elude. But in motion pictures the material is alive and balky, and crackling with emotion. Before me is a breathing object that I may not have seen before and will not meet again. Could a fiddler play a violin that might explode? How does a sculptor use a chisel with the sharp steel facing him? And what of the painter who faces an empty canvas that arrives in a thousand shreds, eac~ protesting fragment demanding separate treatment? Yet I aspired to the status of an artist in a branch of the 2

arts where it is not permitted to be one. Only in the most isolated instances was it possible to achieve full expression of the urgencies that desired to be projected. Much of my work displayed in the galleries where our enormous audience is lured to view it met with approbation, but I find it difficult to believe that this was due to anything more than the inclusion of paltry notes of appeal and questionable standards. It should not be assumed that values which made for popularity were always injected deliberately; it is far more likely that a lack of ability and the conditions that surrounded the work were responsible. Normally an artist is able to inspect his work before it is seen by others, correct what is unsatisfactory, or destroy it. Of course this is out of the question in my peculiar medium. So it should not surprise anyone that I rarely, if ever, yielded to a deep sense of outrage when a work of mine was not shown as planned by me or, as sometimes happened, was completely suppressed. In tracing my own beginnings and my connections, however remote, with the celluloid ribbon that has not only wound itself around the earth but also encircled my own neck, I am aware that man may know but little about himself, and that much of what he has learned to accept he may wish to keep unrevealed. This notion, if correct, is not going to be dispelled by me. To many students my work may have already disclosed all there is to say. For the plastic medium of motion pictures, though new, tells an old story, and no matter how concealed the purpose of a story, it is at all times indicative of its author. Engraved on a surface more sensitive than any other known material are thoughts that have been absorbed by large masses never before exposed to such a vigorous agent. But what went into my films and what came out was not always the same. This study must include the thoughts I tried to have millions of others share-often with small success. In the center of the European cauldron is an old city, once the seat of a mighty empire. The remains of Marcus Aurelius are part of its soil. It began as an outpost for the 3

Roman armies, who named it Vindobona. Magyar, Slav, Teuton, Mongol, Hun, and Turk have been in and out of this bastion of civilization, the bubonic plague took its toll; why Vienna failed to vanish despite these many pillages is a mystery. How its inhabitants cultivated their air of easy grace is also a puzzle, for no city has so often been host to the ruthless. Apparently Vienna stands in the way of every invader, and its most recent years seem to have been crueler to it than all the others. Much of the drama of my widely scattered life took place in Vienna. As a youngster I starved there, and in better days (for me, not for Vienna) I sat in solitary splendor in the opera loge, which once only the ruler of the Austrian Empire occupied. The city has mighty cathedrals, old cobbled streets, the blue Danube, museums filled with untold treasures (the Breughels alone are worth a long journey), theatres, coffee houses, catacombs, a great university six hundred years a center of learning, and renowned hotels. One suite in particular, recently a perch for the prime minister of Soviet Russia, where tsars, shahs, and sultans have slept, housed me too early in 1938, the very next tenant being Adolf Hitler. Embraced by all that was Vienna was the Prater, the largest amusement park in the world, with its giant Ferris wheel, still standing, though what surrounded it has been leveled to the ground by war. At the entrance to this now barren expanse, where I spent hours of my childhood in goggle-eyed wonder, stands a monument erected to Austria's only naval hero, Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff. Erected on a tall column studded with the prows of his victorious ships, a bronze telescope in his hand, he could have, had he been able to raise it to his eye, witnessed my emergence into his world. It was the end of the last century, not yet the gaslight era, for I distinctly remember the kerosene lamp that hung on pulleys over a big round table. There was reason to remember it, as it was directly responsible for the only praise I received 4

