He freely explained what the audience was feeling rather than the characters, and who was the audience to disagree with a man from Harvard! When he spoke at the edge of the screen, he himself was transported, along with his audience, into a sunny realm where the citizens were all smarter, happier, and bursting with the fruit of knowledge. If we were mermaids, of course we would make the right sacrifices, for we are all as good as our heroes, if only for as long as we are watching them. There was hearty applause in every audience, both for his passion, and for themselves, because he had made them feel intelligent for having already enjoyed Annette Kellerman. At first, this was enough.

3

Six weeks into his tour, in the San Francisco train station, the coat under his head, the canisters of his beloved movie under his heels, Münsterberg was a shambles. He tried to make himself comfortable as night fell. But at nine o’clock, long after the last scheduled train was supposed to pull in, the middle platform came to life with the arrival of a ten-car train from Stockton. When it nosed into the station, the doors flew open, and out spilled a party. Two hundred people jumped, skipped, and sprinted off the train, waving their arms and singing with off-key enthusiasm.

This was jarring enough to Münsterberg. But then, two platforms over, a second train arrived. Ten minutes later, there was a third train, and a fourth. All night long, trains arrived from San Jose, from Santa Cruz, the mountains and the valleys around the Bay, and farther: Sacramento, Eureka, the mining towns of the Sierra. One of them came from Reno, Nevada, and another from Eugene, Oregon.

Münsterberg pretended to sleep, his spine to the platform. Some of the revelers began to nail up bunting, and the sound of hammering finally uprighted him. He rubbed his eyes—the bunting fell in patriotic semicircles of red, white, and blue. The people who had gotten off the trains had made their own signs and placards to identify themselves, and they were beginning to gather together in various groups, farmers here, lumberjacks there, and in various other stations were Knights of Pythias, Sons of the Serpent, honor guards, ladies’ auxiliaries, and Gymnasium Girls, the last of these practicing forward cartwheels and shrieking in happiness.

Münsterberg stood, his weak heart thumping with dismay. He hoped this carnival was but a nightmare, but, no, he was fully awake and becoming alive with bedazzled horror. He understood what the crowds and the practicing and the bunting meant.

The Third Liberty Loan tour had arrived in San Francisco.