A Russian Journal Part 6

My days are long, and I begin with the morning Steinbeck. When I wake up, I open my eyes carefully, and I see him sitting before the desk. His big notebook is open, and he is imitating work. In reality he is just waiting and watching for my first move. He is terribly hungry. But the morning Steinbeck is a very shy man, absolutely unable to pick up the telephone and make the smallest attempt toward articulate conversation with Russian waitresses. So I give up and get up, pick up the phone, and order breakfast in English, French, and Russian. This revives his spirits and makes him rather c.o.c.ky. He puts an expression of an overpaid village philosopher on his face and says, "I have a few questions for you this morning." He has obviously spent his three hours of hunger figuring out the d.a.m.n things, which range from the old Greek table habits to the s.e.x life of the fishes. I behave like a good American, and although I could answer these questions simply and clearly, I stand on my civil rights, refuse to answer, and let the thing go to the Supreme Court. He doesn't give up easily, keeps on bragging about his universal knowledge, tries to provoke me with help and education, and I have to go into exile. I take refuge in the bathroom, which place I simply detest, and I force myself to stay in the sand-paper-lined bathtub filled with cold water till breakfast arrives. This sometimes takes considerable time. After breakfast I get help. Chmarsky arrives. There are no morning and evening phases in Chmarsky's character, he is pretty bad all the time.

During our day, I have to fight with the hundred and ninety millions who don't want their pictures taken, with Mr. Chmarsky who sn.o.bs photography, and with the morning Steinbeck who is so G.o.ddam innocent that all questions posed by the curious and hero-worshiping Russian population are answered by a friendly grunt, "This I do not know." After this momentous statement he is exhausted, shuts up like a clam, and big drops of perspiration break out on his fair-sized Cyrano face. Instead of taking pictures, I have to translate Mr. Steinbeck's strange silence into intelligent and evasive sentences, and somehow we finish the day, get rid of Chmarsky, and get home again.

After a short mental strip-tease the evening Steinbeck begins. This new character is perfectly able to pick up the telephone and p.r.o.nounce words like vodka or beer, understandable to the dumbest waiter. After a certain amount of fluid, he is articulate, fluent, and has many and definite opinions about everything. This goes on till we find a few Americans who have acceptable wives, cigarettes, and native drinks, and still don't refuse to see us. By now he could be described as a rather gay character. If there is any pretty girl in a party, he is definitely ready to protect me and chooses his place right between the girl and me. Around this time he is already able to talk to other people, and if I try to save the innocent girl by inviting her to dance, no broken leg will stop him from cutting in almost immediately.

After midnight his innocence gets coupled with strength. This he demonstrates with one finger. He asks innocent husbands if they know anything about the finger game. The two gentlemen sit down, facing each other across a table, put their elbows firmly on the tablecloth, and clinch their middle fingers. After a certain amount of twisting, Mr. Steinbeck usually gets the husband's fingers down on the table-cloth, and excuses himself volubly. Sometimes, late at night, he tries the game on anybody. Once even on a Russian gent who looked obviously like a general to everybody else but him.

After a certain amount of gentle coaxing, and a long dissertation about dignity, we get home. Now it is past three in the morning. The evening Steinbeck is metamorphosed into his late night version. He is on his bed, holding firmly a thick volume of poetry from two thousand years ago, called The Knight in the Tiger Skin. His face is fully relaxed, his mouth is open, and the man with the quiet low voice snores without restraint or inhibitions.

I fortunately borrowed a mystery story from Ed Gilmore, just because I knew that I would be unable to sleep, and would have to read till the morning.

I leave you, gentle American readers, and have to a.s.sure your Russian counterparts that everything that Mr. Chmarsky will write about us in Pravda is absolutely true.

END OF COMPLAINT.

CHAPTER 7.

WHEREVER WE HAD BEEN in Russia, in Moscow, in the Ukraine, in Stalingrad, the magical name of Georgia came up constantly. People who had never been there, and who possibly never could go there, spoke of Georgia with a kind of longing and a great admiration. They spoke of Georgians as supermen, as great drinkers, great dancers, great musicians, great workers and lovers. And they spoke of the country in the Caucasus and around the Black Sea as a kind of second heaven. Indeed, we began to believe that most Russians hope that if they live very good and virtuous lives, they will go not to heaven, but to Georgia, when they die. It is a country favored in climate, very rich in soil, and it has its own little ocean. Great service to the state is rewarded by a trip to Georgia. It is a place of recuperation for people who have been long ill. And even during the war it was a favored place, for the Germans never got there, neither with planes nor with troops. It is one of the places that was not hurt at all.

