Does America Have a Language of  its Own?

In the early part of the seventeenth century as English settlers began to bring their language to America, a series of changes started taking place. The settlers borrowed words from Indian languages such as “maize”, “racoon”, “wigwam”, etc. Later they borrowed other words from settlers from other countries – for instance, “prairie” from the French. They also gave old English words a new meaning, such as “corn” (which in British means any grain, especially wheat). Some of the new terms were needed because there were new and un-English things to talk about. Others can be explained only by the general theory that languages are always changing and American English is no exception.
Aside from the new vocabulary, differences in pronunciation, grammatical construction and intonation developed. If the colonization of the American continent had taken place a few centuries earlier, American English might have been as different from the British English as French is from Italian. But the settlement occurred after the invention of printing, and continued throughout a period when the concept of universal education was rapidly spreading. For a long time most of the books read in America came from England, and a large number of Americans read these books, in and out of school. Moreover, most of the colonists apparently felt strong ties with England. Still, there are numerous differences  between British and American English which create certain difficulties for students of English.

Differences in Grammar

To begin with, there are some grammatical differences. Americans say “Do you have a car?” where British people would say “Have you got a car?”.
The definite article is often omitted in American after “all” in cases where it would be considered necessary in English. So Americans say “all day”, “all night”, “all morning”, “all week”, “all summer”. A difference in the order of words may be noted in the use of the indefinite article. An American might say "“ half dozen” or “a half hour”, whereas an Englishman would say “half a dozen”, “half an hour”.
On the matter of prepositions there is some difference between English and American usage too. Thus Americans say “the worst accident in (not for) years”, “five minutes after (not past) three”, “the man on (not in) the street”. When an American takes a railway journey he speaks of himself as on the train, not in it. On the whole, one may perhaps say that an American tends to use prepositions more loosely than an Englishman.

Differences in Vocabulary

However, the most noticeable area of difference is probably in vocabulary. An American lives in an “apartment” while a Britisher lives in a “flat”. He puts on “pants” (British English “trousers”), he keeps all his clothes in a “closet” (B. E. “wardrobe”). An American takes an “elevator” (“lift”) to the “second floor” (“first floor”). He walks along the “side-walk” (“pavement”) and takes the “subway” (“tube”) “downtown” (to the city center). He puts “gas” (“petrol”) in his car and drives along the “freeway” (“motor way”); Americans stand in a “line” (“queue”) to see a “movie” (“film”) and they go on “vacation” (“holiday”) sometimes in the “fall” (“autumn”).

Here are some other differences of this kind.

Differences in Pronunciation

The major distinctive features of American English in pronunciation are the following.

1. [ǽ] instead of [a:] before a combination of consonants, in such words as “ask” [ǽsk], “after” [ǽft∂], “class” [klǽs], “path” [pǽθ], etc.
2. [ju:] is pronounced like [u:] in such words as “tube”, “duty”, “new” that is after the initial t, d, n, s, z.
3. [Λ] instead of [⊃] e. g. “hot” [hΛt], “body” [bΛdi], “college” [kΛlidз].
4. American [r] is pronounced with no friction and the tip of the tongue is curled backward.
5. American [l] is always dark (твердое).
6. [t] is often omitted after [n]: “twenty” [tweni].
7. Voiceless consonants become voiced in the intervocal position e. g. “better” [bed∂].

Here are some other examples of these differences.

The Adventure of My Aunt

My aunt was a big woman, very tall, with a strong mind and will. She was what you may call a very manly woman. My uncle was a thin, small man, very weak, with no will at all. He was no match for my aunt. From the day of their marriage he began to grow smaller and weaker. His wife's powerful mind was too much for him; it undermined his health, and very soon he fell ill.

My aunt took all possible care of him; half the doctors in town visited him and prescribed medicine for him enough to cure a whole hospital. She made him take all the medicines prescribed by the doctors, but all was in vain. My uncle grew worse and worse, and one day she found him dead.      

My aunt was very much upset by the death of her poor dear husband. Perhaps now she was sorry that she had made him take so much medicine and felt, perhaps, that he was the victim of her kindness. Anyhow, she did all that a widow could do to honour his memory. She spent very much money on her mourn ing dress, she wore a miniature of him about her neck as large as a small clock; and she had a full-length portrait of him always hanging in her bedroom. All the world praised her conduct. "A woman who did so much to honour the memory of one husband, deserves soon to get another," said my aunt's friends.

Sometime passed, and my aunt decided to move to Derby shire where she had a big country house. The house stood in a lonely, wild part of the country among the grey Derbyshire hills. The servants, most of whom came with my aunt from town, did not like the sad-looking old place. They were afraid to walk alone about its halt-empty black-looking rooms. My aunt herself seemed to" be Struck with the lonely appearance of her house. Before she went to bed, therefore, she herself examined the doors and the windows and locked them with her own hands. Then she carried the keys from the house together with a little box of money and jewels, to her own room. She always saw to all things herself.      

One evening, after she had sent away her maid, she sat by her toilet-table arranging her hair. For, in spite of her sorrow for my uncle, she still cared very much about her appearance. She

sat for a little while looking at her face in the glass first on one side, then on the other. As she looked, she thought of her old friend, a rich gentleman of the neighbourhood, who had visited her that day and whom she had known since her girlhood.

All of a sudden, she thought she heard something move be hind her. She looked round quickly, but there was nothing to be seen. Nothing but the painted portrait of her poor dear husband on  the wall behind her. She gave a heavy sigh to his mem ory as she always did whenever she spoke of him in company, and went on arranging her hair. Her sigh was re-echoed. She looked round again, but no one was to be seen. "Oh, it is only the wind," she thought and went on putting her hair in papers, but her eyes were still fixed on her own reflection and the re flection of her husband's portrait in the looking-glass. Sudden ly it seemed to her that in the glass she saw one of the eyes of the portrait move. It gave her a shock. "I must make sure," she thought and moved the candle so that the light fell on the eye in the glass. Now she was sure that it moved. But not only that, it seemed to give her a wink- exactly as her husband used to do when he was living. Now my aunt got really frightened… Her heart began to beat fast. She suddenly remembered all the fright ful stories about ghosts and criminals that she had heard.

But her fear soon was over. Next moment, my aunt who, as I have said, had a remarkably strong will, became calm. She went on arranging her hair. She even sang her favourite song in a low voice and did not make a single false note. She again moved the candle and while moving it she overturned her workbox. Then she took the candle and began without any hurry to pick up the articles one by one from the floor. She picked up something near the door, then opened the door, looked for a moment into the corridor as if in doubt whether to go and then walked quickly out. ,

She hurried down the stairs and ordered the servants to arm themselves with anything they could find. She herself caught a red-hot poker and, followed by her frightened servants, returned almost at once. They entered the room.All was still and exactly in the same order as when she had left it. They approached the portrait of my uncle. "Pull down that picture," ordered my aunt.

A heavy sigh was heard from the portrait. The servants stepped back in fear. "Pull it down at once," cried my aunt impatiently. The picture was pulled down, and from a hiding-place behind it, they dragged out a big, black-bearded fellow with a knife as long as my arm, but trembling with fear from head to foot. He confessed that he had stolen into my aunt's room to get her box of money and jewels, when all the house was asleep. He had once been a servant in the house and before my aunt's arrival had helped to put the house in order. He had noticed the hiding-place when the portrait had been put up. In order to see what was going on in the room he had made a hole in one of the eyes of the portrait.

My aunt did not send for the police. She could do very well without them: she liked to take the law into her own hands. She had her own ideas of cleanliness also. She ordered the servants to draw the man through the horse-pond in order to wash away his crimes, and then to dry him well with a wooden "towel".

But though my aunt was a very brave woman, this adventure was too much even for her. She often used to say: "It is most unpleasant for a woman to live alone in the country." Soon af ter she gave her hand to the rich gentleman of the neighbour hood.

The Beginning of National Literature in America.

The American settlements developed rapidly. Ten years after the landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims more than 20 thousand people lived in the colony and the majority were from England.

        The literature of the new American nation appeared in the New England. The Pilgrim Fathers played a historical role in this. Many of them were men with a university education. They brought books on various subjects to America. They opened schools for the children and in 1636 founded Harvard College, and first American university. They also set up the first printing press in the country and published the first books.

        The first American settlers were Puritans. They were religious fanatics determined to subjugate everyone to their dogmatic discipline: the schools taught their religion to the children, the university trained clergymen for Protestant churches.

        Although the only book they recommended for home reading was the Bible, they also printed various histories, journals, memoirs and theological tracts intended for the clergy who ruled the colony. The authors of these books were not professional writers, but they showed a real life of those days.

        The Puritans wanted people to obey their laws and despite the joys of life.  This led to cruelty. They started persecuting free-thinkers as «witches». Hundreds of innocent men and women were imprisoned, hanged and even burnt. This was a consequence the Pilgrim Fathers had not quite foreseen.

        The power of Puritans lasted for 3 generations. Many writers fought for democracy in the colonies. Gradually, under the influence of French and German culture of new immigrants theocracy was defeated. Writers began to describe the real life around them.

*****

        But not only Europe influenced  American culture. American literature is now more than 300 years old. It is an independent literature connected with the history of the country. Literature not only reflects the particular period, it always rests on the traditions. Traditions are beliefs and customs of a people that are handed down from generation to generation. These beliefs and customs become part of their life. They are the starting-point in art and literature. The culture of the American nation can’t be separated from Indian mythology and Negro folk-lore.

        American literature owes much to the War of Independence and to the tradition of pioneering in the free lands of the West. They produced such men as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and such poets and writers as Mark Twain, Jack London and Ernst Hemingway.

Jack London. Martin Eden

1. Find n the text and translate the sentences with these verbs:

2. Distinguish in meaning between:

 look for and search, scare and frighten.

3. Give the corresponding noun form of these verbs: 

prepare, educate, pronounce, feel, serve, introduce, converse.

4. Give the idea of these phrases:

heavy reading, that is clear, a complete Shakespeare, in return, to train one’s ear, to ask for more books, to occupy two thirds of the room, to borrow books from the library, to work on, I had better hear it from you.

