William saroyan a curved line

WILLIAM SAROYAN A CURVED LINE

I was living next door to the high school [ll. In the evenings the lights would go on and I would see men and women in the rooms. I would see them moving about but I wouldn't be able to hear them. I could see that they were saying something among themselves and I thought I would like to go among them and listen. It was a place to go. I didn't want to improve mymind. I was through with all that. I was getting a letter from the Pelman institute of America [2]every two weeks. I wasn't taking their course. I wasn't opening the envelopes. I knew exactly what they were saying. They were saying Chesterton [3] and Ben Lindsay [4] had taken their course and now had fine big brains, especially Chesterton. I knew they were telling me I too could have a fine big brain, but I wasn't opening the envelopes. I was turn­ing the matter over to my niece who was four years old. I was thinking maybe she would like to take the course and have brain like the wise men of the world. I was giving the letters to my niece, and she was taking them and sitting on the floor and cutting them with a pair of scissors. It was a fine thing. The Institute is a great American idea. My niece is cutting the letters with a small pair of scissors.

It was a place to go at night. I was tired of the radio. I had heard NRA [5] speeches, excerpts from Carmen, Tosti's "Goodbye" and "Trees"[6] everynight for over a year. Sometimes twice a night. I knew what would happen every night. It was the same downtown. I knew all the movies, what to expect. The pattern never changed. It was the same with symphonies even. Once a lady conducted, but it was the same Beethoven's Fifth, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"[7] and "The Blue Danube Waltz"[8]. It's been going on for years and years. The thing that worries me is that my great-grandchildren aregoing to have to listen to "The Blue Danube Waltz" too. It's gotten so that [9] even when the music isn't being played, we hear it. It's gotten into us. Years ago I used to like these fine things, but lately the more pathetic things interest me.

I thought I would go among the people at the night school and listen to them. Going to the school was like walking from one room into another, it was so close. I liked the idea of walking headlong into a group of people who were either lonely or
pathetically ambitious. '

The night I went was a Tuesday. The classes were English for Foreigners, Sewing, Dressmaking and Millinery, Leather Work, Wood Work, Radio, Arithmetic, Navigation, Theory of Flight, Typewriting and Commercial Art [10]. I had the printed schedule.

I went to the class in Commercial Art. Beauty with a motive. Practical grace I didn't know what to expect, but I walked in and sat down. There was a fat woman who gasped when she talked, and always talked. She was the teacher, and she had memorized a number of things from books about art and when I was in hearing dis­tance I heard her gasp. "There arefive arts, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and poetry." She was telling this to a middle-aged, dried-up little lady who was amazed, almost astounded. The little lady had just come to class, and she hadn't heard. It was news to her, and she was amazed that there were five arts. It appeared as if she believed one might have been sufficient. There was a sheet of white paper on the table before her, pencil, battle of ink and pen. She was delighted with the whole idea. She began to draw a picture of Marlene Dietrich [11]. She had a ten-cent moving magazine to copy from, but her sketch didn't look like Marlene Dietrich. Everything was out of proportion. It looked like a very good Matisse [12]. Only a very shrewd art critic would have been able to tell that it was not an original Matisse. It had all the artless subtlety. It was certainly the face of a woman. The dried-up lady couldn't think of anything else to draw. There were three other women drawing pictures of Marlene Dietrich. It was part of the course.

The men were painting display cards. They were thinking of increasing their incomes.

I heard the women talking about inspiration, and one of the younger women actually looked inspired, but I suppose she was slightly ill.

One of the men was making a pen and ink sketch of Lincoln. He was ABSOLUTELY inspired. The instant I saw him I could tell he was aflame with wonderful senti­ments. Every student of art draws Lincoln. There is something about the man. If you start to draw him, no matter how poorly you draw it would look exactly like Lincoln. It's the spirit, the inspiration. No one remembers how he looked. His face is like a trademark. The man had worked his sketch to the point where it was all but finished, and he was amazed. He was a man in his late thirties, and he wore a small Hitler-style moustache. I have reason to believe, however, that he was no a Nazi. It is simply that people, unknown to one another and separated by oceans and continents, areapt, now and then, to come upon the same sort of revelation in regardto some great human problem, such as sex, orto grow the same style of moustache. There is the well-known case of Havelock Ellis [13] and D.H. Lawrence [14], beards and all. I sat at the table behind the man with the Nazimoustache. The teacher had said that she would be with me in a moment. I sat and watched the man who was sketching Lincoln. He was looking about nervously to see if anyone was noticing what he had done. He expected something to happen. He hadn't known he had had it in him. The others were mere sign painters.

Therewas a young girl on the opposite side of his table. She was doing a charcoal portrait of a pretty girl. I thought it was someone she knew. It was Clara Bow [15]. I hadn't noticed the movie magazine she was copying from. She had already made her sketch of Marlane Dietrich. All over the class it was this way.

The man who was sketching Lincoln wanted the girl to notice what he had done, but she was busy putting the finishing touches on Clara Bow. Finally, with the will and impetuosity of the true artist, he got up and walked past the girl to get to the pencil sharpener. He wasn't using his pencil. He was making a pen and ink sketch of Lincoln. On his way, back to his seat, he stood over the girl, studying carefully her sketch of ClaraBow. The girl couldn't draw with the man looking over her shoulder. She couldn't move her hand. She was embarrassed. The man said her sketch was verygood, but she hadn't shaded the eyes just right. Having made a sketch of Lincoln, he had become a graduate art critic. He wanted to talk about art first. The girl didn't know what to say. She said something I didn't quite hear. It was something apologetic and not well articulated. I felt sorry for the man. His idea hadn't worked. He had expected something to happen. He had expected a warm interest in him from the girl. He had hoped she would ask to see what he had done, and then he would have thrilled her with his sketch of Lincoln. It hadn't worked. He sat down sullenly and began to put the last touches to Lincoln. Then he signed his name to the work and ran a heavy line beneath his name, giging it force and character. When the roll was taken I found out the girl's name was Harriet. I didn't get the last name [16]. She looked to be a clerk in the basement of some big department store. She was probably lonely too.