Inevitably we went in the early morning to the Moscow airport and sat an hour and a half in the V.I.P. room, under the portrait of Stalin, drinking tea. As usual there had been a party the night before, and we had had practically no sleep. We got on our plane and slept until we landed at Rostov. This airfield had been badly broken up, and a great number of prisoners were rebuilding the facilities. In the distance we could see the shattered city which had taken such a pounding during the war.

Then we flew on over the unending plain until at last, in the distance we saw mountains, and it had been very long since we had seen any mountains at all. These were terrific mountains. We picked up alt.i.tude and flew very high over the Caucasus. There were high peaks and sharp ridges, and in between there were streams where we could see ancient villages. Some of the peaks were snow-capped even in summer. After so much flat land there was a fine feeling of friendliness about mountains again.

We climbed very high, and in the distance we saw the Black Sea. And our plane came down to it and flew along the edge of the land. It is a beautiful land. The hills come down to the edge of the sea, and on the sides of the slopes there are lovely trees, black cypresses, and a great deal of foliage. And among the hills are villages, and big houses, and hospitals. It might have been the coast of California, except that the Black Sea is not turbulent and violent like the Pacific, and the coast is not rocky. The sea is very blue, and very tranquil, and the beaches are very white.

Our plane flew for a long time along the coast. At last it landed at Sukhum, a strip of level gra.s.s along the edge of the sea. The gra.s.s was very green, and the airport was lined with eucalyptus trees, the first we saw in Russia. The architecture was oriental, and everywhere were flowers and flowering trees. In front of the little airport was a line of women selling fruits: grapes, and melons, and figs, and fine-colored peaches, and watermelons. We bought some grapes and some peaches and figs. The people on the plane charged at the fruit, for they were people of the north who have never really had enough fruit. They overate, and many of them were bound to be sick later, for their stomachs and their systems were not used to fruit, and an overindulgence can be a rather serious thing, and was.

We were supposed to leave for Tiflis in twenty minutes, but the crew of the plane thought otherwise. They took a car and left to go swimming in the ocean, and they were gone for two hours, while we strolled through the gardens of the airport. We would have liked to go swimming too, but this we could not do, for we did not know that the plane was not going to leave in twenty minutes. The air was warm and moist and salty, and the vegetation was heavy and green and lush. It was really a tropical garden.

These Georgians are different-looking people. They are dark, almost gypsy-looking, with shining teeth, and long well-formed noses, and black curly hair. Nearly all the men wear mustaches, and they are handsomer than the women. They are lean and energetic, and their eyes are black and sparkling. We had read and had been told that this is an ancient Semitic people, a people which had come originally from the Euphrates Valley, at a time before Babylon was a city; that they are Sumerians, and that their strain is one of the oldest remaining in the world. They are fiery, proud, fierce, and gay, and the other people of Russia have great admiration for them. They speak always of their strength and vitality, and of their abilities-great cavalry men and good fighters, they say. And the men are triumphant with the women of Russia. They are a people of poetry, of music and dancing, and, according to the tradition, great lovers. And surely they live in a country favored by nature, and just as surely they have had to fight for it for two thousand years.

Just before two o'clock our crew came back, their hair still wet from their swim in the Black Sea. And we wished we had been with them, for we were covered with sweat. It was very hot, and some of our pa.s.sengers were beginning to feel the effect of an overindulgence in fresh fruit. A few children had been sick already.

We took off again and flew low over the sea, and then began to take on alt.i.tude, and climbed very high, and flew over mountains that were gaunt and brown, like the mountains of California. And deep in the creases there were little streams, and we could see the vegetation and the towns along the streams. The mountains were bleak here and forbidding, and they cast the light back blindingly. Then we flew through a pa.s.s, the mountaintops level with us, and came over the valley of Tiflis.

It is a huge and dry valley which looks like New Mexico. And when we landed the air was hot and dry, because it is far from the sea, but it was pleasant heat, there was no discomfort in it. And this great level valley, surrounded by the high mountains, seemed almost barren from the air.

We landed at a large airfield. There were many planes-Russian fighter planes. Two of them would take off as two came in, and they buzzed around the field constantly. Perhaps they were patrolling the Turkish border, which is not very far away.