5. Fill In the gaps with necessary prepositions:

1. He was afraid …making mistakes … speech and manners.
2. One day he read a book … philosophy.
3. He had become interested … economy, industry and politics.
4. He looked …  … many new words in the dictionary … when he saw them again, he had forgotten their meaning.
5. She took him … the living-room.
6. They talked first … the books he had borrowed … her, then … poets.
7. I think I must study … myself.
8. You say “I seen” … “I saw”.
9. She helped him … his English.
10. Even Martin’s thoughts were expressed … the language … Shakespeare.
11. This trained his ear and gave him a feeling … good English.
12. He would describe the beauty … the world not only … Ruth … for other people.
13. The kitchen table served … desk and library.
14. Day … day he worked … and day … day the postman delivered … him his manuscripts.
15. The editor asked … more … his works.
16. Mr. Ford led him … the office.

6. Give English equivalents of the following Russian word combinations:

интересоваться чем-то; промышленность; смотреть в словаре; трясти; брать (книгу в библиотеке); выражать; возражать против; экономика; расчесывать; ясный; прикалывать; родственник; полный; доставлять (почту); политика; рукопись; список; приводить в ужас; представлять; вести; помощник; оба; жестко; рыться (в поисках).

7. Read the statements and complete them in writing:

The newspapers announced ____. The hotel was so full that ____.

8. Translate the following sentences Into English:

Газеты известили о вакантной должности преподавателя в Кемфордском университете.

Пит жил в одной комнате с самоуверенным парнем по имени Адаме.

9. Give the idea of this story in one sentence.

10. Choose one of this statements, write a summary of this story in fifty words:

Yes, I like this story a lot!

No, I don't like this story at all!

Well, I wouldn't say I like this story very much.

Suggest a picture to illustrate the story. Do not draw the picture, but say in 25-30 words what would be in it.

Give an outline of the story in the form of questions.

Retell the text. Imagine that you are:

Martin Eden

Retell the text. Imagine that you are:

Ruth (part I)

Retell the text. Imagine that you are:

the editor (part III)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807 – 1882)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was to a great extent under the influence of the most progressive movement of the time, that of abolitionism. The ideas of abolitionists, who wanted the Negro people freed from slavery, helped Longfellow understand the hard life of the common people. Longfellow continued the fine tradition begun by Washington Irving and Fenimore Cooper, of describing life of the Indian people.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in the little town of Portland on the Atlantic coast, in the family of a well-to-do lawyer. The family kept alive the memory of the War of Independence, and as a boy Longfellow was told about the heroic deeds of his grandfather who had been a general in Washington’s army, and about his uncle Henry who had been an officer in the US Navy and had been killed in 1804 while defending his country.
The family traditions of heroism played a considerable role in the life of young Longfellow.
At the age of 16, Henry entered Bowdoin College, and there he wrote his first verses and stories. In 1826, Longfellow was sent to Europe to study foreign languages. He visited England, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. In 1829 he returned home and began teaching foreign languages.
In 1835, Longfellow visited Europe a second time. In 1841 he published a book of poems. By that time he was well known as an American poet, and his fame steadily spread.
After teh third trip to Europe Longfellow published his masterpiece, a collection of verses “Poems of slavery” (1842). Slavery had become the most urgent question of the day. In these verses Longfellow  expressed his sympathy with the abolitionists and condemned the shameful institution of slavery. But he was by no means a rebel by nature. In everyday life he was a gentle and modest man, an intellectual, who spent all his time in teh family circle of writing.
Longfellow compiled and translated during some 30 years a vast anthology called “Poets of Europe”. This collosal work of translating poets of different times and different peoples was finished by the end of the seventies when the last of the 31 volumes was printed. Up to the present days this anthology remains one of the best of this kind. By the end of his life Longfellow had won recognition all over the world. Many Universities awarded him honiorary degrees. He was also elected to membership by the Spanish, British and French Academies of Sciences. Even when an old man, Henry Longfellow continued writing verses, ballads, dramas, essays and stories. He is the only American poet whose bust occupies a niche in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner.
Longfellow died at the age of 75 when he was at the peak of his fame.
The Song of Hiawatha

In his notes to the “Song of Hiawatha” Longfellow said that in it he had woven together the legends of various American Indian tribes about a prophet, who was “learned in all manly arts and labors” and who taught his people their handicrafts and arts, taught them to hunt and fish, to sow and reap, to heal the sick – not a common, mortal man, but, as it always is in suck legends, half-god, half-man, who appeared on earth “that the tribes of men might prosper; that he might advance his people”. According to htis legend, Hiawatha was born of the daughter of a Star and his father was the West Wind. From boyhood Hiawatha ossessed enormous physical strength; he could crush huge stones and even mountains. He had magic shoes. He used his strength and magic power to vanquish evil enemies of the people. He was one with nature; he knew the language of all birds and beasts, understood the wispering and wishes of the clouds, the trees, the rivers and streams.
In the “Song of Hiawatha” Longfellow retells in beautiful poetic verse how the Indians learnt to plant and harvest maize, how Hiawatha wrestled with Mondamin, defeated him, etc.

At the door of Summer evenings
Sat the little Hiawatha;
Heard the wisperings of the pine-trees,
Heard the lapping of teh water,
Sounds of music, words of wonder
Then the little Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How they built their nests in Summer,
Where they hid themselves in Winter,
Talked with them whene’er he met them,
Called them “Hiawatha’s Chickens”.
Of all beasts he learned the language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Was the rabbit was so timid,
Talked with them whene’er he met them.
Called them “Hiawatha’s Brothers”.

1. What traditiond did Longfellow continue? 2. When and where was he born? 3. What was he told in his boyhood? 4. What education did he get? 5. How did he begin writing? 6. What is Longfellow’s masterpiece? 7. How can you prove that Longfellow won recognition all over the world? 8. What is “The Song of Hiawatha” about? 9. Speak about Hiawatha.

O. Henry. Witches' Loaves

1. Find In the text, write out and translate the sentences with these verbs:

2. Choose the correct word:

Stale is opposite of new, fresh, brown, warm tasty.

E in the word genius is pronounced like in get, bread, give, receive.

3. Distinguish in meaning between: ask for, order, wonder.

4. Give the opposite of these words: stale, false, behind, get, hurry out, add, never, courage, angrily, stupid, take off.

5. Give the corresponding noun form of these verbs: proud, possible, marry, draw, courageous, mix, cut, discover,, think, compete.

6. Give the idea of these phrases:

to hurry out, if you please, take an interest in smb/smth.

7. Fill In the gaps with necessary prepositions:

1. Miss Martha wanted him to share her meal instead … eating his stale bread.
2. This palace is not … good drawing.
3. He always bought two loaves … stale bread.
4. How good it would be … art if genius was helped … two thousand dollars in a bank.
5. He took his bread and hurried … .
6. One day the man came and asked … his stale loaves.
7. She could not think … anything else.
8. The man hurried … the door to look
9. She poured the mixture … her face … … the window.
10. The young man took his companion … the arm.
11. He drew the angry man … … the street.
12. He rubs … the pencil lines with stale bread.

8. Give English equivalents of the following Russian word combinations:

интересоваться; если вас не затруднит; разделить; и никогда ничего больше; (зд.) брать, забирать; возможности; добавить; среднего возраста; быстро выйти; булочная; бороться; вместо; (зд.) признавать; черный хлеб; (зд.) выглядеть; носить одежду; спросить, заказать;  чтобы; бить; прилавок; открыть, раскрыть; кулаки; (по)краснеть; проектировщик; (зд.) вытащить; стирать; трубка; выливать.

9. Agree or disagree with the statements suggested, using the expressions: 

certainly, of course, sure, you are right, quite correct

or: I'm afraid that's wrong; on the contrary; oh, no, you are mistaken; surely not

1. Miss Martha Meachem kept the little butchery on the corner.
2. The man who bought stale loaves looked clean and had very good manners.
3. Miss Martha gave the man fresh loaves instead of stale ones.
4. The man lost a prize competition because of Miss Martha.

10. Read the statements and complete them in writing:

1. Soon she began to … .
2. She wanted him to share … .
3. Two loaves of stale bread, … .
4. She thought he was … .
5. The palace is not in … .
6. Genius has to … .
7. His hair was falling … .

11. Translate the following sentences Into English:

1. Свежий хлеб стоил 5 центов буханка.
2. Она хотела, чтобы он присоединился к ней.
3. У нее не хватало храбрости сделать это.
4. Он взял хлеб и быстро вышел.
5. Она не могла думать ни о чем другом.
6. Молодой человек попытался вытащить его на улицу.
7. Две буханки черствого хлеба, если вас не затруднит.

12. Give the idea of this story in one sentence.

13. Choose one of these statements, write a summary of this story in fifty words:

Yes, I like this story a lot!

No, I don't like this story at all!

Well, I wouldn't say I like this story very much.

10. Read the statements and complete them in writing:

8. Soon she began to … .
9. She wanted him to share … .
10. Two loaves of stale bread, … .
11. She thought he was … .
12. The palace is not in … .
13. Genius has to … .
14. His hair was falling … .

11. Translate the following sentences Into English:

8. Свежий хлеб стоил 5 центов буханка.
9. Она хотела, чтобы он присоединился к ней.
10. У нее не хватало храбрости сделать это.
11. Он взял хлеб и быстро вышел.
12. Она не могла думать ни о чем другом.
13. Молодой человек попытался вытащить его на улицу.
14. Две буханки черствого хлеба, если вас не затруднит.

12. Give the idea of this story in one sentence.

13. Choose one of these statements, write a summary of this story in fifty words:

Yes, I like this story a lot!

No, I don't like this story at all!

Well, I wouldn't say I like this story very much.

15. Give an outline of the story in the form of questions.

17. Retell the text. Imagine that you are:

Miss Martha

17. Retell the text. Imagine that you are:

The draughtsman

19. Suggest a picture to illustrate the story. Do not draw the picture, but say in 25-30 words what would be in it.

O. Henry

1. Find In the text, write out and translate the sentences with these verbs:

2. Choose the correct word:

Common is opposite of usual, general, generous, unusual.

The first Y in the word sympathy is pronounced as in sky, young, hardly.

A common synonym for amusing is funny, lucky, entertaining, interesting.

3. Distinguish in meaning between: common and general, incident and event.

4. Give the opposite of these words: unexpected, everyday, common, great.

5. Give the corresponding noun form of these verbs: marry, stay, receive, sign, settle, expect, amuse.

6. Give the idea of these phrases:

to bring up, to win great popularity, to be taken by surprise, to come into one’s head.

7. Give English equivalents of the following Russian word combinations:

прерии, воспитывать, выходить замуж, забавный, посадить в тюрьму, хотя, возвращаться, будничная жизнь, получать, псевдоним, подписать, происшествие, прийти в голову, простые люди, освободить, клерк, поселиться, симпатия, завоевать большую популярность, неожиданное окончание, быть удивленным.

