Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Odyssey of an Immigrant American 5, Louis Adamic

Odyssey of an Immigrant American 5, Louis Adamic

On the way back to the pier, going down a steep stair-
street, we came upon a tall, splendidly proportioned girl,
dark-haired and blue-eyed, clad in an agreeably colorful
medley of several south-Dalmatian costumes, among which
the local Ragusan dress predominated. On her head she
balanced a great basket of something or other; perhaps of
wash for one of the modern houses above the old town.
The basket seemed a part of her. She walked and swaved
from her hips. Her arms were bare and firm. One of them
she held akimbo. In the other hand she carried a bunch of
goldern-rain blossoms. She slowed her pace to look at us;
possibly Stella'American dress interested her.
I said, "Dobar dan!(Good day!)"
"Dobar dan!" she returned, smiled--again one of those smiles
to which words cannot do justice--and stopped. Are you nashki?
(of our nationality?)"
"I was born in Slovenia," I said, "but went to America
as a young boy. My wife is American."
"So!" said the girl, eagerly. "An uncle of mine is in America.
He is a fisherman in Louisiana, where the great river Mees-sees
-seep-pee," she syllabicated, "falls into the ocean." She smiled
all the while.
"She is beautiful," said Stella. "What a body!"
I translated, "My wife says you are beautiful and you have
a fine body."
The girl's smile widened and deepened, and her and neck colored.
"Hvala liepa!" she said. "Please tell your American wife that
she is beautiful."
I told Stella what the girl had said. Then from the bunch
she carried the girl handed her several twigs of golden-rain
and, without saying anything, went on up the stairs.
I had a sudden feeling that I would like Yugoslavia,
her people; that, perhalps, even my visit home would be more
a pleasure than an ordeal.

Odyssey of an Immigrant American 2, Louis Adamic
Copyright(c) Shouzou Tahara
Odyssey of an Immigrant American 5, Louis Adamic

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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Odyssey of an Immigrant American 4, Louis Adamic

 We walked through the ancient, sun-flooded, and shadowy street of Dubrovnik, whose history reaches back to the fifth century. Many of the streets were not streets at all, but twisty stairways running from the main thorough-fares up the steep grades. Some of the people we saw were obviously foreigners--visitors or tourists from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, France, and England--but the majority were native Dalmatians of all ages, many in colorful homespun costumes, and Serbo-Moslem laborers from near-by Bosnia and Herzegovina, wearing opanke, Serb sandals, with upturned toes and baggy Turkish breeches, close-fitting jackets, and red fezes. On one street we saw two veiled Mohammedan women walking on one side; on the other side were two Catholic nuns. In the doorways sat mothers, giving their breasts to infants. There were swarms of children everywhere.
 "Such faces!" exclaimed Stella every minutes. "Even the homely ones are beautiful, they're so healthy and brown."
In Dubrovnik--unlike in Lisbon, Gibraltar, Naples, and Palermo,--no one forced hmself upon us to sell us sometthing. Here no guides were offering their services; there were no shifty-eyed peddlers of obscene phoyographs. In the little bazaars, where business evidently was poor, the men and women in charge of the stores seemingly did not care whether the passers-by stopped to look at and buy their handmade peasant embroidery, jewelry, and earthenware or not. They talked and laughed among themselves, or sat still and dozed inthe warm sun.


Odyssey of an Immigrant American 2, Louis Adamic
Copyright(c) Shouzou Tahara
Odyssey of an Immigrant American 5, Louis Adamic

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