2017-11-30
1576
A character-sketch of the poet, Mr L. Conkleshill.
What makes a successful writer?
Publicity in a writer's or poet's career.
GEORGE SHEFFIELD
A SAD STORY
"You are the doctor, I suppose," said Augustus Pokewhistle, smiling from his bed at the immense man who had arrived secretly while he slept. "It is kind of you to come, but I fear you cannot help me. However, as you are here, I will tell you, very shortly, what is wrong with me. I am an artist. I paint pictures and I draw drawings..."
"But...".
"You are going to tell me that you are not interested in the story of my life,'' Augustus laughed bitterly. " You are one of the soulless1 public, and it is of no importance to you if a clever young man should take to his bed2in the height of his youth, never to rise again. But I suppose you have been sent here by some interfering so-called friend of mine to save me from the Silent Grave, and I must therefore explain my illness. And you cannot understand my illness unless I tell you the story of my life..."
"But..."
"I was delicately brought up, and it soon became clear that I was not an ordinary boy. At the age of seven I won a prize for a drawing of an animal. We will forget the fact that Г had intended my drawing to represent Sunset over London. After that my proud parents provided me with plenty of pencils and paper and gave me the opportunity of studying under Great Painters. At the age of twenty-one3 I started business as a painter of people, and painted eleven pictures of my own face. Nobody seemed to want them, and if you will go into my sitting-room, you will see them hanging sadly on the wall, looking down at the Empty Chair which I will never sit in again. For I am certain that I shall never rise from this bed..."
"But..."
"Nobody came to have their pictures painted, and I had
no heart to paint4 any more of myself. Although it may seem Impossible I could no longer get any real pleasure out of it after I had finished the eleventh, and this proves that one can get tired of even the most heavenly beauty..."
"But..."
"May I mention that there is a certain sameness5 in your remarks? Let me finish, and then you can say 'but' as often • as you like. I turned from painting people to painting the country. 6 Nine times I painted the view from the back window, and seven times I painted the view from the front window. But could I sell the seven pictures of the view from the front window, or the nine of the view from the back window? I could not. I had little money left, and I decided, after a severe struggle with myself, to forget my soul and paint for money. I determined to draw funny pictures for the newspapers. Remember that I was without hope and almost hungry, and do not think of me too severely..."
"But..."
"I know what you are going to say — if I had had the soul of a true artist, I would have died rather than do such a thing. But remember that my wife and children were crying for bread — or would have been cry ing for bread if I had had 'a wife and children. And was it my fault that I hadn't a wife and little children? So I made thirty or forty funny drawings every day and sent them to the papers. I won found that selling one's soul for money is not so easy as it sounds. Believe it or not, I got no money. I just got my drawings back..."
"But..."
"You may well ask why they were sent back. I cannot tell you. I tested them on the cat. I had often heard the expression7 'funny enough to make a cat laugh!'8 and so I placed them in a line and carried the cat along in front of them. He laughed until he was sick9... in any case he was sick.
" Then I sank lower and lower. I tried drawing for advertisements. Clothes, pianos, bottles. Immensely tall ladies with foolish smiles. I sent them off by the hundred, and all I received was a sample bottle10 or two, and a sample card of wool. I rather expected to get a sample tall lady with a foolish smile, but probably she got lost in the post..."
"But..."
" So I gave up the struggle. My heart was broken, and I determined to take to my bed, never to rise again. You cannot help me, doctor. No skill of yours can help me. I feel it in my bones" that I shall never rise from this bed..."
"And I feel it in my bones that you will," said the stranger, carefully placing Augustus Pokewhistle on the carpet, "because I've come to take it away. I'm from the furniture shop, and the bed isn't paid for."
NOTES
1. soulless: without a soul. The adjective-forming suffix -less means "without," "not having," as in hopeless, nameless, useless, etc.
2. take to one's bed: to stay in bed (because of illness, etc.)
3. the age of twenty-one. In English law it is the age at which a person comes to enjoy full legal rights.
4. have no heart to do smth. (not have the heart to do smth.):
not to have the courage, be too soft-hearted to do smth.
5. sameness: similarity. The suffix -ness is commonly used to form abstract nouns expressing a condition or quality, as in bitterness, coldness, carelessness.
6. country {sing. only): scenery, landscape
7. expression: the suffix -ion (-tion,-ation) forms nouns denoting state, condition or action, as in imagination, discussion, objection, attention, etc.
8. funny enough to make a cat laugh: very funny indeed. Compare with the Russian: курам на смех
9. sick (predic.): throwing up, or ready to throw up, food from the stomach, e. g. The smell made her sick. In colloquial English it stands for "disgusted," "annoyed", e. g. // makes me sick just to think of going back there.
10. a sample bottle, etc.: specimens of the quality, style,
etc. of goods offered for sale by trade firms
11. feel in one's bones (colloq.). to feel quite sure
EXERCISES