O. Henry

1. Find In the text, write out and translate the sentences with these verbs:

2. Choose the correct word:

Common is opposite of usual, general, generous, unusual.

The first Y in the word sympathy is pronounced as in sky, young, hardly.

A common synonym for amusing is funny, lucky, entertaining, interesting.

3. Distinguish in meaning between: common and general, incident and event.

4. Give the opposite of these words: unexpected, everyday, common, great.

5. Give the corresponding noun form of these verbs: marry, stay, receive, sign, settle, expect, amuse.

6. Give the idea of these phrases:

to bring up, to win great popularity, to be taken by surprise, to come into one’s head.

7. Give English equivalents of the following Russian word combinations:

прерии, воспитывать, выходить замуж, забавный, посадить в тюрьму, хотя, возвращаться, будничная жизнь, получать, псевдоним, подписать, происшествие, прийти в голову, простые люди, освободить, клерк, поселиться, симпатия, завоевать большую популярность, неожиданное окончание, быть удивленным.

Romanticism appeared in American literature when great disappointment after the Revolution of 1775 – 1783 took hold of the people. The writers of Romanticism showed life as a struggle between vice and virtue (порок и добродетель), and insisted that virtue should defeat evil. But when they looked for the triumph of virtue in real life, they could not find it. So the most characteristic feature of Romanticism is the great gap between reality and the ideal – the dream of the poet, artist and writer.

The approach of the writers to life was almost exclusively through the emotions. They wanted to show reality but their creative method, peculiar to them alone, resulted in works that depicted life so strange and unusual.    

American Romantic writers took the subjects of their stories from tales of wonderful adventures in the forests and prairies, hunting stories, fairy-tales heard from Indians and Negroes.

The most outstanding authors of that time are Washington Irving, James Fennimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Рое, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman.

IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD?

1. Find in the text and translate the sentences with these verbs:

2. Choose the correct word:

The adjective dead is pronounced to rhyme with break, bread, team, hear, team.

The noun dummy is pronounced to rhyme with bury, funny, dune.

A synonym for artist is actor, painter, drawer.

A well-known man is bright, clever, famous, talented.    

3. Distinguish in meaning between: 

clear and clean; hunger and starvation.

4. Give the opposite of these words: 

bright, poor, easy, famous, dead.

5. Give the corresponding noun form of these verbs: 

explain, begin, move, laugh, starve, live, think, die, begin, add.

6. Give the idea of these phrases:

to walk up and down the room, to die of starvation, to go on with the plan, to ask somebody up to the room, to make no answer, to have nothing for dinner but cabbage, to run about the room.

7. Fill in the gaps with necessary prepositions:

1. We were … happy … we were poor, or … poor … we were happy, … you like it.
2. A young artist, … poor … ourselves, lived in that village.
3. He was … poor … very often he hadn’t anything … dinner … cabbage.
4. We lived and worked together … over two years.
5. Let’s talk … some other things.
6. We got a little money … travel and … Millet to live.
7. Then I took … a picture … Millet and pointed … the name in the corner.

8. Give English equivalents of the following Russian words and word combinations:

подружиться с, время от времени, уйти на пенсию, мечтательный, позвать наверх, давным-давно, делать эскизы, спасти от голода, быть в хорошем настроении, ходить туда-сюда по комнате, предложить … за, сойти с ума, проблемы, принимать лекарство, тянуть жребий, чучело, бегать по комнате, владелец, указать на, смущенный, притворяться

9. Agree or disagree with the statements suggested, using the expressions: 

certainly; of course; sure; you’re right; quite correct;

or: I'm afraid that's wrong; on the contrary; oh, no, you are mistaken; surely not.

1. The author understood why Smith had shown the large interest in Magnan.
2. The names of the boys were Claude and Karl.
3. Millet saved the young men from starvation.
4. Millet was rich and well-known at that time.
5. Millet was offered five franks for his 'Angelus'.
6. The friends had to kill Millet to make him famous.
7. Finally the friends became famous.

13. Read the statements and complete them in writing:

1. I was travelling from place to place …
2. He hadn't anything for dinner …
3.  Carel began  to walk …
4. I was offered five franks …
5. Don’t all speak …
6. You have lost …
7. Many great artists die …

14. Translate the following sentences Into English:

1. Время от времени мы приезжали в тот тихий город.
2. Он полицейский в отставке.
3. Номера в отеле очень удобные.
4. Он пригласил меня наверх в свою комнату.
5. Несмотря на свои проблемы, он был в хорошем настроении.
6. Ты сошел с ума! Мы умрем от голода!
7. Майк ходил по комнате туда-сюда. Он выглядел смущенным.

15. Give the idea of this story in one sentence.

16. Choose one of this statements, write a summary of this story in fifty words:

Yes, I like this story a lot!

No, I don't like this story at all!

Well, I wouldn't say I like this story very much.

13. Read the statements and complete them in writing:

1. I was travelling from place to place …
2. He hadn't anything for dinner …
3. Carel began  to walk …
4. I was offered five franks …
5. Don’t all speak …
6. You have lost …
7. Many great artists die …

14. Translate the following sentences Into English:

1. Время от времени мы приезжали в тот тихий город.
2. Он полицейский в отставке.
3. Номера в отеле очень удобные.
4. Он пригласил меня наверх в свою комнату.
5. Несмотря на свои проблемы, он был в хорошем настроении.
6. Ты сошел с ума! Мы умрем от голода!
7. Майк ходил по комнате туда-сюда. Он выглядел смущенным.

15. Give the idea of this story in one sentence.

16. Choose one of this statements, write a summary of this story in fifty words:

Yes, I like this story a lot!

No, I don't like this story at all!

Well, I wouldn't say I like this story very much.

Witches' Loaves

Miss Martha Meacham kept the little bakery on the corner. Miss Martha was forty, she had two thousand dollars in a bank, two false teeth and a kind heart.  

Many people have married who had less possibilities to do so than Miss Martha.

Two or three times a week a man came into her shop to buy bread and very soon she began to take interest in him. He was a man of middle age with spectacles and a snort brown beard. His clothes were poor, but he looked clean and had very good manners.

He always bought two loaves of stale bread. Fresh bread was five cents a loaf. Stale loaves were two for five. He never bought anything but stale bread.

Once Miss Martha saw red and brown stains on his fingers. She was sure then that he was an artist and very poor. Of course he lived in a little room, where he painted pictures and ate stale bread, and thought of the good things in Miss Martha's bakery.

Often when Miss Martha sat down to eat her good dinner, she thought about the poor artist and wanted him to share her meal instead of eating his stale bread.

Miss Martha's heart, as you have been told, was a very kind one.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

In order to find out his profession, she brought from her room one day a painting that she had once bought and put it against the shelves behind the bread counter.  

It was an Italian painting. A beautiful palace stood near a lake. Miss Martha was sure that an artist would notice it.

Two days later the man came into the shop.

"Two loaves of stale bread, if you please."

"You have a fine picture here, madam," he said while she was getting the bread.

‘Yes?" said Miss Martha. "I love art and" (she could not say "artists") "and paintings," she added. "You think it is a good picture?"

"The palace," said the man, "is not in good drawing. The perspective of it is not true. Good morning, madam."

He took his bread and hurried out.

Yes, he must be an artist. Miss Martha took the picture back to her room.

How kind his eyes were behind his spectacles! What a broad forehead he had! To be an artist  and to live on stale bread! But genius has to struggle before it is recognized.

How good it would be for art if genius was helped by two thousand dollars in a bank, a bakery, and a kind heart too-but these were only dreams, Miss Martha.

Often now when he came, he talked for Martha. And he continued buying stale bread, never anything else.

She thought he was looking thinner. She wanted to add something good to eat to his stale bread, but she had no courage to do it. She knew the pride of artists.

Miss Martha began to wear her best blue silk blouse almost every day. In the room behind the shop she cooked some mixture for her face.

One day the man came as usual, and asked for his stale loaves. While Miss Martha was getting them, there was a great noise fn the street and the man hurried to the door to look. Suddenly Miss Martha had a bright idea.

On the shelf behind the counter was some fresh butter. With a bread knife Miss Martha made a deep cut in each of the stale loaves, put a big piece of butter there, and pressed the loaves together again.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

When the man turned to her, she was putting the loaves into a paper bag.

When he had gone, after a very pleasant little talk, Miss Martha smiled to herself and her heart beat very fast.

For a long time that day she could not think of anything else. She imagined his face when he would discover her little secret. He would stop painting and lay down his brushes. There would stand his picture in which the perspective was perfect. He would prepare for his meal of stale bread and water. He would take a loaf — ah!

Miss Martha blushed. Would he think of the hand that had put it there as he ate? Would he —

The front bell rang loudly. Somebody was coming in, making very much noise.

Miss Martha hurried into the shop. Tow men were there. One was a young man smoking a pipe — a man she had never seen before. The other man was her artist.

His face was very red, his hat was on the back of his head, his hair was falling all over his face. He shook his two fists angrily at Miss Martha. At Miss Martha!

"Fool!" he shouted very loudly.

The young man tried to draw him away.

"I shall not go," he said angrily, "before I tell her." He beat his fists on Miss Martha's counter. "You have spoilt my work," he cried, "1 will tell you. You are a stupid old cat!"

Miss Martha stood back against the shelves and laid one hand on her heart. The young man took his companion by the arm.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘ you have said enough.’

He drew the angry man out into the street, and then came back.

"I think I must tell you, ma'am," he said, "why he is so angry. That is Blumberger. He is a draughtsman. I work in the same office with him.

"He worked very hard for three months drawing a plan for a new City Hall. It was a prize competition. He finished it yesterday. You know, a draughtsman always makes his drawing in pencil first. When it is finished he rubs out the pencil lines with stale bread. That is better than india-rubber.

"Blumberger always bought the bread here. Well, today — well, you know, ma-'am, that butter isn't--well, Blumberger's plan isn't good, for anything now " .

Miss Martha went into the back room. She took off the blue silk blouse and put on the old brown  one she had worn before, then she poured the mixture for her face out of the window.

1. The Beginning of National Literature in America

The American settlements developed rapidly. Ten years after the landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims more than 20 thousand people lived in the colony and the majority were from England.

        The literature of the new American nation appeared in the New England. The Pilgrim Fathers played a historical role in this. Many of them were men with a university education. They brought books on various subjects to America. They opened schools for the children and in 1636 founded Harvard College, and first American university. They also set up the first printing press in the country and published the first books.

