The Eternal Adam and other stories (15 page)

‘Because yesterday I didn’t know that
myself. I decided to go to Albany only because the ship’s bell woke me at six
o’clock this morning. You see how little it takes to change the course of
events. If I had slept until seven, I might have gone to Philadelphia! But what
about yourself, madam? Last night you seemed to be the most sedentary woman in
the whole world.’

‘Indeed I did! However, the person you see
before you now is not Mrs Melvil, but the chief clerk of the New York merchant
and shipowner Henry Melvil, on her way to Albany to supervise the arrival of a
shipment of goods. That must be too much for you to understand, living as you
do in the over-civilised countries of the Old World! Since my husband couldn’t
leave New York this morning, I’m taking his place. And you can be sure that the
books will be just as well kept and the calculations every bit as exact.’

‘I’ve decided not to let anything surprise
me any more!’ I exclaimed. ‘But if such a thing were to happen in France, if
wives carried on their husbands’ business, husbands would soon be doing their
wives’ business, playing the piano, cutting flowers, embroidering suspenders.’

Mrs Melvil laughed. ‘You’re not very
flattering to your fellow countrymen.’

‘On the contrary! I’m assuming that their
wives embroider their suspenders for them.’

The bell rang for the third time. The last
passengers rushed onto the deck of the
Kentucky,
amid the shouts of the
sailors, who were picking up long gaffs to push the ship off from the dock.

I offered Mrs Melvil my arm and took her a
little farther astern, where the crowd was less dense.

‘I’ve given you some letters of
recommendation for Albany,’ she began.

‘So you have. And for the thousandth time,
I thank you for them.’

‘Not at all. They’re of no use to you now
anyway, since they’re addressed to my father, and I’m on my way to see him now.
Please allow me to introduce you personally and to offer you hospitality on his
behalf.’

‘I see I was right in trusting to luck to
make my journey a charming one. And yet we both came close to not leaving at
all.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘There was one passenger, a man as
eccentric as only the English could be before the discovery of America, who
wanted to reserve the
Kentucky
exclusively for himself.’

‘Does he come from the East Indies, then,
with a retinue of elephants and dancing girls?’

‘Good heavens, no! I heard the argument
that took place when the captain refused his request, and I saw no elephants
taking part in the conversation. He’s an odd individual, but he struck me as
just a very jovial stout man who likes to have his own way. But look! There he
is now. I recognise him. Do you see that man running up onto the dock, waving
his arms around and shouting? He’s going to delay us again, just when the boat
is getting under way.’

A man of average height, with an enormous
head adorned by bushy, flaming red sideburns, and wearing a long
double-collared frock coat and a broad-brimmed cowboy hat, puffed and panted
his way onto the dock, just as the gang-plank had been taken down. He was
gesticulating, stamping his feet, and shouting, completely oblivious to the
laughter of the crowd that had gathered around him.

‘Ahoy!
Kentucky!
Damn it to hell!
I’ve booked my passage and paid my fare and still I’m being left behind! Damn
it to hell, Captain, I’ll hold you responsible before the High Judge and all
his court.’

‘If people are late, that’s their tough
luck!’ shouted the captain, climbing up onto one of the paddle-boxes. ‘We’ve
got a deadline to meet, and the tide is starting to ebb.’

‘Damn it to hell!’ bellowed the stout man
again. ‘I’ll sue you for a hundred thousand dollars at least. Bobby,’ he
shouted, turning to one of the blacks who were with him, ‘look after the
baggage and run back to the hotel, while Dacopa gets a boat going to catch up
with that damned
Kentucky.’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ cried the captain,
and he gave the order to cast off the last hawser.

‘Get a move on, Dacopa!’ said the stout
man, to encourage his black servant.

Dacopa seized the rope just as the
steamboat was dragging it past, and deftly slipped the end of it through one of
the rings attached to the dock. At the same time, the persistent traveller
jumped into a rowboat, to the applause of the bystanders, and, with a few
strokes of the scull, drew abreast of the
Kentucky’s
boarding ladder. He
leaped onto the deck, rushed up to the captain, and started shouting at him
with the noise of ten men and the speed of twenty fishwives. The captain,
unable to get a word in edgewise, and seeing that the traveller appeared to be
possessed, decided not to worry about him. He picked up his megaphone and
headed towards the engine. He was about to give the signal to leave when the
stout man turned on him and shouted, ‘Damn it to hell! What about my luggage?’

‘Well, what about your luggage?’ retorted
the captain. ‘Could that by any chance be it that I see coming now?’

Murmurs of protest arose from the
passengers, irritated by this new delay.

‘Why are you all blaming me?’ demanded the
newcomer, still undaunted. ‘Am I not a free citizen of the United States of
America? My name is Augustus Hopkins, and if that doesn’t mean anything to you
...’

I have no idea whether this name carried
any weight with most of the passengers, but in any case, the captain of the
Kentucky
was obliged to tie up again and take on the luggage of Augustus Hopkins, free
citizen of the United States of America.

‘I must admit,’ I remarked to Mrs Melvil,
‘that is certainly no ordinary man.’

‘But not as extraordinary as his luggage,’
she replied, pointing to two carts that were approaching the dock, carrying two
huge packing cases twenty feet high, wrapped in oilcloth and tied up with a
formidable network of cords and knots. The top and bottom were clearly
identified in red letters, and the word ‘fragile’, in characters a foot high,
struck terror for a hundred yards around into the heart of everyone who was
responsible for them in any way. Despite the grumbling occasioned by the
appearance of these enormous bundles, Mr Hopkins used his hands, his feet, his
head, and his lungs to such good effect that eventually, after much effort and
considerable delay, they were deposited on the deck. At last the
Kentucky
was able to cast off, and she headed up the Hudson among the many different
kinds of vessels that were plying its waters.