during my entire childhood. As I pulled it down, while being held high by my mother's arms, my father abandoned his severity toward me long enough to praise the strength of my infant hands, which had just been released from being bandaged to my sides for a year, this being necessary, I was told later, to prevent my tearing at my scalp, which was covered with scabs that resisted treatment. My father was an enormously strong man, who often used his strength on me. Tall tales of his exploits came to my ears, such as his beating up half an Austrian regiment when his induction into the compulsory military service was greeted with an icy snowball. This story was relayed to me by a proud eyewitness, who had been initiated in the same manner, and who stuttered in his haste to convince me, though I needed no such proof. I had seen my father lift a heavy man from the floor by the ankles and hold him aloft with outstretched arms, and, on another occasion, watched while he battered a truculent giant after politely informing him, in the classic manner, that he deplored his taste in neckties. The only time he had the worst of it was when I pinned his arms to stop him from crippling a gang of ruffians, who took quick advantage of this to clout us both. When older, I defied him only once, when he was punishing another member of the family. I threatened to hit him unless he stopped. He could easily have made mincemeat of me, but he never touched any of us again. It is possible that until then he had not been aware of what he did when enraged. Few of us are. I was battered and pounded until I howled like a dog. After each beating, the punishing hand was extended to be kissed, this in a noble tradition then prevalent. This is mentioned because it became the subject of an observation by a specialist in human conduct to whom I later exposed my mind for inspection. He had inquired where my talents, such as they were, originated, and I answered, rather impatiently, as they had no relation to the matter under discussion, that I was not curious on that score and had devoted 5

no thought to it. He shouted at me, the only time his voice was raised, that my father had beaten them into me. As apparently all this unrelated material is meant to be an examination of the elements of art and its practitioners, no ingredient should be ignored, though I would be the last to encourage severely punishing a child, as many unexpected avenues of escape may thus be opened. However, I did not consider my early days to be lacking in pleasure. I was born with the fragrance of chestnut blossoms in my nostrils, the perfume of the old trees that stretched in stately procession to the Danube, not far distant. And the first sounds I heard were mingled with the melodies that floated into my crib from the hurdy-gurdies, calliopes and wondrously decorated mechanical music boxes that serenaded the gallantly uniformed soldiers strolling in the Prater and their servant-girl companions-the latter all in the picturesque garments of their provinces, all waiting to be seduced. The old bronze admiral, with his firm grasp on his telescope, had his back turned to them and looked with unflagging interest down a narrow street to inspect the ladies of the night who plied their trade, as far as I could notice when I was turned loose to roam, in the daytime. When sometimes they left their circumscribed beat, there was quite a furor among the children, who would permit no nonsense on their sidewalks. I can see one of these ladies now, as if this had happened yesterday, cornered by a jeering chorus of small boys and girls, forced to take refuge in a do_orway, from which temporary shelter she was at once evicted by the omnipotent Viennese janitor (Hausmeister), to flee in haste back to her normal traffic pattern. She was pursued as she fled, the little innocents lifting her skirts up to expose her, and shouting her name in derision. One of the ladies who made inroads on my street was called Zuleika, The Flying Virgin. How she acquired this name I do not know. She was Hungarian, not Turkish, blond, had no visible wings, and no one ever found out how she managed to retain her virginity. 6

My little world was interesting enough without prowling females. The famous Spanische Reitschule had its stables not far away, and around the corner was a permanent circus where my mother as a little girl had been Snow White in a spectacular tableau. A carpenter shop occupied the street level of the house in which we had the top floor, and above us was a loft full of drying wash, where the housemaids, when they were not out with their soldiers, would chatter in a dozen languages and teach us the songs of the various nationalities that made up the Austria of that time. Then there was school. I entered at the age of six. My classroom was the den of a frightening monster with beard and piercing eyes who taught us to fear him more than Jehovah. The teaching of religion was compulsory, and we learned to read and write Hebrew, a language five thousand years old, without knowing the meaning of a single word. The instructor was a terror. We dared not open our mouths, with the result that the entire class developed loose bowels. Stalking the room with a ruler in his hand, sniffing at each pupil in turn, our persecutor would soon discover the culprit, and with a triumphant exclamation haul him out of his seat to escort him to a platform which never served any other purpose. On this pedestal he then transfixed the victim with a petrifying glare, made him extend his small hand, smacked it with his ruler, and made sarcastic reference to inadequate sphincter control. Then he allowed the scholar to seek the sanctuary of a toilet that was never reached in time to do any good. This teacher who thus inoculated us with a love for an ancient culture was named Antcherl, though he had another name when he appeared again in a film of mine (The Blue Angel, 1930). My father had married in defiance of parental objection and had been promptly disinherited, which in the long run made little, if any, difference, because the great AustroH ungarian Empire fell in to pieces before long and even the rich had barely enough for a cup of coffee. I was the first-