        The first American settlers were Puritans. They were religious fanatics determined to subjugate everyone to their dogmatic discipline: the schools taught their religion to the children, the university trained clergymen for Protestant churches.

        Although the only book they recommended for home reading was the Bible, they also printed various histories, journals, memoirs and theological tracts intended for the clergy who ruled the colony. The authors of these books were not professional writers, but they showed a real life of those days.

        The Puritans wanted people to obey their laws and despite the joys of life.  This led to cruelty. They started persecuting free-thinkers as «witches». Hundreds of innocent men and women were imprisoned, hanged and even burnt. This was a consequence the Pilgrim Fathers had not quite foreseen.

        The power of Puritans lasted for 3 generations. Many writers fought for democracy in the colonies. Gradually, under the influence of French and German culture of new immigrants theocracy was defeated. Writers began to describe the real life around them.

*****

        But not only Europe influenced American culture. American literature is now more than 300 years old. It is an independent literature connected with the history of the country. Literature not only reflects the particular period, it always rests on the traditions. Traditions are beliefs and customs of a people that are handed down from generation to generation. These beliefs and customs become part of their life. They are the starting-point in art and literature. The culture of the American nation can’t be separated from Indian mythology and Negro folk-lore.

        American literature owes much to the War of Independence and to the tradition of pioneering in the free lands of the West. They produced such men as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and such poets and writers as Mark Twain, Jack London and Ernst Hemingway.

2. Does America Have a Language of its Own?

In the early part of the seventeenth century as English settlers began to bring their language to America, a series of changes started taking place. The settlers borrowed words from Indian languages such as “maize”, “racoon”, “wigwam”, etc. Later they borrowed other words from settlers from other countries – for instance, “prairie” from the French. They also gave old English words a new meaning, such as “corn” (which in British means any grain, especially wheat). Some of the new terms were needed because there were new and un-English things to talk about. Others can be explained only by the general theory that languages are always changing and American English is no exception.

Aside from the new vocabulary, differences in pronunciation, grammatical construction and intonation developed. If the colonization of the American continent had taken place a few centuries earlier, American English might have been as different from the British English as French is from Italian. But the settlement occurred after the invention of printing, and continued throughout a period when the concept of universal education was rapidly spreading. For a long time most of the books read in America came from England, and a large number of Americans read these books, in and out of school. Moreover, most of the colonists apparently felt strong ties with England. Still, there are numerous differences  between British and American English which create certain difficulties for students of English.

Differences in Grammar

To begin with, there are some grammatical differences. Americans say “Do you have a car?” where British people would say “Have you got a car?”.

The definite article is often omitted in American after “all” in cases where it would be considered necessary in English. So Americans say “all day”, “all night”, “all morning”, “all week”, “all summer”. A difference in the order of words may be noted in the use of the indefinite article. An American might say "“ half dozen” or “a half hour”, whereas an Englishman would say “half a dozen”, “half an hour”.

On the matter of prepositions there is some difference between English and American usage too. Thus Americans say “the worst accident in (not for) years”, “five minutes after (not past) three”, “the man on (not in) the street”. When an American takes a railway journey he speaks of himself as on the train, not in it. On the whole, one may perhaps say that an American tends to use prepositions more loosely than an Englishman.

Differences in Vocabulary

However, the most noticeable area of difference is probably in vocabulary. An American lives in an “apartment” while a Britisher lives in a “flat”. He puts on “pants” (British English “trousers”), he keeps all his clothes in a “closet” (B. E. “wardrobe”). An American takes an “elevator” (“lift”) to the “second floor” (“first floor”). He walks along the “side-walk” (“pavement”) and takes the “subway” (“tube”) “downtown” (to the city center). He puts “gas” (“petrol”) in his car and drives along the “freeway” (“motor way”); Americans stand in a “line” (“queue”) to see a “movie” (“film”) and they go on “vacation” (“holiday”) sometimes in the “fall” (“autumn”).

Here are some other differences of this kind.

Differences in Pronunciation

The major distinctive features of American English in pronunciation are the following.

1. [ǽ] instead of [a:] before a combination of consonants, in such words as “ask” [ǽsk], “after” [ǽft∂], “class” [klǽs], “path” [pǽθ], etc.
2. [ju:] is pronounced like [u:] in such words as “tube”, “duty”, “new” that is after the initial t, d, n, s, z.
3. [Λ] instead of [⊃] e. g. “hot” [hΛt], “body” [bΛdi], “college” [kΛlidз].
4. American [r] is pronounced with no friction and the tip of the tongue is curled backward.
5. American [l] is always dark (твердое).
6. [t] is often omitted after [n]: “twenty” [tweni].
7. Voiceless consonants become voiced in the intervocal position e. g. “better” [bed∂].

Here are some other examples of these differences.

As to intonation, American speech sounds more monotonous with a much lower pitch than English speech.

3. Historical Background

The Western Hemisphere had already been reached by courageous Scandinavian seafarers in the 10th century, but the actual discovery of America was made in the 16th century. In search of a shorter and safer trade route from Europe to Asia, Christopher Columbus landed on some island near Cuba in 1492 which he mistook for India. Later Amerigo Vespucci explored that coast and the new continent came to be called America after the name of its undoubted discoverer. The northern part of America was explored by Henry Hudson, the southern continent was explored by the Spaniards and the Portuguese. At first the only aim of the white adventurers was to get gold. It was at the beginning of the 17th century that colonization of America really started. Four European nations competed in that overseas expansion: Spain, Holland, France and England. Spain colonized the part of North America where Florida, Georgia and South Carolina now are. The Dutch founded colonies around the mouth of the Hudson River. Then further north, in Canada, the French founded their colony Qwebec. The English merchants organized a company for starting farming colonies in Virginia.

Colonization of America was due to the changing conditions in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of poor peasants who had lost their land in Britain and Germany were forced to leave their native countries and search for new homes across the Atlantic.

In the 18th century a bitter struggle was fought between the 4 countries to determine to which country the American continent should belong. England took over the Spanish and Dutch settlements, defeated her rivals and became supreme ruler of the North-American continent.

But this New World had already been inhabited long before the Europeans came. The natives met the first Europeans with hospitality. They were eager to trade with the pale-faces, as they called the white men. But the Europeans in their greed for riches were ruthless. The way the Indians were treated is one of the darkest pages in the history of mankind.

At the beginning of the 17th century the colonists started bringing convicts from the prisons of Europe as labour, and also Negroes from Africa. During the following decades the Black population of America increased rapidly. The white masters treated their slaves with utmost cruelty to keep them in subjection. Not only were Negroes bought and sold. The shipping companies also organized the kidnapping of 12-13 year-old white children. Another type of white slaves imported to America were poor wretches from the cities and villages of Ireland, Scotland and other countries. These were poor artisants and peasants, unable to pay their passage to America, and ready to risk everything to save their families from starvation.

It was in the 18th century that America gave first prominent names of its writers. The first period in its literature may be called Enlightenment. American literature originated in journalism.

4. Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

Benjamin Franklin was the first greatest American Enlightener. He was a figure of Universal dimensions, being printer, writer, philosopher, scientist, economist and statesman. As one of the leaders of the Revolution, he participated in the most important events of his time.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston. He was the youngest of seventeen children in the family of a poor English immigrant. | He attended school only for one year and educated himself by reading (he learnt reading and writing very early). When he settled in Philadelphia, he started his own printing business. A year later Franklin decided to sail to Britain to master the British technique of printing. On his return to America Franklin organized a literary and philosophic society, where young people met to read and discuss contemporary literature. The works of Swift and Defoe, and articles by Steele and Addison, all made a deep impression on the American youth. In 1733 Franklin decided to

start a periodical. Using the pen-name of Richard Saunders he began to issue "Poor Richard's Almanac". Useful information was mostly given in the form of saying: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise", "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, as Poor Richard says."

In 1751 he made his experiments on atmospheric electricity, which brought him world-wide fame. He became a prominent public man in the country and took part in the revolutionary events.

During his later years he wrote an "Autobiography". The book was published after his death and was widely read.

5. Romanticism

If we glance at American literature of the 19th century and compare it to English literature we immediately notice that the Americans are much more fond of writing short stories. An American writer once said that the short story was the national form of American literature. Travellers from Europe often noticed that Americans were very fond of telling short stories and anecdotes to each other and to strangers. They were tales of wonderful adventures in the forests and prairies, hunting stories, fairy-tales heard from Indians and Negroes. Many authors took the subjects of their stories from the ones they heard pass from month to mouth. The American magazines the aim of which was just to amuse the busy reader for half an hour, preferred to give their pages to the short stories and it became a better paying form of literature.

        Romanticism in America gives us three great names: Washington Irving, Fennimore Cooper and Edgar Рое.

        Romanticism appeared in American literature when great disappointment after the Revolution of 1775 – 1783 took hold of the people. The writers of Romanticism depicted life as a struggle between vice and virtue, and insisted that virtue should defeat evil. But when they looked for the triumph of virtue in real life, they could not find it. So the most characteristic feature of Romanticism is the great gap between reality and the ideal – the dream of the poet, artist and writer. The approach of the writers to life was almost exclusively through the emotions. They wanted to show reality but their creative method, peculiar to them alone, resulted in works that depicted life so strange and unusual.    

Romanticism gave a powerful impetus to literature development, and produced great poets and writers who were true patriots, loved their country and recognized the importance of developing national literature and national history.

        From the point of view of its development American Romanticism may be divided into three periods:

The early period (1820s-1830s) began with romances and short stories of Washington Irving. The historical novel began in America with James Fennimore Cooper's "The Spy" (1821) and "The Pioneers" (1823). The most outstanding were the poems of Edgar Allan Рое.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

The second period of Romanticism comprises the 1840s and the first half of the 1850s. Characteristic of this period were Cooper's later novels, Poe's romances and poems, and the works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The third period of Romanticism comprises the second half of the 1850s and the 1860s. The early poems by Walt Whitman appeared at that time.

American Romanticism, as part of the world trend of Romanticism in literature, played an important role in the cultural life of America. The works by American romantic writers are still read and admired.

6. Washington Irving (1783 - 1859)

Washington Irving was as much a writer of the age of Reason as of Romanticism. He never surrendered his cheerful criticism and his romance is at the same time a satirical pamphlet. Irving was the first great prose stylist. He introduced Romanticism as a literary trend in America pointing out the way for Cooper and later Longfellow. He was the first American writer recognized in Europe.

