Chapter 8 sacrifice of love
When a person loves his art, no matter how much he pays, he will not feel bitter.
This is our premise.This story will draw a conclusion from this, and at the same time prove the premise to be false.This is a novelty in logic, but it is a very old technique in storytelling, even older than the Great Wall of China.
Joe Larrabee came from the towering oak plains of the Midwest and had an extraordinary talent for painting.At the age of six, he created a landscape painting depicting the town's water pump.Next to the water pump, there is also a drawing of a prominent person in the town hurrying past.The painting was framed and hung in the window of a drugstore, next to a corn cob with sparsely arranged grains.At twenty, with a tie around his neck and a deflated purse in his waist, Joe Larrabee left his hometown for New York.
Delia Galuses was born in a small village in the south surrounded by pine forests. She played the hexatonic musical instrument vividly at a very young age.Seeing that the child was promising, the relatives pooled a large sum of money for her to go to the north for "advanced studies".They didn't see her finish school - and that's what our story is about.
Joe and Delia met in the studio.Students of art and music used to gather there to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt, painting, Walter Dufaur, wallpaper, Chopin and oolong tea.
Both Joe and Delia are devoted to each other, or mutual admiration.Call it what you will, and it didn't take long for the two to get married—because, as we mentioned earlier: when one loves one's art, it doesn't seem to be painful to give more.
The Larrabies started their family life in an apartment.It was a quiet, lonely place—life as monotonous as the top A key on the bottom left of the piano keys.However, they are happy because they own their art and they own each other.My advice to rich lads is - sell all your possessions and give to poor people (like the janitors) to get a flat to live in with your Art and your Delia right.
The occupants of the apartment house will agree with me that they alone are living a truly happy life.As long as the family is happy, it doesn't matter if the room is smaller-put the dresser down and it can be used as a pool table; Upright piano; try to bring the walls together so that you and your Delia will snuggle closer between them.But if the family is not happy, though the rooms are wide and long—you enter by the Golden Gate, hang your hat at Haderas, your cloak at Cape Horn, and exit from Labrador—so what Woolen cloth?
Joe took lessons in drawing classes given by Master Majeste - you must have heard of his reputation.He is well known for his high tuition fees and easy-going courses.The teacher who taught Delia was Rosenstock—you must also know that he is famous in the piano world.
They were very happy when they had money to support their family.Who is not like this?Forget it, I'd rather not be cynical.Both of them have very clear goals.In the not-too-distant future, Joe was going to paint the sheets that would have old gentlemen with wispy whiskers and bulging purses flocking to his studio to buy them.Delia wanted to get the music right and not give a damn about it, so that when she saw that the seats and boxes in the concert hall were not full, she could say she had a sore throat and went off to eat lobster in private instead of going on stage.
However, in my opinion, the most warm thing is the couple's life in their small apartment - the warm and happy chat at home after class every day, delicious dinner and fresh and light breakfast, and the love for each other's ideals. Talking—of course, the kind of ambition that has me in you and you in me, otherwise, there is little point—and mutual encouragement and mutual inspiration, and (pardon me to be blunt) White) for a late-night snack of vegetable carnitas and cheese sandwiches at eleven o'clock in the evening.
However, after a period of time, the flower of art withered.Sometimes this happens, even though no one bothers to shake it violently.As the saying goes, sit and eat nothing.Soon they could no longer afford the exorbitant tuition fees Mr. Majest and Mr. Rosenstock demanded.When a person loves his art, no matter how much he pays, he will not feel bitter.So Delia said she had to give some music lessons privately to support them.
Delia went out for two or three days to court students.One evening, she returned home happily.
"Joe, dear," said Delia excitedly, "I've got a student. Oh, what a family it is! It's a general—the daughter of General A. B. Pinckney— Lives on 71st Street. Nice house, Joe, you should see the grand front door! I think that's what you call Byzantine style. Oh, and look at the inside of the house. Joe, I've never seen such luxury before."
"My pupil is his daughter, Clementina. I've grown to like her. She's a pure girl, always dressed in plain white; she's so lovely, and so simple! She's just turned eighteen. I'm going to give her lessons three times a week. Joe, five bucks a lesson isn't much, and I don't care. Because when I get two or three more students, I can go back to Lawson Mr. Stocker's class. Now, stop frowning, my dear, and let's have a good supper."
"There's nothing wrong with you, Delia," said Joe, prying open a can of green beans with a knife and hatchet, "but what am I going to do? You think I'll let you work hard while I Are you still seeking in the palace of art? I swear on the bones of Benfanuto Cellini, I will never do that! I think, I can sell newspapers, or move stones to pave roads, and add A dollar or two of entry."
Delia came over and hugged Joe's neck excitedly.
"Joe, dear, don't be silly, you have to keep up with your studies. I didn't give up music for something else. While I was teaching, I was still studying. I didn't leave music. A week Fifteen dollars and we can live like millionaires. You don't want to leave Mr. Majeste."
"Well," said Jo, reaching for the blue shell-shaped dish, "I don't really want to ask you to substitute, though. It's not art. But it's a marvelous and lovely sacrifice you can make. gone."
"When a person loves his art, no matter how much he pays, he will not feel bitter." Delia said.
"Mr. Majorst complimented my sketch in the park, saying it was a good sky," said Joe. "Dinkel agreed to have two of my drawings in his window. Money fools have their eye on them, and I can sell one of them."
"I think you will," said Delia kindly. "Now let's show a little gratitude to General Pinckney and this roast beef."
