I went about my business and gave no mind to anybody. For none of the Americans had said anything to me personally. But I could feel the hot breath of their hellish hate. It was vastly interesting to study a group of average white Americans who had carried abroad and were sowing the seeds of their poisonous hate. The young Frenchman enjoyed repeating to me the phrases he overheard. He did not have a profound understanding of the vileness of some of those phrases in English. "Ils sont incompréhensible, ces Américains," said the Frenchman. "Ils sont les vrais barbares."
The general manager of the cinema studio did not enjoy complicated situations. I had come up against him before I met Mr. Ingram, when I was dancing with the group. The leading dancer had told me that the manager had said I could not continue in the dance, because the motion picture was being made for American consumption.
Said the manager to me one day: "You know, I knew Julius Rosenwald, and he has recently left a pile of money for Negro education and culture. Now don't you think that it is better to have a fortune to give to improve another race under capitalism than to have no fortune under Bolshevism?" The manager had heard about my visit to Russia. I said I thought it was all right to give money for Negro culture, because Negro workers had helped to make Jewish as well as other American capital. The manager was a Jew.
The movie establishment was like a realistic dream of my romantic idea of a great medieval domain. There were gangs of workers engaged in manual work, building up, tearing down and clearing away. Motor cars dashed in and out with important persons and motor buses carried the crowds. Gentlemen and ladies with their pages went riding by on caparisoned horses. The eager extras swarmed like bees together, many costumed and made up like attendants at a medieval banquet. The leading ladies, on the scene or off, were attired and treated like princesses, and the director was the great lord in the eyes of all. I used to think that Negroes lacked organized-labor consciousness more than did any other group. But it was much worse on that movie lot. I saw the worst sort of sycophancy in the world among the extras crowd, each one hoping that some affected way of acting or speaking might recommend him for a privileged place.
Rex Ingram's inviting me to eat at his table created a little problem. I was literally besieged by employees, extras and aspirants. Some desired to get in personal touch with the director through me: "Oh, the director had you to dinner, and over at his house! What a beautiful gesture, and how proud you must be!" The news reached the café that I frequented in Nice, and the proprietor, waiters and customers all treated me with particular attention. They all thought that I had achieved something marvelous, something special. And as none of them knew anything about the difference between poetry and piggery, it was hard to convince them that Rex Ingram had honored me only because I was a poet; that all I had was an ordinary job and that I was not specially placed to further their ambitions.
Rex Ingram held some very advanced ideas on world politics. He was interested in the life and thought and achievements of minority groups, and whenever he ran into me he had something interesting to say. And each time, as soon as his back was turned, the sycophants besieged me to learn what he had talked about. As that was embarrassing, I did my work and avoided the director as much as possible.
Among the employees there was an Italian who was specially troublesome. He had lived somewhere in America and acquired a smattering of English. He sensed the undercurrent of feeling against me among the American element and desired to show in what direction his sympathy was slanted. The Italian was in charge of the transportation of employees from St. Augustine to Nice. He often had a special remark for me: "Having a good time over here, eh?—les jolies jeunes filles. It would be different in America." Two Polish girls, a Frenchman and myself were rather friendly and always went down together. The Italian always tried to separate us, finding some reason to hold one or two of us behind by putting somebody before and between. The Frenchman hated the Italian and called him the petit caïd.
One evening the Italian not only held me back, but kept me waiting and waiting until I lost patience. He let one of the buses go, although there were vacant places. I said, "What's the idea? What game are you playing?" He said, "You know in America, you'd have to wait for the last and ride by yourself." I said, "Yes, you—you have sucked off so much America, that you need some fascist castor oil to purge you." He said, "I think you'll want to box next; all Negroes are boxers." I said, "Look here, I won't defile my hands with your dirty dago skin, but I'll cut your gut out." I went suddenly mad and pulled my knife and he ran around the bus, crying that the Negro was after him with a knife.
In a moment sanity flashed back into me as quickly as it had fled and I put the knife in my pocket. It was a fine clean blade. Lucien had given it to me in Toulon. A friendly fellow took me up on his motorcycle and we dashed away from the damned place. It was the first time I had ever drawn a blade in a fight, and I was ashamed. The Frenchman said: "What are you ashamed of, when you didn't do it? You should have stuck him in his belly and made one Italian less. Italy and France are certain to go to war, and I think they should start right now." That was ten years ago.
The business manager made much trouble for me over the incident. He talked a lot about an intelligent Negro not being able to control himself. And if I had to use a weapon, he wanted to know, why should it be a knife? For it was a general idea that the Negro race was addicted to the use of the knife. Even though I was on trial, with the judge prejudiced against me, I could not resist saying, "When bad traits are wished upon a whole group of people, it isn't so surprising if the best of us sometimes unconsciously exhibit some of the worst traits."