Life of Washington Irving

Washington Irving was born in New York in 1783. His father was a prosperous merchant who had come to America from Scotland. Washington, the youngest of eleven children, being sickly in childhood, was not sent to school. His mother had him educated at home. He was well read in Chaucer and Spenser and the 18th-century English literature. So, amid New-World surroundings he developed a natural talent for writing in Old-World ways.

        Washington was fond of wandering around the countryside. On the outskirts of his native city he made familiar with places famous in history and legends. Tales of voyages became his passion and he would spend hours at the port watching departing ships with longing eyes.

        At fifteen, he tried his hand in writing. Some little satires on New York life were even printed in his brother's magazine. Writing became his hobby, but his father wanted him to be a lawyer, and at seventeen he was sent to studying law. In 1804, a journey to Europe undertaken for the sake of his health, stimulated his interest in foreign culture. In London, at the library of the British Museum, he turned over worm-eaten volumes, reading whatever pleased him. In Paris, he studied science at the university. Later he also visited Sweden, Holland and Italy.

First Period of Writing

After two years of travelling Washington Irving returned to the United States. Jointly with some friends he started a paper entitled "Salmagundi" or "The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff". The very title of the paper showed it to be a humorous periodical published by the authors just for fun. Irving wrote on topics of modern America in the style of the English 18th-century essay. The paper was popular for its good humour. "We despise Trouble as we do everything that is low and mean," the authors wrote in their first editorial, and the paper did not stand aloof of politics. Letters, invented by Irving from a fictitious Tripolitanian Mustapha Rub-a-dub Kely Khan, gave amusingly simple accounts of the New York assemblies. At that time New York was the citadel of Federalists. No wonder that the President was severely criticized in those letters. But the letters were all written in the optimistic style of the Enlightenment.  

Another literary undertaking by Irving was his humorous history of New York. It became an American classic. In the autumn of 1809 an announcement appeared in the paper "The Evening Post" that a small lively-looking old gentleman who had been logging in a hotel in New York, went out one morning and was never heard of again. This old gentleman, whose name was Diedrich Knickerbocker, had been very curious about everything that had been going on in town. The announcement about the disappearance of Knickerbocker was a trick to awaken the interest of the public. It aroused excitement. When the history appeared, it produced a sensation. It was a parody on serious history as published at the time. The publication of this book was the first step on the road of American Romanticism. But unlike English Romantic literature, we do not find anything sentimental in it. Humour and irony are hidden behind the serious tone of the writer. The story gives records of the golden reign of Wouter Van Twiller, Governor of New York in the 17th century. The policies of American leaders of Irving's time were presented as ancient history of bygone days, but the satirical resemblance of the personages described in the book to living men was clear.

Thus we see that the first period of Irving's writings was humorous and satirical.

In spite of his first successes Irving wrote very little during the following ten years. He served as clerk at a law-court, and he was also a partner in his father's firm. The firm was on the verge of bankruptcy. When family responsibilities were thrown upon him, Irving took to writing, in which he already had experience.

Second Period of Writing

The following seventeen years Irving travelled and worked in various European countries. Though he remained true to the rational trend of thought, Irving, with an ironical smile, retreated from the present into the romantic past. His love of the past was a sort of rest from the cares of life. At first he thought of describing American picturesque landscapes. But this did not satisfy Irving.

        When Irving retold his various anecdotes of the past, his mind was on contemporary America and the problems American people had to cope with the Revolution. He knew what calamity the "almighty dollar" had brought and he hated the greed of the bourgeoisie. By restoring anecdotes of the past he wanted to cure the world by wisdom.

        Irving did not feel a stranger in Britain. He met the poets Coleridge and Byron, both of whom delighted in his "Knickerbocker". Walter Scott invited him to his home, in Abbotsford. He acquainted Irving with the works by German romantic writers, Irving was a lover of pageantry and he liked the gay world of the theatre. Ever cheerful, gentle, cordial, modest and sincere, Irving was popular in all circles, even in political circles.

        It was during this European period of his life that Irving wrote books which brought him international fame. In these were his famous essays and romances. With the help of Walter Scott he published in 1819 the first collection of his writings "The Sketch Book"; in 1822 "Bracebridge Hall", and in 1824 "Tales of a Traveller". This collection ends with a very famous tale "Rip Van Winkle". It is the story of a "simple good-natured fellow" who falls asleep in the mountains and wakes up 20 years later. All the changes which Rip finds in the mountains on his awakening describe America after the Revolution in an entertaining way.

        Irving had studied German, Italian and French. In 1824, he travelled on the continent. He collected tales and legends in all the villages and towns of Europe in which he happened to stop. He won the confidence of every old woman who had tales to tell. For elderly gentlemen, he was a tale-telling traveller because he liked" to relate his stories to willing listeners, to judge their effect on people before he printed them. Irving picked up stories of ail kinds: robber tales, tales of ghosts, horror stories with mysterious footsteps in the night arid the like.

        Some of Irving's works of this European period were written in Spain. In 1826 Irving went to Madrid as a member of an American diplomatic mission. His post gave him access to old Spanish documents. Having collected enough material, he wrote a History of Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus" (1828), and "The Conquest of Granada" (1829). In Spain, he met Prince Dolgorukov who was Attache to the Russian Ambassador. Irving made friends with him.

        Irving wrote as much for America as for Europe. In Europe his books were enjoyed for their humour, beautiful style.

Third Period of Writing

After seventeen years abroad, Irving returned to America wishing to portray his countrу again. In "A Tour of the Prairies" (1833) he showed sympathy for the Indians.

        Irving, jealous of his freedom, refused to run for Mayor of New York. He made his home in a place in his beloved valley of the Hudson River, where he wrote "Life of George Washington". He died in 1859.

The Adventure of My Aunt

My aunt was a big woman, very tall, with a strong mind and will. She was what you may call a very manly woman. My uncle was a thin, small man, very weak, with no will at all. He was no match for my aunt. From the day of their marriage he began to grow smaller and weaker. His wife's powerful mind was too much for him; it undermined his health, and very soon he fell ill.

My aunt took all possible care of him; half the doctors in town visited him and prescribed medicine for him enough to cure a whole hospital. She made him take all the medicines prescribed by the doctors, but all was in vain. My uncle grew worse and worse, and one day she found him dead.      

        My aunt was very much upset by the death of her poor dear husband. Perhaps now she was sorry that she had made him take so much medicine and felt, perhaps, that he was the victim of her kindness. Anyhow, she did all that a widow could do to honour his memory. She spent very much money on her mourning dress, she wore a miniature of him about her neck as large as a small clock; and she had a full-length portrait of him always hanging in her bedroom. All the world praised her conduct. "A woman who did so much to honour the memory of one husband, deserves soon to get another," said my aunt's friends.

         Sometime passed, and my aunt decided to move to Derbyshire where she had a big country house. The house stood in a lonely, wild part of the country among the grey Derbyshire hills. The servants, most of whom came with my aunt from town, did not like the sad-looking old place. They were afraid to walk alone about its halt-empty black-looking rooms. My aunt herself seemed to" be Struck with the lonely appearance of her house. Before she went to bed, therefore, she herself examined the doors and the windows and locked them with her own hands. Then she carried the keys from the house together with a little box of money and jewels, to her own room. She always saw to all things herself.      

One evening, after she had sent away her maid, she sat by her toilet-table arranging her hair. For, in spite of her sorrow for my uncle, she still cared very much about her appearance. She sat for a little while looking at her face in the glass first on one side, then on the other. As she looked, she thought of her old friend, a rich gentleman of the neighbourhood, who had visited her that day and whom she had known since her girlhood.

        All of a sudden, she thought she heard something move behind her. She looked round quickly, but there was nothing to be seen. Nothing but the painted portrait of her poor dear husband on the wall behind her. She gave a heavy sigh to his memory as she always did whenever she spoke of him in company, and went on arranging her hair. Her sigh was re-echoed. She looked round again, but no one was to be seen. "Oh, it is only the wind," she thought and went on putting her hair in papers, but her eyes were still fixed on her own reflection and the reflection of her husband's portrait in the looking-glass. Suddenly it seemed to her that in the glass she saw one of the eyes of the portrait move. It gave her a shock. "I must make sure," she thought and moved the candle so that the light fell on the eye in the glass. Now she was sure that it moved. But not only that, it seemed to give her a wink- exactly as her husband used to do when he was living. Now my aunt got really frightened… Her heart began to beat fast. She suddenly remembered all the frightful stories about ghosts and criminals that she had heard.

        But her fear soon was over. Next moment, my aunt who, as I have said, had a remarkably strong will, became calm. She went on arranging her hair. She even sang her favourite song in a low voice and did not make a single false note. She again moved the candle and while moving it she overturned her workbox. Then she took the candle and began without any hurry to pick up the articles one by one from the floor. She picked up something near the door, then opened the door, looked for a moment into the corridor as if in doubt whether to go and then walked quickly out.

        She hurried down the stairs and ordered the servants to arm themselves with anything they could find. She herself caught a red-hot poker and, followed by her frightened servants, returned almost at once. They entered the room. All was still and exactly in the same order as when she had left it. They approached the portrait of my uncle. "Pull down that picture," ordered my aunt.

A heavy sigh was heard from the portrait. The servants stepped back in fear. "Pull it down at once," cried my aunt impatiently. The picture was pulled down, and from a hiding-place behind it, they dragged out a big, black-bearded fellow with a knife as long as my arm, but trembling with fear from head to foot. He confessed that he had stolen into my aunt's room to get her box of money and jewels, when all the house was asleep. He had once been a servant in the house and before my aunt's arrival had helped to put the house in order. He had noticed the hiding-place when the portrait had been put up. In order to see what was going on in the room he had made a hole in one of the eyes of the portrait.

        My aunt did not send for the police. She could do very well without them: she liked to take the law into her own hands. She had her own ideas of cleanliness also. She ordered the servants to draw the man through the horse-pond in order to wash away his crimes, and then to dry him well with a wooden "towel".

        But though my aunt was a very brave woman, this adventure was too much even for her. She often used to say: "It is most unpleasant for a woman to live alone in the country." Soon after she gave her hand to the rich gentleman of the neighbourhood.

7. James Fennimore Cooper (1789 — 1851)

James Fennimore Cooper was born in New Jersey, but then he was brought to the State of New York. His father was a rich landowner. When James was only thirteen years old, he entered Yale University. In his third year he failed in his examinations and had to leave the University. In 1806 his father sent him to sea, he served on a merchant ship. He spent 6 years as sailor and later on as officer. He loved the sea and was ready to spend all his life at sea. When he got married in 1811 he left the ship.