In the next few weeks, the Larley and his wife finished breakfast every morning.Joe was going to Central Park a little earlier to sketch the morning scenery; Delia greeted Joe to breakfast, and after hugs and kisses and words of encouragement, she sent Joe out of the house at seven o'clock.Art is such a charming mistress.When Joe came home every day, it was already past seven o'clock in the evening.
When the weekend came, Delia placed three five-dollar bills on the eight-by-ten-inch table in the middle of the living room of the eight-by-ten-foot apartment.She was a little tired, but her expression was more proud and triumphant.
"Sometimes," said Delia wearily, "Clementina is not very disciplined. I don't think she practices hard enough, and I have to tell her the same things over and over again. She always It's dull in white too. But General Pinckney is a lovely old man! I wish you knew him, Joe. He came in sometimes when I gave Clementina piano lessons For a moment, standing there stroking his goatee. 'How's the sixteenth and thirty-second teaching going?' he always asks me."
"I wish you'd seen the wainscoting in his drawing room, Jo! And the door curtain made of Astrakhan's skin. Clementina coughs a lot, and I hope she's stronger than she is now." Oh, I really like her a little bit, she is so weak, so well-bred. General Pinckney's brother was once the minister to Bolivia."
Then, with the air of the Count of Monte Cristo, Joe took out of her pocket a ten, a five, a two, and a one--all legal notes--and placed them in the German Next to the money Liya earned.
"I sold that watercolor of the obelisk to a Biorian," announced Jo, in a tone of pride. "Stop kidding me," said Delia, "it can't be Biorian!"
"Yes, he's from Bioria. I wish you'd met this man, Delia. He's a fat man with a woolen scarf and a quilled toothpick in his mouth. He's in Tinkle's Saw the sketch in the window and thought it was a windmill at first. But he was very handsome and bought it anyway. He also ordered a painting - a La Cavana Freight Sketches of the station—ready to take home. My drawings, your music lessons! Oh, I think, we're still in art."
"I'm so glad you didn't give up," said Delia sincerely. "You're going to succeed, dear. Thirty-three dollars! We've never had so much money before. We'll have oysters tonight." gone."
"Another shiitake steak," said Joe. "Oh, where's the beef fork?"
The next Saturday night, Joe went home first.He spread out the eighteen dollars he had earned on the dining table in the living room and washed what looked like a big black blob of grease off his hands.
Half an hour later, Delia came back, her right hand was haphazardly wrapped in gauze and bandages.
"What's the matter with your hand?" said Jo after the customary greeting.Delia laughed out loud, not easily.
"Clementina," explained Delia, "is obliged to eat cheese and bread after her lessons. She is a strange child to eat cheese and bread at five o'clock in the afternoon. The general is here, and you Seeing how he was running to get the pot, I thought they had no servants! I know Clementina is not in good health, so she is a little nervous sometimes. When she served the cheese, she spilled a lot and it was hot Yes, it's on my hands and wrists. My hands are scalded, Jo. That sweet girl's very sorry! Oh, and General Pinckney! The old man doesn't know what to do. .He ran downstairs and sent a man—a boiler burner in the basement, they say—to the drugstore to get some ointment and other things to bandage me. My hands don't hurt so much now."
"What is this?" Joe gently held Delia's injured hand, and pulled a few white veils exposed outside the bandage.
"That's tulle," replied Delia, "and the ointment was put on it. Oh, Joe, have you sold another painting?" Delia saw the painting on the table. money.
"Did I sell another one?" asked Joe. "Just ask the Biorian. He bought my freight depot sketch today. Maybe he'll ask for another one." What about the park landscape and the Hudson River landscape. What time did you burn your hand this afternoon, Delia?"
"Around five o'clock in the afternoon," said Delia, a little pitifully, "the iron--I mean the cheese, just out of the pan. Oh, Joe, if you saw General Pinckney when-- "
"Sit down a minute, Delia," said Jo.He pulled Delia to the sofa, sat down next to her, and put his arm around her shoulders.
"What have you been doing the last two weeks, Delia?" asked Jo.
For a while she was silent, her eyes full of love and stubbornness, and then she just grunted a word or two about General Pinckney.In the end, she finally couldn't bear it anymore, lowered her head, and told the truth with tears in her eyes.
"I couldn't find a student," Delia confessed, "and I couldn't bear to ask you to give up your work. So I got a job ironing clothes at a laundromat on Twenty-fourth Street. I thought Well, I made up General Pinckney and his daughter Clementina, and it fit perfectly, didn't I, Joe? A girl in the laundry this afternoon accidentally ironed the red iron on In my hand, all the way home from here, I was trying to make up this story about cheese. Are you angry, Joe? If I don't go to work, you may not be able to sell your sketch to that Biorians."
"He's not a Biorian," said Jo slowly.
"Oh, it doesn't matter where he's from. How clever you are, Jo—kiss me, Jo—how did you suspect I wasn't giving Clementina music lessons?"
"It wasn't until this evening," said Joe, "that I became suspicious. If not, I wouldn't be tonight, only because I brought this old veil and ointment upstairs from the engine room this afternoon, saying yes A girl got burned by an iron. I've been running the boiler in that laundry for two weeks."
"So you didn't—"
"Buy my Biorian," said Joe. "He's a product of the same art as General Pinckney—only we can't call them paintings or music."
When it came, they both laughed.Later, it was Joe who spoke first:
"When a person loves his art, no matter how much he pays, he also—"
However, Delia put her hand on Joe's mouth and stopped him from speaking.
"No," she said—"just 'when one loves.'"
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