# Letters from England/Traffic

​Traffic
BUT as long as I live I shall never become reconciled to what is known here as “traffic,” that is, the volume of vehicles in the streets. I recall with horror the day on which they first brought me to London. At the outset they conveyed me by train, then they rushed through some huge glass halls and thrust me into a barred cage which looks like scales for weighing cattle; this is a lift, and down it went through an ugly steel-plated well, whereupon they drew me out and led me through serpentine subterranean passages; it was like a nightmare. Then there was a sort of tunnel or channel with railway lines, and a snorting train flew in; they hurled me into it, and the train flew on; the atmosphere was oppressive with a mildewy closeness, ​evidently owing to the proximity of hell, thereupon they again took me out and rushed me through new catacombs to a moving stair case, which clatters like a mill and hastens upwards with the people on it; I tell you, it is like a fever. Then more stairs and staircases, and in spite of my objections they led me out into the street, where my heart sank. Without end or interruption moves a fourfold girdle of vehicles; buses, panting mastodons dashing along in droves with flocks of tiny mortals on their backs; purring motor-cars, lorries, steam engines, cyclists, buses, buses, flying packs of motor-cars, people rushing along, tractors, ambulances, people scrambling like squirrels on to the tops of buses, a new flock of motor elephants, that’s it, and now it all comes to a standstill, a grunting and rattling flood, and it cannot move forward; but I cannot move forward either, recalling the horror which was then roused in me by the idea that I must get to the other side of the street. I managed it with a certain amount of success, and since ​then I have crossed the London streets on countless occasions, but as long as I live I shall never become reconciled to it.
Then I returned from London, crushed, despairing, overwhelmed in mind and body; for the first time in my life I experienced a blind and furious repugnance to modern civilization. It seemed to me that there was something barbarous and disastrous in this dread accumulation of people; it is said that there are seven and a half millions of them here, but I did not count them. I only know that my first impression of this huge assembly was almost a tragic one; I felt uneasy and I had a boundless yearning for Prague, as if I were a child who had lost its way in a forest. Yes, I may as well confess to you that I was afraid; I was afraid that I should get lost, that I should be run over by a motor-bus, that something would happen to me, that it was all up with me, that human life is worthless, that man is a large-sized bacillus swarming by the million on a sort of mouldy potato, that perhaps the whole thing ​ ​was only a bad dream, that mankind would perish as the result of some dreadful catastrophe, that man is powerless, that for no reason whatever I should burst out crying, and that everyone would laugh at me—the whole seven and a half millions of them. Perhaps some time later on I shall realize what at the first sight of it frightened me so much and filled me with endless uneasiness. But never mind now, to-day I have become a little used to it; I walk, run, move out of the way, ride, climb to the tops of vehicles or rush through lifts and tubes just like anyone else, but only on one condition—that I do not think about it. As soon as I want to bear in mind what is happening around me, I again have the tormenting feeling of something evil, ghastly and disastrous, for which I am no match. And then, do you know, I am unbearably distressed. And sometimes the whole lot comes to a standstill for half an hour, simply because there is too much of it. Sometimes at Charing Cross a knot is formed, and before they ​unravel it, there is a stoppage of conveyances from the Bank to somewhere in Brompton Road, and in the meanwhile you in your vehicle can reflect on what it will be like in twenty years. As such a congestion arises quite often, many people reflect about this. It has not yet been decided whether they are to walk on the roofs or under the earth; the only certain thing is that it cannot be done on the earth—which is a remarkable achievement of modern civilization. As regards myself, I give precedence to the earth, like the giant Antaeus. I have drawn you a picture, but the real thing is even worse, because it roars like a factory. On the other hand, the chauffeurs do not sound their hooters like mad and the people do not call each other names; they are such quiet people.
In the meanwhile I have found out, among other things, that the wild cry “o-ei-o” in the street means potatoes; “oi” is oil, and “u-u” is a bottle of something mysterious. And sometimes in the most important streets ​a whole band takes up its position on the edge of the kerb and plays, blowing trumpets, beating drums and collecting pennies, or an Italian tenor comes in front of the windows and sings “Rigoletto,” “Trovatore,” or a fervid song of yearning, just as in Naples. But I have met only a single person who whistled; it was in Cromwell Road, and he was a negro.