After the death of his father Cooper became a country gentleman in Cooperstown, devoting himself to his family of seven children and to social interests. Cooper began writing at the age of thirty. His first novel was about an English family living in England. It was not a great novel, but it was good enough to be published. His second novel "The Spy" (1821) was a historical novel about the days of the War of American Independence. Its hero is a common soldier who loved America. The book was successful. Cooper wrote six novels over a period of five years, and they were translated into other languages.

In 1826 Fennimore Cooper went to Europe. He wanted to give his children a good European education and he placed them in foreign schools. For seven years Cooper travelled throughout various European countries together with his large family. He worked without interruption all the time. He wrote many books about his travels.

When Fennimore Cooper returned to the United States, he began writing his famous "Leather Stocking" novels; "The Pioneers" (1823), "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826), "The Prairie" (1827), "The Pathfinder" (1840) and "The Deerslayer" (1841). These are his best works, all exciting stories about of settlers and American Indians.

The main character in all these novels is Leather Stocking, as he was called by the Indians. He was a white man, a hunter, named Natty Bumppo. He was just and kind, and though he was an ordinary man with little education, he knew much about forest life. He also said that all men, white, black, yellow or red, were brothers. He was against civilization because he thought it spoilt nature and people. But he brought the Indians knives of English make. He himself preferred to live in the woods far from cities. The Indians, with whom he was very friendly, were closer to him than the white civilized Americans. When he became old, he joined one of the Indian tribes and died there.

James Fennimore Cooper died at Cooperstown on September 14, 1851, the day before his sixty-second birthday.

The Last of the Mohicans

"The Last of the Mohicans" is the second of Fennimore Cooper's books about Leather Stocking. It describes North America of the 18th century when it was colonized by Europeans, who came to live in the best parts of the North-East and drove the Indians, the first inhabitants of the country, from their land. The book tells much about the life and traditions of the Indians. The author shows that Indians, like white men, could be both good and bad. The title of the novel gives the readers quite a definite understanding about the fate of the North-American Indians. The coming of the white men brought death to them. The main character of the novel is a young Indian, Uncas. It is he that is the last of his tribe, the Mohicans. Natty Bumppo is given here under the name of Hawk-eye.

On that day, two men were sitting on the bank of a small river. Woods came up to the bank of the river. The sun was not so hot now and the air near the river had become much cooler.    

One of the men had the red skin and the equipment of an Indian, the other man, though sunburnt, had the white skin of a European. The Indian was seated on the end of a fallen tree. His body was painted white and black. On his head there was the well-known scalping tuft and the eagle's plume, the mark of an Indian chief. A tomahawk and scalping-knife were on his girdle, while a short military rifle of the kind which the whites gave to friendly Indians lay near him.

The Indian was of middle age, but looked a strong and healthy man. The white man's body, though also strong, was very thin. He wore a dark green hunting shirt and a summer cap of skins. He also had a knife on his girdle but no tomahawk. On his feet he had moccasins. A pouch and horn were a part of his equipment, and a long hunting rifle stood near him against a young tree. The eyes of the hunter were small and quick, all the time moving while he spoke, and looking on every side of him as if he was afraid of an attack of the enemy. But his face was kind and open.

"Listen to me, Chingachgook," he said to the Indian. He spoke one of the languages which was known to all the Indians that had lived in the country between the Hudson and the Potomac rivers.

"Your fathers came from the setting sun, crossed the big river, fought the people of the country, and took the land; and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over the salt lake, also fought the people of the country and took the land."

"My fathers fought with the red men!" answered the Indian in the same language. "Is there no difference, Hawk-eye, between the stone-headed arrows of our men and the leaden bullets with which you kill?"

"The Indian is wise though nature has made him with a red skin!" said the white man. "From what I have seen of hunting, I think a rifle in the hands of the white men was not so dangerous as a bow and a good stone-headed arrow sent by an Indian hand."

"You have the story told by your fathers," said the other coldly. "What say your old men? Do they tell the young warriors, that the pale-faces met the red men, painted for war, and armed with stone-headed arrows or rifles?"»

"Though 1 am white," said the hunter, "I can say that my people often do things with which, as an honest man, I cannot agree. So I ask you, Chingachgook, what happened when our fathers first met?"

For some minutes the Indian did not speak. Then he began his story.

"Listen, Hawk-eye, and you will understand. It's what my fathers have said, and what the Mohicans have done.

"We came from the place where the sun sets at night, over great plains where the buffaloes live, until we reached the big river. There we fought the Alligewi, till the ground was red with their blood. From the banks of the big river we went to the salt lake. There were none to meet us. The Maquas followed us at a distance. We said the country should be ours. The land we had taken from the enemy we kept like men. We drove the Maquas into the woods with the animals. They could not get fish from the big salt lake, we threw them bones to eat."

"All this I have heard and knew," said the white man when the Indian had stopped; "but it was long before the English came into the country."

"A big tree grew then where another tree now stands. The first pale-faces who came spoke no English. They came in a large canoe, when my fathers had buried the tomahawk with the other red men around us. Then, Hawk-eye," he continued with great feeling, "then, Hawk-eye, we were one people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood—its animals and the air — its birds. We took wives and they had children. We kept the Maquas far from our lands."

"Do you know anything of your own family at that time?" asked the white man. "You are a wise man for an Indian! And I suppose your fathers were brave warriors and wise men."

"My people are the grandfathers of Indian nations. The blood of chiefs runs in my body, where it must stay for ever. The white men landed and gave my people the fire-water, and they drank until the sky and earth seemed to meet, and they thought they were happy. Then they gave their land to the pale-faces. Step by step they were driven back from the big salt lake and have never visited the land where their fathers were buried. All my family is dead, they have gone to the land of the spirits. I am on the mountain-top now and soon must go to the spirits too, and when my son Uncas follows in my steps, there will no longer be any men of the blood of the chiefs, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans."

8. Edgar Allan Рое (1809 - 1849)

Edgar Allan Рое, an outstanding romantic poet, romancer, and short-story writer, was one of the first professional writers of the United States.

He was born in Boston in 1809. His parents were second-rate actors, and very poor. After a few years of hardships his father disappeared and was never heard of again; and at the end of 1811, while acting in Richmond, his mother died. The homeless child was brought up by a childless couple, Mr. John Allan, a well-to-do merchant, and his wife.

His foster-mother was very fond of Edgar, he was treated so kindly by her, that it led to jealousy on the part of her husband: as a result the boy was never legally adopted though he remained with the family for many years. Edgar grew into a handsome youth, skilled in riding and swimming.

Mr. Allan's business took him abroad, and from 1815 to 1820 Рое lived with the family in Scotland and England. There he attended a fine classical preparatory school. Back in the Unites States, he was sent to the University of Virginia where he showed remarkable ingenuity in mathematics, chemistry and medicine. He wrote poems and read a lot. Yet Рое was unhappy at the University. At the end of the first year Mr. Allan decided to take him from the University. He wanted him to become a clerk in his tobacco business. Рое immediately ran away and went to Boston.

In Boston he published his first volume of poetry, not a single copy was sold. His disappointment and poverty forced him to enlist in the army. In this new life he succeeded better than he himself had expected. But very soon he could not stand army life any longer. When he arrived in Richmond, Mrs. Allan had died. There Mr. Allan signed the obligation that the young man would serve for five years. His second volume of poems passed unnoticed.

Рое spent a year at the West Point Academy, disliking his duties more and more. He left the Academy. Two years later Mr. Allan died, he didn't mention Рое in his will, and Edgar was left penniless.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

In 1831, Рое published his third edition of poems. But he first became famous not as a poet, but as a writer of fiction. His story won him a prize of 50 dollars. This story opened the way for him into journalism. For some time Рое lived in Baltimore and wrote for various publications. As a poet and writer his fame spread slowly, he was known more for his literary reviews.

In 1836, while still in Baltimore, Рое had married a very young girl, Virginia Clemm. Their home life was very happy, but soon his young wife became very ill with tuberculosis. Рое was desperate because he had no money to cure her. This increased Poe's weakness for alcohol. Things went from bad to worse when his reviews and critical articles increased the number of his enemies.

In January 1847 Virginia died in a little cottage in Fordham. (She was only 24.)

Edgar Allan Poe's life ended under very strange circumstances. He was in Richmond, giving lectures with brilliant success and even earned a large sum of money. Six days later he was found unconscious on the streets of Baltimore. It was suspected that he had been given opium and robbed of the money he had earned. He died 4 days later, on October 7, 1849 in the Baltimore City hospital.

9. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was to a great extent under the influence of the most progressive movement of the time, that of abolitionism. The ideas of abolitionists, who wanted the Negro people freed from slavery, helped Longfellow understand the hard life of the common people. Longfellow continued the fine tradition begun by Washington Irving and Fennimore Cooper, of describing the life of the Indian people.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in the little town of Portland on the Atlantic coast, in the family of a well-to-do lawyer. The family kept alive the memory of the War of Independence, and as a boy Longfellow was told about the heroic deeds of his grandfather who had been a general in Washington's army, and about his uncle Henry who had been an officer in the US Navy and had been killed in 1804 while defending his country.

The family traditions of heroism played a considerable role in the life of young Longfellow.

At the age of 16, Henry entered Bowdoin College, and there he wrote his first verses and stories. In 1826, Longfellow was sent to Europe to study foreign languages. He visited England, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. In 1829 he returned home and began teaching foreign languages.

In 1835, Longfellow visited Europe a second time. In 1841 he published a book of poems. By that time he was well known as an American poet, and his fame steadily spread.

After his third trip to Europe Longfellow published his masterpiece, a collection of verses "Poems on Slavery" (1842). Slavery had become the most urgent question of the day. In these verses Longfellow expressed his sympathy with the abolitionists and condemned the shameful institution of slavery. But he was by no means a rebel by nature. In everyday life he was a gentle and modest man, an intellectual, who spent all his time in the family circle or writing.

Longfellow compiled and translated during some 30 years a vast anthology called "Poets of Europe". This colossal work of translating poets of different times and different peoples was finished by the end of the seventies when the last of the 31 volumes was printed. Up to the present day this anthology remains one of the best of this kind. By the end of his life Longfellow had won recognition all over the world. Many Universities awarded him honorary degrees. He was also elected to membership by the Spanish, British and French Academies of Sciences. Even when an old man, Henry Longfellow continued writing verses, ballads, dramas, essays and stories. He is the only American poet whose bust occupies a niche in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.