On the high ridge to the west of us there was an ancient fortress, battlemented and huge, and black against the sky.

Mr. Chmarsky was with us again. We had declared a truce: we were nicer to him, and he was nicer to us, than we had been in Stalingrad. He had never been to Georgia either.

We were met by a delegation of the Tiflis section of Voks, and they had a fine big car, and they were nice people. We drove across the flat dry plain to a pa.s.s in the mountains. And in the pa.s.s lay Tiflis, a beautiful city which has been on the main route of travel from the south to the north for many centuries. The ranges on either side are lined with ancient fortifications, and even the city is dominated by a castle on the ridge. There is a fortress on the other side of the valley too, for through this narrow pa.s.s has come every movement and migration of people-Persians, Iranians, Iraqi from the south, and Tartars and other marauders from the north. And in this narrow pa.s.s the battles occurred and the fortifications were put up.

Part of the city is very old, and a river runs through the pa.s.s, with high cliffs on one side. And on the high cliffs are cl.u.s.tered ancient houses. It is truly an ancient city, for whereas Moscow celebrates this year its eight-hundredth anniversary, Tiflis next year will celebrate its fifteen-hundredth. And this is the new capital, the old capital is thirty kilometers farther along the river.

The streets of Tiflis are wide and tree-shaded, and many of its buildings are modern. The streets climb the hills on either side. And at the very top of the hill, to the west, there is a playground and park, with a funicular railroad that goes straight up the cliff. It is a giant park, with a large restaurant, and it overlooks the valley for many miles. And on the ridge, in the very center of the city, the huge round towers and high battlemented walls of the city fortress stand, ruinous and forbidding.

In the city and on the ridges there are old churches, for Christianity came to the Georgians in the fourth century, and churches which are still in use were built then. It is a city of many ancient stories, and probably many ancient ghosts. There is the story of the Moslem Iranian king who, ma.s.sing his troops, forced the captive people of Tiflis to the bridge over the river, set up a picture of the Virgin, and allowed every one to go free who would spit on the picture. Every one who refused had his head chopped off, and the story is that thousands of heads b.u.mped in the river that day.

The people of Tiflis were better dressed, better looking, and more full of spirit than any we saw in Russia. There was gaiety and color in the streets. The clothing was handsome, and the women wore colored kerchiefs on their heads.

This city is incredibly clean. It is the first clean oriental city I have ever seen. In the river that cuts through the center of the city hundreds of little boys swim. And here there is no destruction, except that which time does to the ancient buildings.

Voks has a very large and efficient organization in Tiflis. For this is a tourist city, and Voks operates not only with foreigners, but with visitors from the other republics of the Soviet Union. They invited us to their building, which is extremely impressive, and even though it was late at night, they served us wonderful cakes and fine Georgian wine, and they wanted to talk and drink with us. But we were awfully tired. We promised that we would talk as much as they wanted later, but we had to go to bed.

During our stay in Georgia Mr. Chmarsky's gremlin hardly operated at all, and that made us feel better toward him, and made him feel better toward us.

We had two large rooms in the Intourist Hotel. They overlooked the street, and there were windows on three sides, so that any moving breeze came through. It was very pleasant. There was only one difficulty: we could not get breakfast. During the whole time we were there we tried to get breakfast early, and we never succeeded. It came when they were ready.

In the morning we got up very early, for the city fascinated us, and we wanted to see a great deal of it. Our driver was, as usual, wonderful, an ex-cavalry man, and he had, of all things, a jeep. The jeep does not bring out the best in anyone, and in a cavalry man it brings out the cowboy. He loved it because it would climb almost straight uphill, because he could whip it around corners, and jump it over culverts. It plunged into streams, and splashed water, and came out on the other side. He drove like a mad man, he was afraid of no one. Again and again, in traffic, outraged drivers forced him to the curb, and there would be an exchange of violent Georgian language, and our man would smile and drive off. He won all engagements. We loved him. He was the first man we met in Russia who had the same feeling about policemen that we have. His black curly hair blew wildly about his head when he drove. He never wanted to stop.

He roared the jeep up the hill, into the most ancient part of the city, where the old Georgian wooden houses are preserved. They have a strange architecture, usually two to three stories high, with large open balconies. And the carving and the painting on the walls are exotic.

