Merian C. Cooper as returned to America - after four years of European/Russian residency. Fighting in both WWI and the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, pronounced "dead" twice; and escaping a Bolshevik prison to trek 800 kilometers across the Eastern Russian outback to Riga, Latvia, Coooper wrote these thoughts upon his arrival to New York City in 1921.
"I must strike through unspeakable opposition, and fight battles every one of which costs me my heart's blood. Day and night I am in straits, for those enemies are so artulf that many I struck to death still give themselves the appearance of being alive, changing themselves into all forms, and spoiling day and night for me... Everywhere, and when I should least suspect it, I discovered on the ground traces of their silvery slime... they poured hell into my heart, so that I wept poison and sighed fire; they crouched near me even in my dreams; and I see horrible specters, noble lackey faces with gnashing faces and threatening noses, and deadly eyes glaring from cowls, and white ruffled hands with gleaming knives.
"And even the old woman who lives near me in the next room considers me to be mad, and says that I talk the maddest nonsense in my sleep; and the other night she plainly heard me calling out -- 'Dulcina [sic] is the fairest woman in the world, and I the happiest knight on earth; but it is not meet that my weakness should disown this truth. Strike with your own lance, Sir Knight!"
Pictured: Merian C. Cooper with Cedric Fauntleroy next to their Fokker D4 - during the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920.
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