7

born and by the time I ,vas three my father had left for the United States, for he had heard that the sidewalks acro~s the .• big pond were paved with gold. While he was seeking his fortune, something never found, the rest of the clan waited. One baby had joined the family and another was on the way, so I was left to my own devices, with little to keep me warm in the winter and not much to eat, except when we were fed by relatives. What went on inside this child I don't know, but as far as the exterior of the toddler is concerned it moved through a children's paradise. Mine was every crevice of the vast amusement park, the like of which never again existed. In another phase of my life, parts of the impression it made on me were passed on to others (The Case of Lena Smith, 1929). Hundreds of shooting galleries, Punch and Judy and the inevitable Satan puppet, chalk-faced clowns in their dominoes, boats sliding from a high point down into water with a great splash, leather-faced dummies that groaned when slapped, pirouetting fleas, sword swallowers, tumbling midgets and men on stilts, contortionists, jugglers and acrobats, wild swings with skirts flaring from them, proving that not all females had lost their undergarments, a forest of balloons, tattooed athletes, muscle-bulging weight lifters, women who were sawed in half and apparently spent the rest of their lives truncated, trained dogs and elephants, tightropes that provided footing for a gourmet who feasted on a basketful of the local sausages with horse-radish that made my mouth water, graceful ballerinas, grunting knife throwers with screaming targets whose hair flowed down to the hems of their nightgowns, hatchet-throwing Indians and phlegmatic squaws, double-headed calves, members of the fair sex, fat and bearded, with thighs that could pillow an army, magicians who poured jugs of flaming liquid down their throats, drum-thumping cannibals and their wiggling harems,· a glass maze from which the delighted customers stumbled with black eyes and gashed heads, hypnotists who practiced levitation and passed hoops around the 8

dormant females swaying five feet from where they ought to have been, and the central figure of a huge Chinese mandarin with drooping mustaches longer than the tail of a horse revolving on a merry-go-round to the tune of Ivanovici's Donauwellen-what more could I have asked? This was the air that filled my lungs, and some of it I was able to exhale when the time was ripe. I don't recall ever being at home. The outdoors is etched in my mind. I strung necklaces of chestnuts and peered through bushes in to tabled gardens ,vhere roast goose, foaming raspberry juice, and Strauss ,valtzes tumbled out of a cornucopia. And I marched with the daily parade of His Majesty's tin soldiers, in step with the regimental band, and cheered the old emperor, who waved his hand to me whenever his open carriage, dra,vn by four white horses with plumes and trappings, trotted along the Hauptallee. His benign twin beard was part of my wor Id, and he was the benevolent ruler of a society in which I was happy. Everything was orderly, there was nothing to confuse me, there were no comic strips, no radio, no motion pictures or moronic succession of television images, though unbeknownst to me, one Thomas A. Edison had already made a film entitled Fun in a Chinese Laundry. I had now reached the age of seven, and my father sent for us to join him, without providing the means for us to do so. I have no idea how the journey to fabled America was financed-probably by relatives who must have rejoiced to be rid of us, though it was not to be for long. I was appointed head of the expedition, which included mother, brother, and baby sister. The long train ride and the fourteen-day voyage across the Atlantic have been wiped from my memory, but not so the port of the city of Hamburg, where we were forced to wait to embark. I have since spent a torrid night in Camagiiey in a room with thousands of malarial mosquitoes, and another in Allahabad with snakes, and I have crossed the Korea Strait in a typhoon when terrified rats stampeded over my bunk-but 9