We climbed the ridge to the old fortification, which has round towers and high thick walls; it might have been impregnable forever if it had not been for artillery, for there was no way to attack it without artillery.

We walked through the tropical garden of the city, beautiful with flowering trees and rare plants, many of which we had never seen before. It was cool there, and a stream flowed beside it.

We did not feel strange in Tiflis, for Tiflis receives many visitors, and it is used to foreigners, and so we did not stand out as much as we had in Kiev, and we felt quite at home.

There are many churches in Tiflis, and it must have been, as it is now, a city of religious toleration, for there are ancient synagogues and Moslem temples, and none of them has ever been destroyed.

High upon the hill, overlooking the city, is David's Church, built, I believe, in the seventh century, simple and beautiful. Our driver rode his jeep as far as he could, and we climbed the rest of the way. And there were many people climbing the twisting trail up to the church, many people going to worship there.

This ancient church is much beloved by the Georgian people, and the graves of the great Georgian writers and composers of music are in the churchyard. Stalin's mother is buried there under a very simple stone. Sitting on the edge of one composer's grave were three elderly women and an old man, and they were singing litanies in an ancient mode, soft weird music.

Inside the old church a service was going on, and there was more singing. The line of people came up, and as they came off the trail and into the churchyard, each one kneeled and kissed a corner of the church.

It was a remote and peaceful place, and the city with its tile roofs was far below. We could see the botanical gardens, which were laid out by Queen Tamara, the fabulous twelfth-century queen, who has left a heroic shadow over the city. Queen Tamara was beautiful, and kind, and fierce. She knew statecraft and building. She built fortresses and encouraged poets and caused musicians to gather together-one of the fairy queens of the world, like Elizabeth, and Catherine of Aragon, and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

When we came down from David's Church the bells of the cathedral were ringing violently, and we went in. The church was rich and oriental, and its paintings were very black with incense and age. It was crowded with people. The service was being performed by an old man, with white hair and a golden crown, so beautiful that he looked unreal. The old man is called the Catholicus, he is the head of the Church of Georgia, and his robe is of gold thread. There was great majesty in the service, and the music of the large choir was incomparable. Incense rose to the high ceiling of the church, and the sun shone through and lighted it.

Capa took many pictures. It was amazing to see how he could move about silently and photograph without being noticed. And later he went into the choir loft and took more pictures.

By now, in this account, I am beginning to eliminate museums, but we saw them, we saw them every place. As Capa has said, the museum is the church of modern Russia, and to refuse to look at a museum is a little like refusing to visit a church. And they are all more or less alike. There is one section which deals with the past of Russia before the Revolution, from the beginning of history to 1918, and at least half the museum has to do with Russia since the Revolution, with all of the gains made, and the people involved, and the giant pictures of the heroes and of the scenes of the Revolution.

In Tiflis there were two museums. One was the museum of the city, on the ridge over the town, which had very fine miniatures of the ancient houses and plans of the old city. But what was most interesting in this museum was its curator, a man who must have been an actor, for he shouted and postured, he made speeches, he was dramatic, he wept, he laughed loudly. His most successful gesture was a large outward fling of the right hand while he shouted, always in the Georgian language of course, about the glories of the ancient city. He spoke so rapidly that no translation was possible, and it couldn't have been possible anyway, for Mr. Chmarsky did not speak Georgian. We came out of this museum deafened but happy.

On the road along the ridge to this museum is probably the largest and most spectacular picture of Stalin in the Soviet Union. It is a giant thing which seems to be hundreds of feet high, and it is outlined in neon, which, although it is broken now, is said, when working, to be visible for twenty-eight miles.

There were so many things to see, and so little time to see them, that we seemed to rush during the whole visit.

In the afternoon we went to a soccer game between the teams representing Tiflis and Kiev. They played fine, fast, and furious soccer in the great stadium. At least forty thousand people were there, and the crowd was emotional, for these intersectional games are extremely popular. And although the game was rough and fast, and although the compet.i.tion was very violent, there were practically no flares of temper. Only one little argument happened during the whole afternoon. The score ended two to two, and as the game finished two pigeons were released. In the old days in Georgia, in contests of all kinds, even in fights, a white pigeon was released for victory and a black one for defeat. And these pigeons carried the news to the other cities of the country of Georgia. And this day, since the score was a tie, both black and white were released, and they flew away over the stadium.