Longfellow died at the age of 75 when he was at the peak of his fame.

The Song of Hiawatha

In his notes to "The Song of Hiawatha" Longfellow said that in it he had woven together the legends of various American Indian tribes about a prophet who was "learned in all manly arts and labors" and who taught his people their handicrafts and arts, taught them to hunt and fish, to sow and reap, to heal the sick—not a common, mortal man, but, as it always is in such legends, half-god, half-man, who appeared on earth "that the tribes of men might prosper; that he might advance his people". According to the legend, Hiawatha was born of the daughter of a Star and his father was the West Wind. From boyhood Hiawatha possessed enormous physical strength; he could crush huge stones and even mountains. He had magic shoes. He used his strength and magic power to vanquish evil enemies of the people. He was one with nature; he knew the language of all birds and beasts, understood the whispering and wishes of the clouds, the trees, the rivers and streams.

In "The Song of Hiawatha" Longfellow retells in beautiful poetic verse how the Indians learnt to plant and harvest maize, how Hiawatha wrestled with Mondamin, defeated him, etc.

At the door on Summer evenings

Sat the little Hiawatha:

Heard the whisperings of the pine-trees,

Heard the lapping of the water,

Sounds of music, words of wonder, —

Then the little Hiawatha

Learned of every bird its language,

Learned their names and all their secrets,

How they built their nests in Summer,

Where they hid themselves in Winter,

Talked with them whene'er he met them.

Called them "Hiawatha's Chicke'ns."

Of all the beasts he learned the language,

Learned their names and all their secrets,

How the reindeer ran so swiftly,

Why the rabbit was so timid,

Talked with them whene'er Ъе met them,

Called them "Hiawatha's Brothers".

You shall hear how Hiawatha

Prayed and fasted in the forest

Not for greater skill in hunting,

Not for greater craft in fishing,

But for profit of the people,

For advantage of the nations.

...And he saw a youth approaching

Dressed in garments green and yellow,

Coming through the purple twilight,

Through the splendour of the sunset;

...Standing in the open doorway,

Long he looked at Hiawatha,

Looked with pity and compassion

Oh his wasted form and features,

And, in accents like the sighing

Of the South Wind in the tree-tops

Said he: "oh my Hiawatha!

All your prayers are heard in heaven,

For you pray not like the others,

Not for greater skill in hunting,

Not for greater craft in fishing,

But for profit of the people,

For advantage of the nations.

From the Master of Life descending,

I, the friend of man, Mondamin,

Come to warn you and instruct you,

How by struggle and by labour

You shall gain what you have prayed for,

Rise up from your bed of branches,

Rise, О youth, and wrestle with me!"

...Tall and beautiful he stood there

In his garments green and yellow

And he cried: "O Hiawatha!

Bravely you have wrestled with me,

And the Master of Life who sees us

He will give to you the triumph!"

Then he smiled and said: "To-morrow

Make a bed for me to lie in

Where the rain may fall upon me,

Where the sun may come and warm me,

Lay me in the earth and make it

Soft and loose and light above me.

Let no hand disturb my slumber,

Let no weed nor worm molest me,

Only come yourself to watch me,

Till I wake, and start and quicken,

Till I leap into the sunshine."

...Home went then Hiawatha

But the place was not forgotten,

Where he wrestled with Mondamin,

Nor forgotten, nor neglected

Was the grave where lay Mondamin

Sleeping in the rain and sunshine...

Day by day did Hiawatha

Go to wait and watch beside it.

Kept the dark mould soft above it,

Kept in clean from weeds and insects.

Till at length a small green feather

From the earth shot slowly upward,

Then another and another,

And before the Summer ended

Stood the maize in all its beauty

With its shining robes about it

And its long soft yellow tresses;

And in rapture Hiawatha

Cried aloud: "It is Mondamin!

Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!"

10. Critical Realism

Critical realism as a trend in American literature reached full development after the Civil War. The deep-going changes in the country, the new type of human relations compelled the writers to see man as a product of his environment, to deal with actual facts and realities. The highly critical realistic literature that came into being differed greatly from that of the previous generation represented by Irving, Cooper and Longfellow.

The realists saw man against the background of social conflicts of the day and analysed human nature and human emotions in relation to this background.

Mark Twain, Frank Norris, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser were among the many writers whose works were brilliant examples of realism.

American Critical Realism developed in contact with European realism; it was greatly influenced by Balzac, Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoy.

11. Walt Whitman (7819 - 1892)

The great poet Walt Whitman was America's first critical realist.

Walt (Walter) Whitman was born in the family of a farmer, in a little village near New York. When Walt was eleven years old, he had to leave school and start working. He became an office-boy at a lawyer's office. Later he worked for a small newspaper where he learned printing.

At seventeen, Walt Whitman became unemployed and could not find a job in town. He went to the country where for some time he worked as a school-teacher.

Whitman understood very well that his education was very poor and when he had time he studied literature or history and tried to write. He wrote poems, short stories and newspaper articles. The critics did not like his poems and they were seldom published, because he wrote about the common people of America and their hard life. Whitman loved the common people of America whose life he knew very well.

Whitman's collection of poems was named "Leaves of Grass". It was first published in 1855, by Whitman himself. The book did not make the poet famous. But later it became a masterpiece of world literature.

In those days the problem of slavery was very important. Progressive people in the USA wanted to free the Negro slaves and Whitman supported them.

During the Civil War between the North and the South (1861 -1865) Whitman served in the Northern army, and continued writing poems. At the beginning of his literary work Whitman was a Romantic, but the Civil War made him a Realist.

Whitman knew America and Americans better than any poet before him. He wrote with understanding about the farmer in the field, the teacher in the classroom, the publisher at his desk, etc. He also knew the different nationalities that made up the population of his country: the Negroes, the Italians, the Irish, the Germans, and many others.  

Whitman seldom used rhymes in his poems and there are very few "poetic" words in them. He used everyday words and his poems were more like prose than poetry.

Whitman has a special place in American literature. He wrote in a way that was typically American.

Song of Myself

The extract given below is taken from Whitman's poem "Song of Myself". It tells of an episode from the life of the poet who helped a runaway slave that was making his way to the North. A black man came to Whitman's house and the poet took him in, gave him medicine, food and clean clothes and kept him in his house for some days.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,

I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,

Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy

and weak,

And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured

him,

And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and

bruis'd feet,

And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him

some coarse clean clothes,

And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his

awkwardness,

And remember putting plaster on the galls of his neck and

ankles;

He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and

pass'd north,

I had him sit next me at table—my fire-lock lean'd in the

corner.

12. Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Samuel Langhome Clemens, known to the world as Mark Twain, was the son of a small-town lawyer in the State of Missouri. When the boy was five years old, he was sent to school. Little Samuel did not like school but he had many friends and was their leader. In summer, when school was over, the boys spent many happy hours on the Missouri River.

As Mark Twain said later, many events in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" really took place and the characters were from real life, Tom Sawyer was very often the portrait of the writer, Aunt Polly was his mother. When Samuel was 11 years old, his father died leaving nothing to his wife and 4 children. Samuel had to leave school and look for work. His elder brother was working as a printer and he helped the boy to learn printing. For some years Samuel worked as a printer for the town newspaper and later for his brother, who at the time had started a small newspaper. The two young men published it themselves. Samuel wrote short humorous stories and printed them for their newspaper. In 1853, Samuel decided to leave home. He went first to St. Louis, then to New York, and to Philadelphia where he worked as a printer. When Samuel was a boy, he dreamed of becoming a sailor. At twenty, he found a job on a boat travelling up and down the Mississippi. On that boat he learned the work of a pilot. From this he got his pen-name "Mark Twain" (a call used for depth sounding by Mississippi pilots). Later the young man worked with the gold-miners in California for a year. There he began to write short stories and he was invited to work as a journalist for a newspaper. The many professions that he tried gave Mark Twain knowledge of life and people, and helped him to find his true profession — the profession of a writer. In 1870, he married, and a new and happy life began for him. He had one son and three daughters, whom he loved very much and was the happiest man when they were with him. As a journalist Mark Twain travelled very much over the country.

In 1876, the writer published "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and in 1884, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". The writer showed boys and girls in the novels with such sympathy and understanding that readers always see themselves in these characters. Mark Twain protested there against slavery and one of the main characters in the novel "Huckleberry Finn" is a Negro, Jim, who is honest, brave and kind.

The profession of a writer did not bring much money to Mark Twain and he had to give lectures on literature and read his stories to the public. He visited many countries, and for a long time lived in England. In 1907, Oxford University gave Mark Twain an honorary doctorate of letters.

Ernest Hemingway once wrote: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called 'Huckleberry Finn."

Is He Living or is He Dead?

I was spending the month of March, 1882, in Europe at Mentone. It is a quiet and restful place with much sunshine and bright blue sea. Usually rich people do not come there. Now and then a rich man comes and I happened to make friends with one of them, an Englishman. I shall call him Smith. One day in the hotel at the second breakfast he suddenly said:

"Look at the man going out at the door."

"Why?"

"Do you know who he is?"

"Yes. He spent several days here before you came. He is an old, retired and very rich businessman from Lyons, they say, and I think he is alone in the world, for he always looks sad and dreamy, and doesn't talk with anybody. His name is Theophile Magnan."

Smith did not explain the large interest he had shown in Magnan, but sat thinking for some minutes and then began to talk about something else.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           About ten that evening I met Smith and he asked me up to his room to smoke. The room looked nice with comfortable chairs and a friendly fire.

        We talked a little and then he told me his story.

"A long time ago I was a young artist and came to France where I was travelling from place to place making sketches. One day I met two French artists who were also moving from place to place making sketches and I joined them. We were as happy as we were poor, or as poor as we were happy, as you like it.

"Claude and Carl — these are the names of those boys—were always in good spirits and laughed at poverty. We were very poor. We lived on the money which we got from time to time for our sketches. When nobody wanted to buy our sketches we had to go hungry.

"Once, in the north of France, we stopped at a village. For some time things had been very difficult for us. A young artist, as poor as ourselves, lived in that village. He took us into his house, and saved us from starvation. The artist's name was Francois Millet."

"What! The great Francois Millet?"

