The Promised Land

by Mary Antin

MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN[ToList]

Of the interior of the house I remember only one room, and not so much the room as the window, which had a blue sash curtain, and beyond the curtain a view of a narrow, walled garden, where deep-red dahlias grew. The garden belonged to the house adjoining my grandfather's, where lived the Gentile girl who was kind to me.

Concerning my dahlias I have been told that they were not dahlias at all, but poppies. As a conscientious historian I am bound to record every rumor, but I retain the right to cling to my own impression. Indeed, I must insist on my dahlias, if I am to preserve the garden at all. I have so long believed in them, that if I try to see poppies in those red masses over the wall, the whole garden crumbles away, and leaves me a gray blank. I have nothing against poppies. It is only that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling to pieces, if any one but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.

Ours was a quiet neighborhood. Across the narrow street was the orderly front of the Korpus, or military academy, with straight rows of unshuttered windows. It was an imposing edifice in the eyes of us all, because it was built of brick, and was several stories high. At one of the windows I pretend I remember seeing a tailor mending the uniforms of the cadets. I knew the uniforms, and I knew, in later years, the man who had been the tailor; but I am not sure that he did not emigrate to America, there to seek his fortune in a candy shop, and his happiness in a family of triplets, twins, and even odds, long before I was old enough to toddle as far as the gate.

Behind my grandfather's house was a low hill, which I do not remember as a mountain. Perhaps it was only a hump in the ground. This eminence, of whatever stature, was a part of the Vall, a longer and higher ridge on the top of which was a promenade, and which was said to be the burying-ground of Napoleonic soldiers. This historic rumor meant very little to me, for I never knew what Napoleon was.

It was not my way to accept unchallenged every superstition that came to my ears. Among the wild flowers that grew on the grassy slopes of the Vall, there was a small daisy, popularly called "blind flower," because it was supposed to cause blindness in rash children who picked it. I was rash, if I was awake; and I picked "blind flowers" behind the house, handfuls of them, and enjoyed my eyesight unimpaired. If my faith in nursery lore was shaken by this experience, I kept my discovery to myself, and did not undertake to enlighten my playmates. I find other instances, later on, of the curious fact that I was content with finding out for myself. It is curious to me because I am not so reticent now. When I discover anything, if only a new tint in the red sunset, I must publish the fact to all my friends. Is it possible that in my childish reflections I recognized the fact that ours was a secretive atmosphere, where knowledge was for the few, and wisdom was sometimes a capital offence?

In the summer-time I lived outdoors considerably. I found many occasions to visit my mother in the store, which gave me a long walk. If my errand was not pressing—or perhaps even if it was—I made a long stop on the Platz, especially if I had a companion with me. The Platz was a rectangular space in the centre of a roomy square, with a shady promenade around its level lawn. The Korpus faced on the Platz, which was its drill ground. Around the square were grouped the fine residences of the officers of the Korpus, with a great white church occupying one side. These buildings had a fearful interest for me, especially the church, as the dwellings and sanctuary of the enemy; but on the Platz I was not afraid to play and seek adventures. I loved to watch the cadets drill and play ball, or pass them close as they promenaded, two and two, looking so perfect in white trousers and jackets and visored caps. I loved to run with my playmates and lay out all sorts of geometric figures on the four straight sides of the promenade; patterns of infinite variety, traceable only by a pair of tireless feet. If one got so wild with play as to forget all fear, one could swing, until chased away by the guard, on the heavy chain festoons that encircled the monument at one side of the square. This was the only monument in Polotzk, dedicated I never knew to whom or what. It was the monument, as the sky was the sky, and the earth, earth: the only phenomenon of its kind, mysterious, unquestionable.

It was not far from the limits of Polotzk to the fields and woods. My father was fond of taking us children for a long walk on a Sabbath afternoon. I have little pictures in my mind of places where we went, though I doubt if they could be found from my descriptions. I try in vain to conjure up a panoramic view of the neighborhood. Even when I stood on the apex of the Vall, and saw the level country spread in all directions, my inexperienced eyes failed to give me the picture of the whole. I saw the houses in the streets below, all going to market. The highroads wandered out into the country, and disappeared in the sunny distance, where the edge of the earth and the edge of the sky fitted together, like a jewel box with the lid ajar. In these things I saw what a child always sees: the unrelated fragments of a vast, mysterious world. But although my geography may be vague, and the scenes I remember as the pieces of a paper puzzle, still my breath catches as I replace this bit or that, and coax the edges to fit together. I am obstinately positive of some points, and for the rest, you may amend the puzzle if you can. You may make a survey of Polotzk ever so accurate, and show me where I was wrong; still I am the better guide. You may show that my adventureful road led nowhere, but I can prove, by the quickening of my pulse and the throbbing of my rapid recollections, that things happened to me there or here; and I shall be believed, not you. And so over the vague canvas of scenes half remembered, half imagined, I draw the brush of recollection, and pick out here a landmark, there a figure, and set my own feet back in the old ways, and live over the old events. It is real enough, as by my beating heart you might know.

Sometimes my father took us out by the Long Road. There is no road in the neighborhood of Polotzk by that name, but I know very well that the way was long to my little feet; and long are the backward thoughts that creep along it, like a sunbeam travelling with the day.