ON a July morning, under a sky of unadulterated blue, Milada and I visited first the cemetery where her mother and father rested, and then the small cemetery on a hill above Smichov where Mother lay between Grandfather and Grandmother. A violent electrical storm came up suddenly out of nowhere and we managed to reach the station five minutes before our train was scheduled to leave. Perhaps it was just as well that we had so little time. As the train began to move, we both had the sensation of standing still while the platform moved away from us, carrying with it the four familiar faces of Milada’s brother, Karel Berounský, Miroslav Novotný, and the old guide. For their individual reasons they had come together to see us off: Karel, the sophisticated intellectual; Novotný, the faithful worker; Milada’s brother, young and blond and very serious; and the broken old man who could look only backward to other days. We waved, but they stood unmoving, without a smile between them, just four men standing on a platform, watching a train pull away.

In London we finished the business of signing agreements with John and Pamela Wood in the presence of their English solicitors. Milada was made an equal partner in Rieger, Inc. We were entertained by Lady Ibrahim, who had recently received her divorce from the Sultan of Johore, by Mrs. Manville, and by Sirdar Krishna Mohan of the Nepalese Legation. The parties were gay, but we were too tired to give them our full attention. The day before we left we saw Jan Masaryk in his office. He looked worn and worried, but he gave us his best wishes for the project in New York. As we started out the door he called us back. “Here,” he said, as he wrote something on a sheet of his personal stationery, “this will introduce you to a friend of mine.” As I recall, it was a note to Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, but it was never presented.

From London we went to Biarritz where we stayed two weeks to rest. It should have been a gay, happy holiday, but my mind was too concerned with thoughts of New York on the one hand, and Prague on the other, to allow me to relax. Milada and I had agreed not to talk about the political unrest all around us, so neither of us mentioned the stories we read each day in the papers, but fear kept on growing in our hearts.

On the twenty-third of August we sailed on the Manhattan from LeHavre, a ship of the United States Line chosen deliberately in order to familiarize ourselves with American customs. It was a clear black and silver night and I was filled with an excess of sentiment as we pulled away from the European continent. Except for a crossing of the Mediterranean, it was the first time I had gone forth on a large body of water. I wanted Milada by my side at the railing, but I had hunted the ship over for her and she wasn’t anywhere to be found. So I stood alone in the dark with my own devious emotions. Deep-throated horns blew, the anchor broke water as it was hauled in, bilge water sloshed against the great piles of the pier, the deck throbbed under my feet. When the shore lights had disappeared I went to our cabin, only to find Milada sitting there sad because she had been hunting the ship over for me, and in the dark we had missed each other like two children playing a stupid game.

During the seven-day passage to New York we made no acquaintances. Day after day we sat in our deck chairs with a calm blue sea all about us. Europe was the past and New York was the future and for seven days we could forget them both.

There were many things to learn on the Manhattan. The ship was full of tourists who were noisy and thoughtless and ubiquitous. We had often seen their like in Prague, so we were not surprised. It was the children who astonished us. We had never encountered anything like them. They looked like angels and behaved like devils. During the whole trip they crawled over our legs, knocked against our chairs, shouted in our ears, played tag across our laps and never once apologized or even seemed to realize how they were disturbing other people. European children would have been scandalized at such behavior, and their parents would have been mortified beyond repair.

At breakfast the first morning we made an agreement with our dining room steward. Throughout the entire crossing he was not to ask us what we wanted for any meal. Instead, he was to bring us food of his own selection, typical American food, and he was to tell us always what we were eating.

It was the third morning at breakfast when I suddenly began to suspect him of making fun of us. He brought us each a plate covered with something corrugated and brown which he told us was a waffle. On the waffle were a number of very small brown sausages. The pastry-like thing under the meat was new and fancy and we looked at it distrustfully, wondering if there was a special way to eat it. As we pondered the delicate situation the steward discreetly pushed a pitcher toward us, careful not to make a point of our ignorance. I peered in and saw that it was full of a liquid that was also brown. I looked at the steward. He leaned down to whisper that it was syrup and that we were to pour it over the sausages and waffle.

Then I knew he was making fun of us. Milada was incredulous. But the steward insisted that it was the way Americans always ate these things. Then Milada laughed. “We made an agreement,” she said, “and we can’t sneak out of it now.” To show how brave she was, she poured a generous lot of the syrup over her plate and the steward smiled.

