Gertie & the G.l.s

U.S. soldiers in Paris were still recovering last week from a session with Gertrude Stein, a peculiarly international American. The grey little author of The Making of Americans, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and Wars I Have Seen, who recently, returned to Paris after living out the German occupation in the south of France, lectured them like a Dutch aunt at the American Red Cross Club. Reported, TIME Correspondent Percy Knauth, who was there:

This Stein is easier to understand when she is talking than when she is writing, but there still remains a considerable gap between her mind and that of the average American soldier in this war.

"You're all too serious," was the substance of her complaint. "If we aren't terribly careful, the Germans are going to win this war in the sense that all human feeling will be lost between people and nations. Nowadays nobody says anything nice to anybody any more. Every day somebody should say something nice about somebody else. Every nation should say something nice about another nation. Each of you should be like Boy Scouts and smile at least once a day at Frenchmen."

The French, Miss Stein went on to say, are utterly exhausted. "Americans don't realize the depth of French fatigue. Their feeling in the occupation was that some time the Americans would come and then everything would be wonderful. Then the Americans came; they were all solemn, serious, hard-working boys and the French were very disappointed.

"It's difficult to explain--you see, the last American army sort of came over on a vacation; by comparison with your experiences it was a sort of vacation. They had their action in concentrated doses and then they came back here and got drunk and were very gay. The French expected you to be like them and you aren't. You're serious; you do your job; you don't always get drunk, at least not all of you.

"You must smile at somebody--it's shameful--you never smile at anybody, not even at children. How many of you have smiled today at a Frenchman or a French woman or even at a French child? Go on, raise your hands--how many of you?"

One lone hand showed. Then the fireworks started.

Thinking Is Thinking. A captain got up. "I rise to the defense of the American soldier," he began. "Now on this issue of sobriety. ..." That was as far as he got. After five minutes of trying to get a word in edgewise on the issue of sobriety, he sat down, a defeated man.

Another hand waved. "You over there, what do you want?" said Miss Stein. "I rise to the defense of the captain," said a coveralled G.I. The room exploded in laughter. After a while he got started again: "Miss Stein, I think you misunderstood the captain on this question of being sober. You see, we've got another war to fight when this one. ..." After a ten-minute dissertation by Miss Stein concerning the impossibility of anyone's being able to predict when there would be another war, although there undoubtedly would be one, the G.I. started again: "Miss Stein, I mean the war in the Pacific. You see, when we get through over here."

"Good heavens, man, don't worry so much! What I am getting at is that in this horrible war we're in danger of losing our humanity. The trouble is you're all feeling too sorry for yourselves, everybody's feeling sorry for themselves--well, go on, what is it?"

Another G.I. had raised his hand. "I'm only half educated," he said, "but I'm worried, Miss Stein. That's why I read books like this"--he produced a copy of Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace-- "Now I've been thinking and I'm worried."

"For heaven's sake, man," Miss Stein broke in, "don't think so much! Thinking is a solemn process. It worries you when you're thinking. You've got to stop thinking and lean over the fence and talk to your neighbor about the crops.

"Now let me tell you something. The other day Picasso and I were talking and we said to each other: 'Well, we're geniuses, there doesn't seem to be much doubt about that.' Then we started trying to find out what makes us geniuses different from every other Tom, Dick and Harry. Well, it's very difficult. . . .

"We live on this earth and we see something else. An artist sees something else and tries to create it. The rest of us see it and are subject to it. The artist in trying to create it dominates it. The rest of us are dominated by it--birth, life, death, the finite and the infinite. Do you see what I mean? The artist is active; by his action he dominates life and its worries. Others are dominated by it. If you think too much about that you worry too much."

Plumbing Is Plumbing. Through all of this a G.I. had been glowering. He had tried to get going earlier in the evening and had been shushed. Now he rose.

"I object," he said in the ringing accents of The Bronx.

"You object?" said Miss Stein. "Well, go on, what do you object to?" The G.I. kept his mind rigidly on its single track.

"I object to the speaker's attempt to dominate the audience. This is a parliamentary meeting. . . ."

"Good gracious heavens, man," exploded Miss Stein. "I've been invited here to dominate the audience! [Smiling] That's what I'm supposed to do. . . ."

"I still object," continued the G.I. "This is a parliamentary discussion and nobody can get a word in edgewise. . . ." Then somebody pulled him back down on his seat.

Miss Stein waved an O.K. to another G.I.

"Coming back to your talk about artists, Miss Stein," he said, "maybe we aren't all artists but we all do something and do our best at it. Take plumbing, for instance--plumbing is important too and I'd like to be the best plumber. . . ."

Miss Stein waved him down. "There again you'd be worrying too much," she said. "No matter how hard you try you'll never turn out anything but good average plumbing. Good average plumbing is good enough and probably the best you or anyone else can do, so why worry about whose plumbing is better than yours and whose is best?"

Somewhere along here the discussion ended. When last seen, Miss Stein, in her shapeless russet coat and little brown hat mashed onto her head, was shaking hands with the Bronx soldier who had tried to object. He was still glowering.

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