Before they recovered from one surprise, another even more amazing met their eyes. Two tall men in striped green and white coats and trousers, each carrying an upright pole with a placard on its upper end: See the Anaconda! See the Serpent Charmer! See the Great Boa Constrictor! Five Cents! The men stopped at the corner, calling loudly, and Robert tried to interpret their message. From his book he recognized the word boa constrictor. And in an open place near by he espied a reddish tent with the same inscription; then he understood what it meant and explained to Arvid: Over there in the tent one could see the boa constrictor, the most dangerous snake in the world, it might be as long as forty feet; it cost only five cents to go in and see. .
The boa constrictor? ruminated Arvid. Hadn’t Robert once read to him from his History of Nature about this peculiar crawling reptile? He seemed to remember: “. . the boa constrictor can be dangerous because of its great size and strength; it has happened that it has crushed and swallowed people; it grows to be almost forty feet long. . ”
“If only we each had five cents!”
It hurt Robert that they must miss this opportunity to look at the world’s greatest snake; a snake forty feet long that swallowed people, to be seen for only five cents. .
“Is the beast bound?” asked Arvid.
He looked toward the tent where a crowd of people thronged; he was not as anxious as his comrade to see the man-eating snake. From the very beginning, he had been worried about American reptiles; in his nightmares, America had been filled with hungry, hissing snakes, a veritable snake nest. He now wondered if it could be healthy to look at a snake that big. For himself, a snake five, six feet long would satisfy him, he wasn’t so interested in snakes. Perhaps they could see part of the snake, maybe its tail; that might be cheaper.
Robert said it didn’t matter, since they had not even one cent. He suddenly felt depressed and disappointed. All day long he had seen beautiful things for sale, and it had bothered him that he was unable to buy anything; now he actually suffered from having to leave the tent with the large snake.
Truly, on this, the most beautiful street in the world, there was everything one might strive for in this world, all one’s heart might desire was here. And Robert felt that the street would have been still more beautiful had he a purse full of American money.
But the very thing he lacked, he had come here to earn; he had come to America to be free — but in order to be free, he must first become rich.
— 4—
The humming in Robert’s left ear suddenly began again, so intensely that it drowned all the street sounds. It was an echo from that box on the ear received at home in Sweden many years ago; it was a reminder of the servant law—”suitable chastisement.” This his master had given him for laziness in service. The windy weather at sea had worsened his ear injury, and again a yellow, malodorous fluid ran from it. The humming sound, which sometimes increased to a roar, was constantly and depressingly with him. It had followed him from Sweden to North America, he could not lose it. Something was hurt inside the ear.
The hum carried with it a memory from his farm-hand service, a memory which troubled him day and night, year after year. Because of this memory he did not wish to serve as farm hand ever again; he did not wish ever to have a master; he wanted to be free.
He had tried to reconcile himself to the throbbing, had tried to make friends with the sound; it was a voice in there, wishing him well, comforting him when something went wrong, warning him when danger lurked. He had noticed that the hum began when something was happening to him, or about to happen; perhaps his friend in the left ear now wanted to comfort him because he had been unable to see the forty-foot, man-eating snake. .
Suddenly the sound was drowned by a loud outcry from Arvid: “Look, Robert! Look over there!”
“What is it?”
“A corpse! Look!”
“What?”
“Can’t you see — there’s a man lying there dead!”
They crossed the street and saw a man lying stretched in the gutter on his back; he was half naked, dressed only in a pair of worn-out pants which hardly covered his legs. His upper body was black with dirt or paint, but the skin of his face was white; he was not a Negro. His eyes were closed and his mouth open, disclosing toothless gums.
Arvid bent down over the body, bustling and excited: “He’s dead! The man is dead! Stone dead!”
Robert, too, looked closer. The man’s chest did not heave, his mouth did not move, he did not seem to breathe. With his foot he lightly touched the foot of the man; he did not move. “I believe he is dead.”
Here a corpse was lying in the street, and people went by without noticing. Living people passed by the dead man, stepped over his outstretched legs, but no one paid any attention, no one noticed he was dead. It was extraordinary. Robert thought this must be because of the great size of the population: there were so many living people jostling each other here in America that no one could pay attention to the dead ones, who were so silent and so still. He and Arvid noticed the body because they were new in the country and not accustomed to seeing corpses lying about.
They looked at each other in consternation: What should they do? Perhaps they should report their discovery, but how? They probably ought to call the police, but they did not know where the police were, and they could not talk, could not ask. Robert remembered there was a sentence in his language book to be used when calling the police. But that was in case of attack on the street. . And he couldn’t remember the sentence, anyway, either in Swedish or English. And the police might wonder about them, perhaps even suspect them of having murdered the man lying there in the gutter. It seemed he had only lately died, the corpse was still warm, and it didn’t smell as might be expected in this heat. Perhaps the man had been murdered. Yes, Robert was sure they would be suspected. And they couldn’t say a word, couldn’t deny it, couldn’t defend themselves. No doubt they would be put in prison for murder. It would be best to forget about calling the police. They might stop a passer-by and point to the corpse, and then let him fetch the police. But in that case they might be held as witnesses. It would be best just to walk on and let the dead one lie there.
“We’ll pretend we haven’t seen anything,” advised Robert. “Come, let’s go!”
But Arvid remained leaning over the man. He had made a new discovery: “He smells of brännvin!”
He poked the man carefully between his naked ribs: “Yes, I believe he is—”
Next moment Arvid jumped backward with an outcry: the man had suddenly risen from the ground like a Jack-in-the-box. In front of them stood a heavy-set giant, a living man, swiftly resurrected and roaring furiously.
At this threatening apparition Robert crouched in fright, and Arvid, in his backward jump, almost landed on top of him. They grasped each other’s hands.
Arvid never had time to finish his sentence that he thought the man was alive. Nor did he need to: they could see it — they heard it; they saw and heard a furious, insulted giant standing on his feet, though a little shaky. He took a few steps toward them, and from his enormous, red throat flowed a stream of words which the boys did not think were of a friendly kind. A few words Robert thought he understood: Damned — thieves — bastards. Never in their lives had they heard such terrifying sounds come from a human throat.