then I was not seven. This bedroom in Hamburg, reserved exclusively for transients who had no other choice, was redbrown with evil insects, walls and bed covered with crawling bedbugs. Even at home, hunting bugs and fleas at night had been a normal part of the ceremony of sleep. We had lived high up on a fifth floor, and if there were shades and curtains in our neighborhood they were not used to conceal anything, for there, for ~veryone to see, were the servant girls shaking the fleas out of their shifts before retiring, to drown them in a basin of water. But this Hamburg lodging was a place in which to weep and wait for the dawn. In his diary (1941-1944), Rumor and Reflection,* Berenson wonders "at times whether today's conflicts are not mainly over standards of life." He need not have wondered. In most of the world, sanitation is an unknown concept, not to mention other standards. Even good homes in the Vienna we had just left had no running water, and there was good reason for the chamber pot under each bed, though not all were emptied from windows to make pedestrians dodge an unexpected avalanche. But then the Europe of that day was partial to ease and convenience, and few bothered to conceal elemental needs. Men leaned nonchalantly against the nearest lamp post to make room for more beer, and only the more fastidious members of the opposite sex waited to squat until they thought themselves unobserved. Upon arrival in the New World, after a short detention on Ellis Island, where the immigration officers inspected us like so many cattle, we were taken to our new abode, if such it can be called, among the Yorkville tenements. Again we had to climb five flights of stairs, but this time when we reached the top we found hot and cold water, a bathtub and a dumb-waiter, and two large volumes of American history, which were to be mine alone, I was told, as soon as I could learn English. I learned English, and I learned to love the new country-but not quickly. I have never for"" Simon and Schuster, 1952. 10

gotten those two volumes, for all other books for years to come were taken from me by my father, who shouted that no book would ever help me to earn a livelihood. The next day sav1 my entry into public school, and the three years spent there are an absolute blank. Not one single day can I recall, nor one teacher. Many remember their years of ferment and claim nothing is ever forgotten. Eleven years ago I visited Ayn Rand, the writer, who happened to be the occupant of a house built by me, and she insisted that she knew she wanted to be a writer when she was three years old. With me was my daughter, then about six, and she was asked what she wanted to be when grown up. The response was: "What does that mean, Daddy?" Someone put the same question to my son when he was six-''What would you like to be when you grow up?" "Seven," he replied. Had I been confronted with such a foolish question, I could not have answered that I wanted to become a film director for the obvious reason that, when I was a child, "film" was a word that had the same meaning as scum. But should I ever be seven years old again, knowing what I know now, and be asked the same thing, my reply would probably be: "A scarecrow manufacturer.'' Shortly after arriving in the "promised land," epidemics of scarlet fever and chicken pox chose to favor me both at the same time. This turned out to be of importance, not because of the illness, but because this time my father did not scold me and was kind to me and caressed my feverish head. It would be one-sided if the description of my parent dealt only with his ignorance of the dynamics of emotion in a child. He was handsome and intelligent (he had written a book on mathematics as a youngster), a marvel at anything mechanical, never idle, made friends easily, and long before it was too late we both knew how much we meant to each other. Had the land of opportunity been good to him, he might have taken time out to reflect, but he worked day and night, shirking no menial task, to try to provide for 11

