Raw Material

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

We were all righteously indignant over such elements of life in Europe, and quite exalted in our certainty that the distinguished immigrant would find nothing like that in our midst. The sole and only representative of the military caste was the lieutenant who drilled the university battalion, and he was a most unassuming young American who never on any occasion wore white broadcloth, put on his plain dark-blue uniform as seldom as possible, and for the most part wore a pepper-and-salt business suit and a derby hat. Since there were no trees on the Western plains, there was no equivalent to the iniquitous lumber merchant, the nearest approach being a man who had made a good deal of money out of lucky guesses in real estate. But he would have dropped dead before putting on a sash and a gold chain.

So we awaited the Behrens full of pride and pleasure. When they arrived, everybody in the faculty gave receptions and lunch-parties for them, and all we children rejoiced in the unlimited leavings of fried chicken (it was in September), ice cream, and cake, which were at our disposition after these “functions,” as the Faculty ladies called them. Although surprisingly unceremonious as to table manners, the Behrens were as nice as we expected to find them; and they were evidently delighted with the warm-hearted, open-handed good nature of Americans, by the cordiality of their reception (which seemed quite to amaze them) by the wide-open doors which led anywhere they might wish to go, by the absence of class distinction, and by the generosity with which America supported universities, hospitals, libraries, and public schools. When the University opened, Professor Behrens threw himself into his teaching and soon became one of the favorite professors. He had a song sung about him at the winter concert of the Glee Club; and the Junior year-book was dedicated to him in the spring. By that time the Behrens children, who were in the eighth, fifth, and third grades of my public school were no longer to be distinguished from the rest of us, running and yelling on the hard-beaten earth of the playground, and thoroughly acquainted with duck-on-a-rock, prisoner’s base, and run-sheep-run. Julie and I were classmates in the fifth grade that year, and the next and the next.

But just as we were about to pass together into the exalted rank of the eighth grade, Professor Behrens received a call to be Rector (Julie explained to me that this had nothing to do with a church, but was the same as our Chancellor) of a university in his own country.

It seemed such an advancement to be promoted from Professor to Chancellor that it was no surprise to have him accept, and to see Mrs. Behrens begin hastily to pack up the family belongings. But what did surprise us was the sudden revelation brought out by this event, of a great home-sickness on the part of the Behrens to get back to a “civilized country.” This was one of the phrases Julie overheard her father saying to her mother, which she repeated to me, and I to my parents. A faculty circle gets its news by about the same channels as an army post or a village sewing circle. So by the time this remark had reached my parents it did not surprise them. The Behrens, although still heartily grateful for all the kindness that had been shown them, although still feeling a lively affection for the good-hearted qualities in American life, could not conceal their immense relief at the prospect of the change. Professor Behrens discussed the question with the open frankness of a scientist before a new phenomenon: “I had no idea, till I had to go without them, how vital to civilization are the finer shades, the polish, the stability, the decorum, which comes only with long life of a society in an old country. I had never thought of them, had always supposed, of course, they were to be found everywhere. It is not that I blame America for not having them ... nothing but time can give them ... but there is no denying that they give a different color to life, the same difference of color there is between camping out in a cave, ever so fine and airy and open a cave, and living in a well-ordered house with the appurtenances of civilization. There is a certain something which springs up from such niceties of life.... I can hardly wait to get home, and give a real dinner with well-trained servants, and cultivated, established guests who have had a social position for so long that it is a part of them. The crudeness, the abruptness, the roughness in human intercourse here! And the total lack on the part of people in the lower classes of any sense of the fitness of things! The conductor on the street-car slapped me on the back the other day!”

So we gave them a grand good-by reception in the gymnasium, and we faculty-children fairly swam in lemonade and wallowed in left-over cake. The faculty presented Professor Behrens with a beautifully bound edition of Emerson, and Mrs. Behrens with a little pearl pendant; and then they went away, and we supposed we would never see them again.

Julie and I corresponded once in a while as children do, the letters growing less frequent as Julie evidently began to forget her English. Mrs. Behrens wrote back a round-robin letter or two to be passed about among her faculty friends, one of them describing the splendid, ceremonious, Old-World way in which Professor Behrens was inducted into his new position. She spoke with special pride of the way in which both the military and municipal authorities of the town had turned out to do him honor, the soldiers, officers, and the Mayor of the town marching at the head of the procession, the latter in his bright sash and gold chain of office. It seemed to us we had heard something about that Mayor before, but we could not remember what it was.

And then Julie forgot her English altogether, and Mrs. Behrens’ letters dwindled and there were none.

I got on through the eighth grade and went into the University prep-school. After three years there, my father was called to a better position in another State University. As we were settling ourselves in the new home, what should we hear but that a distinguished European scientist was about to be added to the faculty, none other than Professor Behrens.

Foreigners, even distinguished ones, were more common in American faculties then than they had been seven years before; there was a large German Department, with many native German instructors; and the University was further east and hence not so open-heartedly welcoming. There was, therefore, no such stir over the newcomers as on their first arrival although every one was very nice to them and the President’s wife had Mrs. Behrens stand by her in the receiving line at the first of the faculty receptions. But the Behrens did not seem to notice that there was anything lacking in their treatment. You never saw people more delighted than they were to be back in America.

“It was worse than I remembered,” Professor Behrens told my father. “After an experience of the free, breezy, self-respecting life in America it was simply unendurable. Suffocating, simply suffocating! With the most ridiculous caste spirit. Rusted to a stand-still with cock-sure conservatism! An instant, hermetic closing up of every pore at any mention of new possibilities for human nature, or for human organizations. And such absurd, stiff, artificial rules of conduct and precedence in society! Let me tell you an episode which will seem almost incredible to you, but which really decided us to come back here. At a garden party my wife ... my wife!... seeing there the wife of the General commanding the troops in the town garrison and knowing her quite well, stepped across the lawn to speak to her, one lady to another. Will you believe it, because she had not waited till the General’s wife had summoned her to her circle, my poor wife received a cold, unrecognizing stare, her outstretched hand was left hanging in the air, and the General’s wife turned her back on her. And when I was furious and protested, I was made uncomfortable, seriously uncomfortable!”