Augustus Hopkins’s two black servants had
taken up their positions near their master’s packing cases, which were the
object of intense curiosity on the part of the passengers. Most of them were
crowding around, giving free rein to every weird fantasy that a foreigner’s
imagination is capable of. Even Mrs Melvil seemed totally engrossed. I, on the
other hand, as a true Frenchman, did my best to feign complete indifference.

‘What a strange man you are!’ said Mrs
Melvil. ‘You’re not the least bit concerned about what may be in those huge
structures. I’m consumed with curiosity.’

‘I must admit,’ I replied, ‘that all this
holds very little interest for me. When I saw those two enormous objects
arrive, I began making wild guesses as to what was in them. Perhaps there’s a
five-storey house with all its occupants, I said to myself, or perhaps there’s
nothing at all. Neither of these two bizarre extremes would surprise me very
much. However, madam, if you wish, I’ll see what I can find out and I’ll let
you know.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied, ‘and while you’re
gone I’ll go over these invoices.’

I left my unusual travelling companion
adding up figures with the speed of one of those Bank of New York cashiers who
are said to be able to calculate the sum of a column of numbers at a single
glance.

Still thinking about this singular business
arrangement and about the double existence led by these charming American
women, I made my way towards the man who had set every tongue wagging and on
whom every eye was focused.

Although the forward part of the ship, and
even the Hudson River itself, were completely hidden from view by the two
packing cases, the helmsman steered the steamboat with absolute confidence and
a complete lack of concern for obstacles. And yet, the obstacles must have been
numerous, for no river in the world, not even the Thames, was ever travelled by
more vessels than the rivers of the United States. At a time when France had no
more than 12,000 or 13,000 ships and when England’s total had reached 40,000,
the United States already had 60,000, including 2,000 steamships plying the
seven seas. These figures give some idea of the extent of commercial traffic,
and also explain why accidents occur so frequently on American rivers.

It is true that these disasters, or
collisions, or shipwrecks, Are of little importance in the eyes of the intrepid
traders. In fact, they even create new business for the insurance companies,
whose profits would be very small if their premiums were not so exorbitant.
Pound for pound, and volume for volume, a man is of less value and importance
in America than a sack of charcoal or a bale of coffee.

The Americans may be right, but I would
have given all the coal mines and coffee plantations in the world for my little
French
demoiselle.
As we sailed full steam ahead through the obstacle
course. I had some misgivings as to how our journey would end.

Augustus Hopkins apparently did not share
my fears. He must have been one of those people who would jump off the rails or
sink rather than miss out on a business deal. In any case, he paid not the
slightest attention to the beauty of the landscape along the banks of the
Hudson, as they disappeared rapidly behind us. For him, the distance between
New York, our point of departure, and Albany, our destination, meant eighteen
hours of lost time and nothing more. The delightful resorts on the bank, the
villages clustered together in such a picturesque way, the wooded areas
scattered here and there throughout the countryside like flowers tossed at the
feet of a
prima donna,
the swift flow of the magnificent river, the
first signs of spring – nothing could tear this man away from the speculations
that preoccupied him. He paced back and forth from one end of the
Kentucky
to the other, muttering bits of sentences. Sometimes he would suddenly sit down
on a bale of goods and pull from one of his many pockets a large, thick wallet,
stuffed with a thousand pieces of paper. I even saw him take this collection of
every kind of red tape known to commercial bureaucracy and spread it
meticulously out on the deck. He thumbed anxiously through an enormous pile of
correspondence, unfolded letters mailed from every country and stamped with the
postmarks of every post office in the world, and pored over the closely written
lines with a relentless determination that did not fail to attract attention.

I could see that it would be impossible to
learn anything by speaking to this man. Several other curious passengers had
tried in vain to strike up a conversation with the two blacks standing guard
over the mysterious packing cases. The two sons of Africa maintained an
absolute silence, quite out of keeping with their customary loquacity.

I was about to go back and give Mrs Melvil
my personal impressions when I found myself in a group of passengers standing
around the captain of the
Kentucky,
who was holding forth on the subject
of Augustus Hopkins.

‘I tell you,’ he was saying, ‘this
crack-pot keeps doing one stupid thing after another. This is the tenth time
he’s travelled up the Hudson from New York to Albany, it’s the tenth time he’s
managed to arrive late, and the tenth time he’s brought this kind of luggage
with him. Where does it all go? I don’t know. The rumour is that Mr Hopkins is
setting up some big enterprise near Albany and that people from all over the
world are shipping merchandise to him without identifying it.’

‘He must be one of the principal agents of
the East India Company,’ said one of the bystanders, ‘and he’s coming here to
open an office in America.’

‘He’s more likely a millionaire who owns
some goldfields in California,’ said another. ‘There must be some equipment
involved ...’

‘Or maybe there’s something up for tender
that we can bid on,’ suggested a third. ‘The
New York Herald
has been
hinting at that these past few days.’

‘Pretty soon,’ interjected a fourth, ‘we’ll
see shares offered for sale in a new company with a capital of five million
dollars. I’ll be the first in. I’ll buy a hundred shares at 1,000 dollars
each.’

‘Why should you be the first?’ someone else
interrupted.

‘Maybe you’ve already been promised
something in this deal. I’m ready to put up the money for 200 shares, and more
if I have to.’

‘That’s if there are any left to buy after
I’m finished,’ shouted someone on the far side of the crowd, whose face I could
not make out. ‘What we’re talking about here is obviously a plan to build a
railroad from Albany to San Francisco, and the banker who got the contract to
build it is my best friend.’

‘A railroad! What are you talking about?
This Mr Hopkins is going to lay an electric cable across Lake Ontario, and
these big packing cases contain miles and miles of insulated wire.’