us. One Sunday I watched him manipulating heavy levers that controlled the water level for boats that were churned through a Coney Island concession called the Tunnel of Love. Three years later-I was now ten-all of us returned to Vienna, most probably because of my father's inability to endure constant frustration. But not long after, like a squirrel that keeps turning a cage, he once more left us to try his fortune, went again to the same country, and again in vain. This time we were five children; another sister and a baby boy had arrived. Rarely can a winter be more beautiful than those that hover over Vienna. A white carpet of ever-fresh snow covers the city for months. Cheeks glow, eyes shine, and the breath becomes a graceful plume, and the widespread branches of old trees wear a sparkling crystal jewelry of ice. The usual noise is gone, and there is a hush as if a great secret were to be revealed. But all this I failed to note at the time; what impressed itself on me was the cold and that I stood in line with others who had no coat, to receive one. The color was a nice gray, it fitted perfectly, the wool was as warm as if it still contained the animal it came from, and on the breast of the garment for everyone to see-the heraldic arms of the City of Vienna. I doubt that anyone ever looked at me, but I did my best to eradicate the telltale coat of arms. Much later in life, when I returned to Austria and was received in Vienna by dignitaries who hailed me as a man "who with his great heart had conquered a world," its Lord Mayor jovially hinted that he was about to arrange a decoration for me. I asked him to please forget it, and described the decoration that had honored me when I was cold. The dignitary was a thoughtful man and promised that no future charity given by the city would be so identified. But by then Vienna had become the sprawling capital of a small, shrunken republic, all its inhabitants perpetually in need, a republic which less than three months later ceased to exist altogether for eight years. There is an Austria once more, with rivers, 12

lakes, meadows, and Alps, as lovely as any country on earth. But it is a country still trying to forget the bombs, the rape, the pillage, and the savages who entered it-and finally left-just as it eventually forgot the numerous barbaric tribes that had overrun it in the past. In the summer, when the schoolbag was not strapped on my back, I grazed circus horses, and this not only allowed me to watch them perform but now and then I was given a coin of silver which carried the effigy of Francis Joseph the First, who ruled for sixty-eight years as emperor of Austria, king of Hungary, Bohemia, Galicia, Illyria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, and as far as I was concerned was lord of my destiny-for a coin meant bread and butter. The blue Danube, feebly born in a secret little hole in the rnountains of the Black Forest, swiftly gathers strength long before the mighty rush of its waters greets Vienna in its haste to rush on into the distant Black Sea. It shows its affection for the city that cradled me by making a lazy excursion that touches tiny islands formed by a tidal basin where I learned to swim. On one of these islands I stumbled on a flock of maidens in the raw. But in a flash the lovely nymphs turned into furies who favored me only with the rough patois with which the Viennese have embellished the German tongue, and some choice exclamations were hurled at the unrobed intruder, ,vho quickly returned into the Old Danube* to conceal his noticeable embarrassment. There were further adventures to add to the advent of adolescence. A kind teacher took me to his home to aid me in my studies. The manner in which he tried to assist me was not in the prescribed curriculum. Previous awareness of strange antics when men pressed themselves against me on crowded streetcars were meaningless and puzzled me no less than when, about a year later, a much older boy lavished poetry and flowers on me and swore by all that he held • This detouring branch of the Danube is known as the Old Danube (Alte Donau).

sacred that I would be the pivot of his life if I could only understand. I liked the flowers, and the poetry was charming, as it dwelt on the month of May, when I had been born, and this I understood, but no more. Nor was I able to make sense of the carnal humor which swirled around in unbelievable abundance. Scrawled in chalk and penciled on every available surface, warbled by young and old, and attributing to plumber, shoemaker, butcher, baker, and candlestick maker only one activity-all this made memorable in the unexpurgatable vernacular of the Viennese-it aroused only the slightest curiosity. Long before this I had been hastily summoned into a cellar where an enterprising small female, suspended from a swing by her knees, had exposed herself for a small cash consideration to an awed group of little boys, who then no longer could avoid the conclusion that girls had been radically shortchanged. But in the midst of all this song of the flesh we were as innocent as are newly born kittens. I sought only companionship and affection. There was no guilt in me, no stealth and no fear, though these chimeras developed with time. The event of those tender years, as the age of fourteen approached, was a deep plunge into puppy love. The Viennese girl of that time had the most graceful posture, a proud stride no longer in existence, and the one I had selected to love for all eternity was queen of them all. She had long swinging braids, was lithe and alluring, and had a magic formula for both movement and repose; the mold was thrown away after she had been formed. She permitted me to worship her, and in turn she worshiped herself. It never entered my mind to touch this fragile vision, as it might have dissolved. But a more practical friend of mine with no such apprehensions closed that chapter for me when I caught them one day wrapped around each other. These minutiae, vivid as they still are, were only on the surface. As I look back now on the picture of this Vienna boy, he seems to be an untroubled youngster like so many that pour out of the schools each day. He had been taught

