James Michener The Novel

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to the grain, they lost their forward thrust - they were doomed to
mediocrity: 'What is it you're not telling me?' I asked, almost in
desperation, and Devlan said softly: 'The famous Cambridge Four,
brilliant beyond compare, daring like no others jugglers with nerves of
steel - they loved one another. The were a brotherhood, and they will
resound in history whe their detractors are forgotten,~ecause they stood
for some thing.' Rising and walking toward the river, he said to n
one:"They were my Cambridge fellows, my peers and m preceptors.' 'You
don't mean you want to be a spy? To betray you nation and others?'
'Of course not. I mean I want to live with a burnin intensity - to have
the courage to pay whatever price i exacted.' After a long walk along
the riverbank, we returned to ou hotel and in the reception area we each
hesitated whe accepting our individual room keys, but nothing eventuate
and we went each to his own bed. I did not sleep that night. Twisting and
tossing, I tried t absorb what had been said in the quiet restaurant, t
winnow wisdom from the chaff. When morning broke ove the city I had
identified those truths that would animate m teaching life: 'An artist is
a creative man who cannot an indeed should not lead a normal life. He
should fin sustenance from trusted friends like himself. His task is t
provide society with a fresh and sometimes necessarily aci portrait of
itself. And the highest good in this world, th behavior by which man is
judged, is that he be loyal to hi friends, no matter what the
consequences.' When light filled my room I riffled through my gear t
find a pencil and scrambled about to locate a piece of pape on which I
could write in complete sentences, lest I forge them, my four maxims. But
when I read them over I note a serious omission in the last and added a
postscript: suppose she could be a woman, too.' That evening, as we
approached Venice and located th
mainland depots where cars were parked while their driver
transferred luggage to one of the vaporettos, those noisy
water taxis that plied the canals, Devlan said: 'Venice is a city for
lovers,' and I said rather childishly, as I realized later: 'I call it
Venezia,' and he reprimanded me: 'Henry James called it by the English
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name. He set the rules.' That night I made no protest when he told the
concierge: 'Double room,' and I was content when Devlan accepted the
single key and led the way to the second floor. The first day in
Venice passed for each of us as if we were encased in a golden dream. I
had never before experienced sexual passion and its force staggered me. I
was like the little Mennonite girl of my home district who allows herself
for the first time to be led into the hayrick. I could not believe the
wonderful thing that had happened to me and that it might have happened
years ago if I had been more attentive to my innermost feelings. But, most
of all, the beauty of my relationship with my admired professor erased
the frightening ugliness of my earlier encounter with the Swiss traveler.
To Devlan, forty-seven years old and thick in the waist, the fact that
a young man in the richness of youth should have flown across the Atlantic
to meet with him in Rome, and that they should now be headed for two or
three weeks in Greece must have seemed almost inconceivable. He told
me that frequently in recent years he had wondered: 'Is it ended? Have the
glorious nights I used to know come to a close?.knd then'-helooked
outtoward a canal where lovers in gondolas passed -in New York to meet a
brilliant young American with three languages and a rare gift for words,
and 1, this aging Irishman, had recognized instantly that the YOUR% k1low
was afraid to break into life, yet secretly ca%er to do so. I noticed at
once that he was not easy with girls and probably never would be, and
it then occurred to that if I could get the young man to Europe and immer
him in the richness of cultural exploration, the Irishm might, just
might, be blessed with one last fine relationshi He paused, then added
softly: 'And it has happened as I h contrived. Dear God, it has
happened.' Although our first day in Venice had been for me t
beginning of a new life, it had been spent in an unfocus euphoria, but the
second day was one of clear, aesthe, delight, for it focused not on Devian
and me but on Veni itself and the significant role it had played in world
liter ture. To me the day was especially meaningful, for illuminated
my early study Henry James and Thomas Man Two Novellas Based in One City.
This had led to my fellowsh at Columbia and thus to my friendship with
Profess DevIan. We walked through narrow footpaths that lined t
canals, hoping to find James's decaying palace in which t American
litterateur struggled with Juliana Bordereau a her ungainly niece, Miss
Tina, in his effort to win possessi of the cache of papers relating to the
dead poet Jef Aspern. As we walked, Devlan remarked; 'the rath
unpleasant English authority in the novel, John Cumn who also wanted the
papers, could have been me, and t young American could easily have been
you.' Our sean for houses that fitted the description in James's tale
beca an investigation not into Venetian Teal estate but into tangle of
fictional lives that seemed more real than the liv of those living
Italians who passed us on the narro walkways. 'That is the job of
fiction,' Devlan said with great intensit 'To put down on paper a chain of
words, words that anyo
could find in an ordinary dictionary, which will bring to life
real human beings in a real setting. Of the half-million words in
English, which ones shall we use to describe that old house fronting this
rather smelly canal to make someone who reads them on vacation in Zambia
not only see the setting but also catch its psychological importance? The
words are available. just pick them out of the mass, but be sure to put
them in the right order so you achieve the sought-for effect.' We
spoke of Mann's story, of a Venice plagued by cholera. 'But today there is
no cholera,' I said. 'Ah, but there is. A deadly cholera is pervasive in
all Western societies, a cholera of popular culture, spewing off the
presses and through the airwaves, deadening every- thing, cheapening all.
it engulfs us and will in time strangle us.' Devlan elucidated the
fear he had for the future of civilization, said what he believed creative
artists must do to prevent that miserable slide into mediocrity: 'The
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great enemy is popular acceptance, because that proves the artist has
settled for the lowest common denominator. The mission of the artist is to
elevate himself through study and insight to the highest attainable level
and then to commu- nicate with his peers, to seek them out, to exchange
concepts with them, and to write or paint or compose so as to illuminate
the problems that concern them. Serious art is a communication between [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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