It looked disgusting. As Milada cut into it with her fork and put the first bite in her mouth I felt as though she had betrayed everything we knew to be good taste. The steward was still watching me. Well, an agreement was an agreement. So I imitated Milada and took a bite. Then I made a discovery. It was good and I liked it.

On the first day of September a sense of excitement began to run over the ship. People spoke who had made no move to talk to each other before, in order to remark that we had passed Nantucket Light and by afternoon would be in port. This time Milada and I kept track of each other, and as the ship moved in toward Long Island we stood close together at the railing, hand in hand. Neither of us said a word as we passed the Statue of Liberty, and neither of us spoke as the skyline of the new world rose before us. We had seen pictures of it often, we had studied it in the movies, but this was quite different. It was tremendously impressive in three dimensions.

Contrary to everything we had been led to expect, the immigration officials were efficient and courteous. At four-thirty we stepped onto the pier in what seemed to us an inferno of noise, and again we were surprised to find all seventeen pieces of our luggage waiting for us under the big black R. Only one box was opened for examination, and we were free to introduce ourselves to New York.

A man approached us and introduced himself. He was Mrs. Manville’s butler, he said. From London she had cabled him to meet us. Could he be of service? We thanked him and said no, doubtless showing plainly the pride we felt in being able to find our way about. We knew exactly where we wanted to go, for we had studied the advertisements in the New Yorker all the way across. After detailed discussion we had decided on the Ritz-Carlton, and there we went.

It was nearly dark by the time we were shown into a spacious room on the eleventh floor. Both of us made straight for the window, and then we stood looking out, holding onto each other, feeling as though we were surely in a strange, mad dream. Never before had we been so high above a city street. Up in the Eiffel Tower, yes, but this was different. There were no railings. We could look directly down into the canyon below where taxis and motors rushed back and forth and human heads looked like bugs crawling along the pavements. As we hung over the chasm a siren began to sound, screaming nearer and nearer. We watched all the traffic come to a stop while one small car making a terrible noise flitted madly along until it was out of sight, taking its siren with it. I turned to Milada. “But it’s exactly like the movies,” she said before I could get the same thought into words.

We couldn’t unpack, we couldn’t sit down, we couldn’t do anything but get out onto the street to see how much more of New York would be as we expected to find it. I can smile ruefully now at our basic ignorance. Because we had read all of Upton Sinclair, Dreiser’s American Tragedy, and Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, Babbitt and Dodsworth we thought we knew everything possible about the United States. We had even read Gone with the Wind during the past week’s crossing. On the ship we had seen “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” In Prague we had always admired American pictures and had studied carefully “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” and “My Man Godfrey.” So we knew all about America.

When we walked out the door of the hotel we asked the imposing doorman where we were and he told us Madison Avenue, but offered no further hints. I remembered having heard Mrs. Luce mention the street, but I had no idea what its relation to the rest of New York might be. On the drive from the pier to the hotel we had sat in the taxi too excited to notice details like street names. All the thoroughfares had looked like the one in “Street Scene.”

So we turned right into a dark side street and began walking, not wanting the doorman to think we were ignorant. At the first corner we looked at the sign on a lamppost, in order to find our way back, and there were the magic words Fifth Avenue! We felt unbelievably smart. Again we turned right and continued walking. Fifth Avenue seemed the most fascinating street in the world that night, and nothing I have seen since has given me cause to change that first impression. On both sides of the plate-glass windows, American showmanship has been developed to its zenith.

After walking several blocks we came to a church. Without considering whose church it was, or what denomination, we went in and offered our prayers of thanksgiving in the completely empty nave. As we came out I looked at Milada and Milada looked at me. “Broadway?” she said. So we hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take us there. It was the only other part of New York we knew by name.

He drove us to Columbus Circle and then started down the diagonal thoroughfare. The lighted signs grew closer and larger and brighter and more blinding and the crowds became denser. And all the time we remained unimpressed. It was our first major disappointment. Suddenly I realized we had eaten nothing since noon.

When we asked the driver to take us to a restaurant, any restaurant, he drew up before the door of Jack Dempsey’s. The name was familiar, but I could not connect it with food in my mind. “Sure,” he said. “Best in New York. That’s what you want, don’t you?” We entered the door with trepidation, but as soon as we were seated our assurance returned. We were confident we knew how to order food in New York. There was no reason to hesitate over the menu. When the waiter came to our table we looked up at him brightly. “Bring us,” I said, “some ham and eggs.”