respect for authority, he knew Latin conjugations, conversed in simple French and English, was familiar with German classics, had boy and girl companions, and when he played soccer could handle the ball as well as the others on the neighborhood team. What was important, and the stimulus of events to come, were the things I cannot remember. Growth is not a conscious process, and no brain records it in sequence. Much, much later, fortunately not too late, the impact of that which my memory had rejected was dug out of me by the scalpel of a specialist, trained to do what cannot be done by oneself. He made it clear to me that I knew little about myself, and even less about others. Ordinarily this is not remarkable, as most of mankind manages well enough without knowing anything about themselves or about others. I was almost fifty years of age when an expert* (a good friend now, though far from one at that time) confronted me with a question which, in view of my work, seemed most peculiar. "Do you think you know anything about human beings? Would you oppose finding out that you know nothing about them?" Having visited this man to ask some questions I could no longer answer, which gave him the privilege of examining me on any subject, I answered that I was not opposed to anything, and added, with an attempt at humor, that when I had been in Hong Kong, my arrival had been hailed with a newspaper headline that stated: "Man who knows 20,000,000 minds has arrived in Hong Kong." The dry rejoinder was: "In Hong Kong you may know twenty million minds, but not in my office." My Viennese days ended when I was about fourteen, and once again we were moved across the Atlantic. I hibernated in a Long Island high school until I was fifteen, doing nothing but struggling with the English language. And now I had to find work, for there was little to eat at home. It is remarkable how little I recall of the days that follow, how blurred they are, and how the things that happened to me • Nicholas A. Bercel, M.D.

seem to have been part of some strange individual's life unrelated to me. No longer am I an untroubled youth. My mind seems full of stealth, it has no goal, no conclusions, and no ambitions, as if a Haitian "papa loi" had made me into a zombie. Curiously enough I can reproduce in my mind every street I have walked, each room or shop that I have entered, and no face has lost its shape, but of the tapestry of my emotions not a single shred remains. My apprenticeship in the arts began in a millinery shop under the arch of a roaring elevated train, next to which I also slept at home. Tuition consisted in cleaning the shop, its windows, and the sidewalk, and a dark, grated cellar filled with a disarray of discarded ribbons, artificial cherries, manikins, and hat forms. This link to my past belonged to an aunt, whose son had managed to obtain an influential position in New York City, and before long I found myself employed in the stock room of a large lace house on Fifth Avenue. My salary was four dollars a week, and after subtracting fare and lunch money I brought home two dollars and eighty cents each Saturday. I must have worked there for quite some time, for many years later a fine old gentleman with an elegant beard, and perfumed cigarettes, one of which he offered as he was introduced, told me with a glow of pride that I had worked for his firm. This was in Karlsbad, his name was Naday, and he dwelt at length on my brilliant memory, as he put it, for the stock numbers of his laces, adding that he had repeatedly boasted of the training I had received in his establishment. I was taught to fold cartons, to make knots that could never be undone, to pile boxes until they became a menace to life and then to dust them, and I learned the location of every large department store in the country. But not before I had been properly initiated. This ceremony consisted of my first being greeted with a long silence as I entered Mr. Naday's aristocratic halls through a freight elevator and then, at a signal, of a rush toward me by my future fellow workers in order to "cockalize" me, in ac-

cordance ,vith the cultural custom of that day. I was thrown to the floor, pinned down, my trousers were unbuttoned, and a rubber stamp was used to commemorate the date of my entry plus the name of the house of lace. Having thus attained full status, I was permitted to remain in the long, narrow, shelf-filled corridors, these appearing in my nightmares for years to come, and had to listen all day long to the merits of various brothels and to tales of subsequent visits to the quacks who took the savings of my comrades. After some weeks I became familiar ,vith the differences between Venetian lace and rose point, Alen