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PARTISAN REVIEW
punishments, statuary, painting, costumery, cosmetic and all artistry, cere–
monies and sacraments as has its so-notoriously nigh anatomical
proximate, procreation.
It is the driver's business to know these middle-class East End streets
like the back of his hand. He himself lives as do most blue collars over
West of the river. (Where his helper may reside Joe Naperalski has never
once wondered. The man gets to work on time, somehow, certainly not
in any car of his own.)
Joe is a good bit larger than most of us, second-generation Polish, and
addicted to cigars. He is father of four so far, others to come. Three of
these offipring are to perish early in World War II, and three for one fam–
ily is more than expected at least in the New World. These losses finished
off Janko Naperalski at age eighty-three in 1942. Joe's father had been a
seminarian at Poznan when in 1875 Bismarck's Prussian
KulturkampJfor–
bade them the Polish tongue. Cardinal Ledochowski defied the decree and
left for Rome even as young Naperalski left for America. Here it seems
he failed to resume his religious aspirations. The size of him helped in his
life-long manual labors. But for all his inherited physical might, Joe too
will fail rather when his sons so quickly go in our War against the ambi–
tion of Japan. His friends said something came over him then.
However, this is many years away. His vigorous services, as straight–
forward and assured as those of any Motor Sergeant Major, are duly
valued in the Company and not unknown to old Sam Morman himself.
This will be proven in hard times ahead when even during the darkest
Depression years there will always be for Joe at least part-time work. His
attendance is required the Sabbath by Mrs. Naperalski to St. Adelbert's
and by his fellows to the Casimir the Great Social Club on Friday nights.
This afternoon, for all Joe's bodily mass and for all the good suspen–
sion of the vehicle he bobs up and down erect in the cab with his cigar.
There is a washboard stretch or two even on Sherman Street. His fingers
on the steering wheel tap as if to some melody, those mitts so huge–
Lafayette said he never in his life saw bigger hands on a man than George
Washington's. Joe's hands must be like them, doubdess coarser. Joe's fea–
tures are of dimensions that might have excited a craniometrician could
he have indexed the structures underlying the face.
In expression this face was responsive to the mos t fleeting emotion,
as was his voice which tended to the emphatic far more than he himself
dreamed. It was given to him all unwitting to fling his arms about for no
apparent reason. Some people were alarmed by this appearance and man–
ner, although as far as possible Joe was a man of peace.
