From Moscow Carrousel, pages 49-51:
Having just returned from a daring journey by iron horse
and petrol-wagon through the United States of America,
Boris Andreyevich recounted strange and fantastic tales
of that distant realm to a circle of round-mouthed but
withal incredulous Muscovites. He touched upon the
exploits of one bedight Al Capone and his gallant
retainers; upon cities entirely consecrated to the
business of speedy divorces; upon contraband trade in
liquors ranking among the major industries of that
phantasmagoric land; upon race hatreds, strange laws,
corrupt politicians, a nightmare city named Hollywood,
and divers other far-fetched matters.
Men who, returning from a visit to the country of Soviets,
tell tales of curious manners and shuddering horrors have
nothing on Boris Andreyevich after his sojourn in
America.
But there are few to believe him. Did he not tell of
respectable bankers and merchants -- ay, even city
fathers -- who mix socially with bandits and
contrabandits? Did not an impeccable and well-heeled
gentleman offer to introduce him to Al Capone, a person
strongly suspected of breaking the law? Muscovites may be
naive and believing folk, but not naive enough to believe
such inventions.
Boris Andreyevich, in sooth, went further. The American
government, he recounted, attempts to exact a percentage
in the form of income taxes on the pecuniary gains of
bootlegging, hijacking, and other indigenous crimes. In
one state of that land the purchase and sale of
cigarettes is forbidden; in one state divorce for any
reason is strictly prohibited whereas in another it is not
only legal but fashionable to divorce in six weeks. In
the South he shocked a Negro by shaking hands with him,
the Negro averring it was the first time in his life he
had shaken hands with a white man. Boris Andreyevich told
other incredible facts about the treatment of black men,
until his wife exclaimed indignantly:
"If I were in America I would marry a Negro, just to show
them!"
The weary traveler then spun nightmarish fancies about the
new Klondike called Hollywood. He had himself received a
large sum weekly as consultant on a picture which was not
produced, and suffered tortures of conscience on the sands
of Santa Monica in weeks when he drew the large fee
without managing to find the executive with whom he needs
consult.
On and on went the tales, growing stranger and less
credible as he proceeded. He implied that in leaving the
American shores he escaped from a madhouse. And he did
bless his stars that he is back in a safe and sane
and reasonable place like the Union of Soviets.
"Our G.P.U.," quoth he, "would end gangsters and
bootleggers in that land in a week."
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