Soccer is the most popular sport in the Soviet Union, and the intersectional soccer games carry more excitement and more emotion than any other sports event. The only really heated arguments we heard during our stay in Russia concerned soccer.

We toured the department stores of Tiflis, and they were choked with people. The shelves were fairly well stocked, but prices, particularly of clothing, were very high: cotton shirts, sixty-five roubles; rubber galoshes, three hundred roubles; a portable typewriter, three thousand roubles.

We spent a whole day going about the city to the public swimming pools and to the parks. And in the workers' park we saw a children's train that was charming. It was a real little train, perfect in every detail, and the engineer, the switchman, the station master, the fireman, all were children. They had got their positions in a compet.i.tion in efficiency, and they ran the train for children or adults. We took a ride on it with a delegation of children from Uzbek, who had come on the invitation of the children of Tiflis, and they were riding the train for the afternoon. The little boy who was engineer was very proud. The station had all the equipment for running a railroad, only on a small scale. And the children were very formal in carrying out their tasks. To be an official on the children's railway is a great honor to a child in Tiflis, and he works hard for the position.

Georgian food is famous all over the Soviet Union, but our hotel had not heard much about it. We were a little tired of its menu, which consisted almost entirely of shashlik and sliced tomatoes. That night Chmarsky and Capa and I decided to experiment with another restaurant. We went to the Tiflis Hotel, where the dining-room is as large as the nave of a cathedral. There were marble columns supporting the roof, there was a very bad loud orchestra, and no food at all. Instead of shashlik we got little bits of fried meat-and sliced tomatoes.

And while we were eating, the waiter came and said, "A lady would like to dance with either one of you gentlemen."

Chmarsky translated for us, and he did not look approvingly at the waiter. He said, "It is undoubtedly a public woman."

And we said, "But what's wrong with a public woman? Is she pretty?"

Chmarsky screwed up his face. He was the only one at the table who could see her. "No," he said, "she is very ugly."

We said, "We think she should be abolished. We think she is a social evil. We think that an ugly public woman is a threat to the whole structure of society, a threat to the home, and security, and mother love, and all things like that."

And Chmarsky nodded his head gloomily and agreed with us. It was practically the first time we had agreed on anything.

And we said, "If, on the other hand, she were pretty, there might be extenuating circ.u.mstances. There might be some social injustice involved. If she were pretty, we would advocate investigating her background, to find out what social difficulty has caused her to be a public woman, and to try, perhaps, to induce her to return to private enterprise."

Chmarsky began to regard us with a suspicious, inquisitive eye. He did not trust us very much.

Our backs were to the public woman, but eventually we stole a look, and he was right, she was not pretty, and we don't know whether they abolished her or not.

The summer nights were wonderful in Tiflis; the air soft, and light, and dry. Young men and girls walked aimlessly in the streets, enjoying themselves. And the costumes of the young men were rather nice: tunics, sometimes of heavy white silk, belted at the waist, and long narrow trousers, and soft black boots. They are a very handsome breed, the Georgian men.

From the high balconies of the old houses we could hear in the night soft singing of strange music, accompanied by a picked instrument that sounded like a mandolin, and occasionally a flute played in a dark street.

The people of Georgia seemed to us more relaxed than any we had seen so far, relaxed, and fierce, and full of joy. And perhaps this is why the Russians admire them so. Perhaps this is the way they would like to be.

There was a huge moon over the western mountains, and it made the city seem even more mysterious and old, and the great black castle on the ridge stood out in front of the moon. And if there are ghosts anyplace in the world, they must be here, and if there is a ghost of Queen Tamara, she must have been walking the ridge in the moonlight that night.

CHAPTER 8.

THE TIFLIS WRITERS' UNION had asked us to come to a little reception. And it must be admitted that we were frightened, for these meetings have a habit of becoming extremely literary, and we are not very literary people. Besides, we knew by now that the Georgians take their literature very seriously: poetry and music are their great contributions to world culture, and their poetry is very ancient. Their poetry is not read by a few people; it is read by everyone. In their burial places on the hill we had seen that their poets were buried on an equal footing with their kings, and in many cases a poet has been remembered where a king has been forgotten. And one ancient poet, Rust'hveli, who wrote a long epic poem called The Knight in the Tiger Skin, is honored almost as a national hero in Georgia, and his verses are read and are memorized even by children, and his picture is everywhere.