Now the teacher was free to introduce me to art. She stood over me and gasped, and I got a strong ardour from her. She began with the five arts and kept on. She had a schedule, or else it was simply that, like so many teachers, she was unmarried and had to do something, had to talk at least. The first thing I began listening to was about line. It took me that long to getused to her odour.

"By line,” she gasped, "we mean the boundaries of shapes. A vertical line denotes activity and growth. A horizontal line denotes rest and repose." She had. it pat. "A straight line is masculine," she said. "A curved line is feminine." She went on gasping. I couldn't tell what pleasure she got from it. I certainly hadn't encouraged her. "A vertical line," she said, "slightly curved is considered a line of beauty." There was an exclamation mark in her voice.

"Considered?" I said. "How do you mean?"

Then she understood that I was a radical, and that I was out for no good [17]. She became confused for a moment, then blushed with bitterness, then walked away to get me paper and a pencil. She placed the paper andpencil before me and told me I could draw anything I liked. I tried to draw the dried-up lady who had been amazed about art, and while I was doing so I could hear the teacher gasping to someone else, "There arethree fundamental farms. They arethe sphere, the cane, the cylinder, or modifications of them." My sketch of the amazed lady was very poor. I hadn't been able to get her amazement into it.

After an hour there was a short recess. Everyone sighed and went into the hall or out on the school steps. I offered the man who had sketched Lincoln a cigarette. He didn't smoke, but he got to talking. He talked in a low dreary voice. We stood on the school steps and I listened to him while I smoked a cigarette. It was Feb­ruary. The evening was mild. I was standing there smoking, listening to the man. I didn't get a word of what he was saying. I told him his sketch of Lincoln was as good as the one he had copied it from, maybe better. When the bell rang we walked back to the room and sat down again.

The genius of the. class came at eight for the second period only. She was a woman of about forty with a well-rounded body and gold teeth in her mouth. She wore a green sweater tight, and she was the only artist in the class who worked standing. She stood at the front of the class with her legs apart, one of those forty-year-old women who have young bodies. She was sketching a small plaster reproduction of a nude Grecian youth. With her back to me I could admire her, and there arewomen who are lovely from this point of view and unbearable from any other. One could sit and look at her for a long while, thinking about lines and which were feminine and which masculine, which denoted activity and which repose. It was a thing to do, a way to kill time. She had an old face, but from where I sat I couldn't see her face.

It felt splendid to be among such a group) of people, and walking home after class I decided I would go back the next evening and find out more about the man who had sketched Lincoln, and the girl he secretly loved, and the lady in the green sweater, and the amazed one, and the fat teacher who gasped, It would be something to do for a while, a place to go in the evening.

[ll high school - зд. вечерняя школа для взрослых, получающих еще одна специальность

[2] the Pelman Institute of America - от pelmanism (произвольное название) - система тренировки памяти, силы воли и т.д., предложенная В. Энневером а 1900 г.

[3] Chesterton - Дж.К, Честертон (1874-1936), известный английский романист, поэт и критик

[4] Ben- Lindsay - Бен Линдзи (1869-1943), судья, известный своими реформами отно­сительно методов обращения с малолетними преступниками

[5] NRA (National Recovery Administration) - Национальная администрация восстанов­ления, организация, созданная для обеспечения контроля при проведении в жизнь т.н. закона о восстановлении промышленности в период экономического кризиса 1929-1933 гг. а США

[6] Tosti's "Good-bye" and "Trees" - "Прощай" и "Деревья", названия песен Франческа Паoлo Тасти (1846-1916), английского композитора итальянского происхождения, автора большого количества популярных песен на итальянском и английском языках

[7] "The Sorcerer"s Apprentice" - "Ученик чародея", симфоническое скерцо Поля Дика (1865-1935), Французского композитора

[81 "The Blue Danube Waltz" - "Голубой Дунай", вальс И. Штрауса

[9] It's gotten so that... - Получалось так, что...

[10] Commercial Art - прикладное искусство

[11] Marlene Dietrich - Марлен Дитрих (1901-199), немецкая киноактриса, ставшая голливудской звездой; с 1930 года жила в США. Советскому зрители известна по Фильмам "Свидетель обвинения" и "Нюренбергский процесс"

[12] а verу good Matisse - очень хорошая картина Матисса. Анри Матисс (1869-1954), Французский художник

[13] Hayelock Ellis - Генри Х. Эллис (1859-1939), английский психолог и философ; оставил медицинскую практику ради изучения теоретических проблем психологии, особенно психологии секса; автор многих книг по этим вопросам

[14] D.H. Lawrence - Дэвид Лоуренс (1885-1930), английский писатель, автор романов "Sons and Lovers"(1913), "Lady Chatterlay's Lover"(1928), "The Rainbow"(1929), в которых также много внимания уделено вопросам психологии секса

[15] Clara Bow - Клара Бау, известная голливудская киноактриса 30-х годов; ввела в моду прическу из мелких кудрей и ярко накрашенные губы бантиком

[16] the last name - зд. фамилия

[17] I was out for no good - я задумал недрброе

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