The Glatstein Chronicles Read Online Free PDF

brand-new suits and shoes, which seemed to show a mother’s loving touch. If I am not mistaken, one face even bore the trace of a tear.
    They spoke in a southern drawl that rolled right off their tongues, and they seemed to find the proper word for the proper expression. They reveled in my company as if I were some precious gem. After all, I was the first stranger to make their acquaintance, and I was gallantly passed from one to the other. They had no wish to sleep and were prepared to stay up all night until the last glimpse of land disappeared from view. They were full of excitement at the prospect of seeing Paris with their very own eyes, in the springtime of youth, their best years, when there was still pleasure to be had. I told them that I envied their good luck, and they laughed when they found out that I’d be in Paris too. Try as I might, I detected no trace in them of college-boy callowness. They fell into their new roles easily, with grace.
    Suddenly I heard my own speech becoming more Yankeefied than it had been on land. My tongue was performing acrobatics. I sidestepped many of their questions and answered others not altogether truthfully. I was evolving into a different person, someone I hardly recognized. I sprouted wings and, like Alice in Wonderland, began to reel off adventures one after another, so that these five college students shouldn’t mistake their first shipboard acquaintance as just anybody. I fell into my new role too, and played it as elegantly and as politely as I was able. The boys chattered on about college life, girlfriends, and parents, and about Paris, where one can lose oneself completely and still come up refreshed. They talked about their future professions and about their responsibilities to society. They asked me about New York and about Communism, and told me how much they admired President Roosevelt.
    The next day I was distressed to find out that, while we slept, the iron hand of authority had divided all of us into separate classes. The holiday was over, and it was back to our destined stations. The way to the first-class deck was blocked, as was the way to second class, where I was booked, and likewise the way to third class, where the boys were quartered. When I later caught sight of the young musicians, all spiffed out in their finery, they were embarrassed by their lowly status, and I, in turn, was ashamed of my bourgeois privilege. It was only last night that we had parted with a casual “See you tomorrow.”
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    Of all the passengers, the least interesting and most superfluous were those who came aboard as couples. It was as though, without missing a beat, they had simply exchanged their bedrooms at home for staterooms at sea. Strolling arm in arm, confident and proud, they already seemed to possess that which the others, eyes busily darting, were still hoping to find. Yet before long the couples began showing signs of unease. For everyone else, the ship was one big, happy hunting ground, whereas they, poor souls, were yoked together, performing their foreplay in full view of the other passengers. The female of the pair generally seemed grateful to her partner for this travel opportunity, and, no matter how tall she was, contrived to look up adoringly at her benefactor.
    One by one, the couples drifted off quietly, leaving only the unattached to carry on. The males of the species engaged in brittle banter, their words dropping like dry bones. They inspected the females like bitches in a kennel, and a hushed, dreadful competition ensued until late into the night. I escaped to the bar, the male sanctuary, and fell into a padded chair. The swaying floor made me feel as if I were in a rocker.
    Waiters stood at the ready. Subject to their gentle ministrations, I seemed to be dozing off in a barber chair, submitting to the soft hands of an expert masseur. I ordered a drink, and tossed a coin on the table with such a theatrical flourish that I was astonished by my own