A Complex Fate

Abstract

If, according to Henry James, “it's a complex fate, being an American,” it is a no less complex fate being an Americanist, especially when you were born in Europe, in a non-English speaking country. Unlike poets (as well as kings and dalai-lamas and humorists too probably), Americanists are not born, but made. For my part, at least, I was made one by very slow stages, and my education, like that of Henry Adams, began quite early. For, though I didn't go to America until I was nearly thirty, America came to me when I was still a very small child. This occurred during World War I, the Great War, as it was called then. I was living at my great-grand-parents' in a village in Berry, while my father was at the front and my mother worked in the post-office at Orléans (my birth-place). Suddenly — it must have been in 1917 or 1918, I was about three at the time-our village was invaded by a troop of Sammies. I was thrilled. I can still see diem very vividly. They looked so smart and martial in their khaki uniforms and broad-brimmed hats or saucy helmets. They were so different from the jaded French soldiers in faded grey-blue uniforms I saw from time to time, and, above all they spoke a language which no one understood. I gaped at them for hours, while they drilled on the village square or played football, occasionally breaking window-panes, but always paying for the damages right away. They broke one at my great-grand-parents, while we were having lunch, and my great-grand-mother was very angry, but they soon pacified her. They were very generous indeed, especially with children. I loved them. They carried me in their arms, took me on walks, gave me large slices of bread and salt butter, a rare delicacy, and even small coins, nickels and pennies with buffaloes and Indian heads, which I still have.