We were afraid that the meeting of the writers might be a little rugged for us, but we went. About twenty men and three women received us. And we sat in chairs around a large room and regarded one another. There was a speech of welcome to us, and without transition our welcomer said, "And now Mr. So-and-so will read a short summary of Georgian literature."

A man on my right opened a sheaf of papers, and I could see that it was typewritten and single-s.p.a.ced. He began to read, and I waited for the translation. A paragraph later I suddenly realized that he was reading in English. I became fascinated, because I could only understand about one word in ten. His p.r.o.nunciation was so curious that although the words were English all right, they did not sound remotely like English when he said them. And he read twenty typewritten pages.

I got the ma.n.u.script later and read it, and it was a concise, compact history of literature in Georgia, from earliest times to the present.

Since most of the people in the room did not speak English at all, they sat and smiled benignly, for to them he was reading in perfect English. When he had finished, the man who had first spoken said, "Have you any questions now?"

And since I had understood very little of what had gone on, I had to admit that I had no questions.

It was quite hot in the room, and both Capa and I had developed a little trouble in the stomach, so that we were not comfortable.

Now a lady stood up, and she too had a sheaf of papers, and she said, "I will now read some translations into English of Georgian poetry."

Her English was good, but because I had a bad cramp in the stomach, I had to protest. I told her, which is true, that I much prefer to read poetry to myself, that I get more out of it that way, and I begged her to let me have the poetry to read when I was alone, so that I could appreciate it more. I think it hurt her feelings, but I hope not. It was true and I was miserable. She was a trifle curt. She said that this was the only copy in existence, that she did not dare let it out of her hands.

Again, as before, there came the questions about American writing. And, as usual, we felt terribly unprepared. If we had known we were going to be asked questions like this before we left America, we might have studied a little bit. We were asked about new writers emerging, and we mumbled a little about John Hersey, and John Horne Burns, who wrote The Gallery, and Bill Mauldin, who draws like a novelist. We were dreadfully inadequate at this sort of thing, but the truth of the matter is we had not read very much of modern fiction lately. Then one of the men asked us what Georgians were well known in America. And the only ones we could remember, outside of the ch.o.r.eographer George Balanchine, were the three brothers who collectively had married many million dollars' worth of American women. The name Mdvani did not seem to bring out great enthusiasm among the present-day Georgian writers.

They are very stern and devoted, these Georgian writers, and it is very hard to tell them that although Stalin may say that the writer is the architect of the soul, in America the writer is not considered the architect of anything, and is only barely tolerated at all after he is dead and carefully put away for about twenty-five years.

In nothing is the difference between the Americans and the Soviets so marked as in the att.i.tude, not only toward writers, but of writers toward their system. For in the Soviet Union the writer's job is to encourage, to celebrate, to explain, and in every way to carry forward the Soviet system. Whereas in America, and in England, a good writer is the watch-dog of society. His job is to satirize its silliness, to attack its injustices, to stigmatize its faults. And this is the reason that in America neither society nor government is very fond of writers. The two are completely opposite approaches toward literature. And it must be said that in the time of the great Russian writers, of Tolstoy, of Dostoevski, of Turgenev, of Chekhov, and of the early Gorki, the same was true of the Russians. And only time can tell whether the architect of the soul approach to writing can produce as great a literature as the watch-dog of society approach. So far, it must be admitted, the architect school has not produced a great piece of writing.

The room was very hot by the time our meeting with the writers was over, and we shook hands all around, wiping our palms on our trousers between handshakes, for we were perspiring very freely.

There had been one question they had asked that we wanted to think about further. It had been, "Do Americans like poetry?"

And we had had to reply that the only check we have on the liking or disliking of any form of literature in America is whether the people buy it, and certainly the people do not buy very much poetry. So we had been forced to say that perhaps Americans do not like poetry.

And then they had asked, "Is it that American poets are not very close to the people?"

And this was not true either, because American poets are just as close to the people as American novelists are. Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg are certainly not very far from the people, but the people just do not read very much poetry. We do not think it makes very much difference whether Americans like poetry or not. But to the Georgians, whose love for poetry is traditional, the lack of love for poetry is almost a crime.

Old as Tiflis is, it is the new capital. Fifteen hundred years ago the seat of power was about thirty kilometers to the north, and in the afternoon we got in the jeep and our cavalry driver drove us out there. It was a good macadam road, and it was crowded with little wagons pulled by donkeys, and by army trucks, and by soldiers on German motorcycles with side-cars. On the hills on either side were castles and ancient churches, almost inaccessible of approach. And the feeling of ancientness was in these pa.s.ses which had been guarded against invasions for three thousand years. The road followed the river, and there were two hydroelectric dams, but when Capa wanted to photograph them, the refusal was instant. And just above the dams we came to a bridge that was built by Pompey when the Romans came through this pa.s.s, and one of the central supports is still standing in the river.

The name of the ancient capital is Mtskhet, and I cannot p.r.o.nounce it yet. There is a fifth-century church high up on the peak above the city, half ruinous and very impressive. And to get to it you must climb a goat trail. In the town itself there was a beautiful church, inside high walls. And the walls were castellated and built for defense.

The huge courtyard inside the walls was gra.s.s-grown and the walls themselves were stepped, so that in the old days the fighting men could guard the church. The door of the church was of iron, and it was locked with a gigantic padlock. And inside the porch there were many little candles, stuck against the stone of the wall. The method seems to be to light the wrong end of the candle, and when it is burning to press it against the stone so that it sticks, and then to light the other end, so that the burning candle adheres to the stone of the church itself.

A dry hot wind howled through the pa.s.s in which the old town stands, and cried against the corners of the church. Off in one corner of the churchyard there was a curious parody. A long, lean, stringy man, dressed in rags, was dancing about. He was of the breed we used to call "touched." In his bony right hand he held a big feather, and with it he gestured while he made a loud speech to three goats who stood watching him and chewing rapidly. He waved his feather, stopped in his speech, and charged at the goats, and they disdainfully stepped aside, like boxers, and then stood and watched again while he spoke to them.

Eventually the caretaker of the church arrived-a dark woman, with a strong aquiline face. She was dressed in a black costume, with a black headcloth that wrapped around her throat, so that only her face showed. Her eyes were dark and brooding. She seemed to be some kind of secular nun. She carried a big key for the padlock. She opened the church, and we went inside the dusky ancient place.

The wall paintings were stiff, and old, and primitive, and their colors were faded. The more recent icons were dark in their gold frames and under their gold filigree. The stern woman began to tell us about the origin of the church.

Now there developed what we were later to call the Tinker to Evers to Chmarsky translation. Chmarsky did not understand the Georgian language. The words had to be spoken to a Georgian, who translated into Russian, and Chmarsky translated the Russian to us. This took a lot longer than normal conversation.

The dark woman told us that this church had been finished in the fifth century, but it had been started long before. And she told us a curious story about its founding, one of the incredible eastern stories one hears so often.

There were two brothers and a sister. And they had heard from the sky, or from the winds, that Jesus Christ had been born and had grown to manhood. There were portents and dreams that told them about him. Finally the two brothers started for Jerusalem, leaving their sister at home in this place. And they arrived on the day of the crucifixion, so they only saw him dead. And these two brothers from this pa.s.s in the Georgian mountains were heartbroken, and they begged a piece of the body-cloth of Jesus, and they brought it home to their sister. She was grief-stricken by the crucifixion, and she clutched the cloth, and fell sick and died of sorrow, and her dead hand held the cloth against her heart. Then the brothers tried to release the cloth, but her hand held firm and they could not get it away from her. And so she was buried with the cloth still held in her hand. She was buried right in this place where the church now stands. And almost immediately a plant grew out of the grave and became a giant tree. After a number of years it was desired to build a church in this place to commemorate the event. And woodsmen came and tried to cut the tree, but their axes flew to pieces against its trunk. Everyone tried to cut the tree, and they couldn't make a dent in it. Finally two angels came and cut the tree, and the church was built over the spot. The dark woman pointed to a curious tent-like structure of clay inside the church, and this is where the grave was, she said, and this is where the tree stood. And under the clay tent undoubtedly was the body of the holy woman, still clutching the piece of the cloth that had been worn by Jesus.

She told other stories in her austere dry voice, but this was the best story, this was the origin of the church.

The wind whined in through the creaking iron door while she talked. And she said that although the place was deserted now, at various times of the year many thousands of people gather at this church and the courtyard is so crowded that one cannot even sit down or move about. There are people who even climb up on the walls. And during these feasts the service is celebrated in the ancient church. And people come from many, many miles on pilgrimages for these ceremonies, and the church is surrounded by little candles stuck against the walls and burning in the night.