"Great? He wasn't greater than we were, then. He wasn't famous even in his own village; and he was so poor that very often he hadn't anything for dinner but cabbage, and sometimes he could not even get cabbage. We lived and worked together for over two years. One day Claude said:

"Boys, we've come to the end. Do you understand that? Everybody is against us. I've been all around the village and they do not want to sell food until we pay all the money.' There was a long silence. At last Millet said, 'What shall we do? I can't think of anything. Can you, boys?'

We made no answer. Then Carl began to walk up and down the room. Suddenly he stopped in front of a picture and said: 'It's a shame! Look at these pictures! They are good, as good as the pictures of any well-known artist. Many people had said so too.'

"But they don't buy our pictures,' said Millet.

"They said it and it's true too. Look at your ‘Angelus' there!'

"My 'Angelus'! I was offered five francs for it.'

'When?'

'Who offered it?'

'Where is he?'

'Why didn't you take it?'

"Don't all speak at once. I thought he would give more — I was sure of it — so I asked him eight.'

'Well - and then?'

'He said he would come again.'

'Why, Francois-'

'Oh, I know—I know! It was a mistake. Boys, I meant for the best, you must understand, and I—'

'Why, certainly, we know that, but don't do it again.'

'I wish that somebody came along and offered us a cabbage for it, and you will see!'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

'A cabbage! Oh, don't, speak of it, I'm hungry . Let's talk of some other things.'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

'The pictures are good,' said Carl again, and a well-known artist could sell them at a high price, couldn't he?'

'Of course he could,' said Claude.

'Carl sat down and said, ‘I know now how we can become rich.'

"'Rich! You have lost your mind.'

"'No, I haven't.'

"'Yes, you have—you've lost your mind. What do you call rich?'

"'A hundred thousand francs for a picture.'

"'He has lost his mind. I knew it.'

"'Yes, he has. Carl, these troubles have been too much for you, and—'

"'Carl, you must take some medicine and go to bed.'

"'Stop it!' said Millet seriously, and let the boy say what he wants to. Now, then—go on with your plan, Carl. What is it?'

'"Well, then, to begin with, I will ask you to note this fact in human history; many great artists die of starvation. And only after their death people begin to buy their pictures and pay large sums of money for them. So the thing is quite clear,' he added, 'one of us must die. Let us draw lots.' We laughed and gave Carl some medical advice, but he waited quietly, then went on again with his plan.

'Yes, one of us must die, to save the others — and himself. We will draw lots. He will become famous and all of us will become rich. Here is the idea. During the next three months the man who must die will paint as many pictures as he can, sketches, parts of pictures, fragments of pictures with his name on them, and each must have some particulars of his, that could be easily seen. Such things are sold too and collected at high prices for the world's museums, after the great man is dead. At the same time the others of us will inform the public that a great artist is dying, that he won't live over three months.'

"'But what if he doesn't die?' we asked Carl.

"'Oh, he won't really die, of course; he will only change his name and disappear, we bury a dummy and cry over it and all the world will help us. And--' But he wasn't allowed to finish. Everybody applauded him, we ran about the room, and fell on each others' necks, and were happy. For hours we talked over the great plan and quite forgot that we were hungry.

"At last we drew lots and Millet was elected to die. We collected the few things we had left and pawned them. So we got a little money for travel and for Millet to live on for a few days. The next morning Claude, Carl and I left the village. Each had _ some of Millet's small pictures and sketches with him. We took different roads. Carl went to Paris, where he would begin the work of building Millet's fame. Claude and I were going abroad.

"On the second day I began to sketch a villa near a big town because I saw the owner standing on the veranda. He came down to look on. I showed him my sketch and he liked it. Then I took out a picture by Millet and pointed to the name in the corner. "'Do you know the name?' I said proudly. 'Well, he taught me!' I finished.

"The man looked confused.

'"Don't you know the name of Francois Millet?' I asked him.

"'Of course it is Millet. I recognize it now,' said the man, who had never heard of Millet before, but now pretended to know the name. Then he said that he wanted to buy the picture. At first I refused to sell it, but in the end I let him have it for eight hundred francs. Yes, Millet would sell it for a cabbage. I got eight hundred francs for that little thing. I wish I could get it

back for eighty thousand. But that time is gone by. I made a very nice picture of that man's house and wanted to offer it to him for ten francs, but remembered that I was the pupil of such a master, so I sold it to him for a hundred. I sent the eight hundred francs straight back to Millet from that town and was on the road again next day.

"Now that I had some money in my pocket, I did not walk from place to place. I rode. I continued my journey and sold a picture a day. I always said to the man who bought it, "I'm a fool to sell a picture by Francois Millet. The man won't live three months. When he dies, his pictures will be sold at a very high price."

13. O. Henry (1862 - 1910)

O. Henry is one of the best known short-story writers of our century. The real name of the writer was William Sydney Porter. He was born in Greenboro, North California, in the family of a doctor. He was brought up by his aunt because his mother died when he was a small boy. After finishing school at the age of fifteen, Porter worked as a clerk for five years in his uncle's chemist shop in Greenboro. Then he went to Texas because he wanted to see new places. There he saw cowboys, prairies and mustangs, but it was not easy for him to find work. For two years he worked on a farm, then he became я ojprl^jn an office and at last got a job in a small bank. During this period he studied languages and became interested in literature.

Soon he got married and when a daughter was born to them, Porter was a happy husband and father, but his happiness did not last long.

One day a theft of a thousand dollars was discovered at the bank where he worked. Though it was not he who had taken the money, Porter left the town and went to Central America where he stayed for some time. But when he heard that his wife was very ill, he returned home and was put into prison for three years.

After his wife's death Porter very often thought about his little daughter. She was living with her relatives and was told that her father had gone very far away and would not return soon. The thought that she would not receive a Christmas present from him that year was a sad one. To get some money for a present, Porter decided to write a story and send it to one of the American magazines. The story "Whistling Dick's Christmas Present" was published in 1899, and Porter's daughter received a Christmas present. Porter had signed the story "O. Henry"—the first pen-name that came into his head. While he was in prison, he published many other stories.

In 1901, when he was released from prison, he settled in New York, and continued writing short stories for different magazines. Very soon he became one of the most popular short-story writers in America.

O. Henry's stories won great popularity and have been translated into many languages. Most of them have unexpected endings and the reader is always taken by surprise.

During his short literary activity, O. Henry wrote 273 short stories and one novel "Cabbages and Kings" (1904).

In his stories O. Henry describes amusing incidents of everyday life in large cities, on the farms, and on the roads of America. The author's sympathy is with the common people of America, whose life he knew very well. His greatest wish was that people should be happy.

Witches' Loaves

Miss Martha Meacham kept the little bakery on the corner. Miss Martha was forty, she had two thousand dollars in a bank, two false teeth and a kind heart.  

Many people have married who had less possibilities to do so than Miss Martha.

Two or three times a week a man came into her shop to buy bread and very soon she began to take interest in him. He was a man of middle age with spectacles and a snort brown beard. His clothes were poor, but he looked clean and had very good manners.

He always bought two loaves of stale bread.

Once Miss Martha saw red and brown stains on his fingers. She was sure then that he was an artist and very poor. Of course he lived in a little room, where he painted pictures and ate stale bread, and thought of the good things in Miss Martha's bakery.

Often when Miss Martha sat down to eat her good dinner, she thought about the poor artist and wanted him to share her meal instead of eating his stale bread.

Miss Martha's heart, as you have been told, was a very kind one.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

In order to find out his profession, she brought from her room one day a painting that she had once bought and put it against the shelves behind the bread counter.  

It was an Italian painting. A beautiful palace stood near a lake. Miss Martha was sure that an artist would notice it.

Two days later the man came into the shop.

"Two loaves of stale bread, if you please."

"You have a fine picture here, madam," he said while she was getting the bread.

‘Yes?" said Miss Martha. "I love art and" (she could not say "artists") "and paintings," she added. "You think it is a good picture?"

"The palace," said the man, "is not in good drawing. The perspective of it is not true. Good morning, madam."

He took his bread and hurried out.

Yes, he must be an artist. Miss Martha took the picture back to her room.

How kind his eyes were behind his spectacles! What a broad forehead he had! To be an artist  and to live on stale bread! But genius has to struggle before it is recognized.

How good it would be for art if genius was helped by two thousand dollars in a bank, a bakery, and a kind heart too-but these were only dreams, Miss Martha.

Often now when he came, he talked for Martha. And he continued buying stale bread, never anything else.

She thought he was looking thinner. She wanted to add something good to eat to his stale bread, but she had no courage to do it. She knew the pride of artists.

Miss Martha began to wear her best blue silk blouse almost every day. In the room behind the shop she cooked some mixture for her face.

One day the man came as usual, and asked for his stale loaves. While Miss Martha was getting them, there was a great noise fn the street and the man hurried to the door to look. Suddenly Miss Martha had a bright idea.

On the shelf behind the counter was some fresh butter. With a bread knife Miss Martha made a deep cut in each of the stale loaves, put a big piece of butter there, and pressed the loaves together again.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

When the man turned to her, she was putting the loaves into a paper bag.

When he had gone, after a very pleasant little talk, Miss Martha smiled to herself and her heart beat very fast.

For a long time that day she could not think of anything else. She imagined his face when he would discover her little secret. He would stop painting and lay down his brushes. There would stand his picture in which the perspective was perfect. He would prepare for his meal of stale bread and water. He would take a loaf — ah!

Miss Martha blushed. Would he think of the hand that had put it there as he ate? Would he —

The front bell rang loudly. Somebody was coming in, making very much noise.

Miss Martha hurried into the shop. Tow men were there. One was a young man smoking a pipe — a man she had never seen before. The other man was her artist.

His face was very red, his hat was on the back of his head, his hair was falling all over his face. He shook his two fists angrily at Miss Martha. At Miss Martha!

"Fool!" he shouted very loudly.

The young man tried to draw him away.

"I shall not go," he said angrily, "before I tell her." He beat his fists on Miss Martha's counter. "You have spoilt my work," he cried, "1 will tell you. You are a stupid old cat!"

Miss Martha stood back against the shelves and laid one hand on her heart. The young man took his companion by the arm.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘ you have said enough.’

He drew the angry man out into the street, and then came back.

"I think I must tell you, ma'am," he said, "why he is so angry. That is Blumberger. He is a draughtsman. I work in the same office with him.

"He worked very hard for three months drawing a plan for a new City Hall. It was a prize competition. He finished it yesterday. You know, a draughtsman always makes his drawing in pencil first. When it is finished he rubs out the pencil lines with stale bread. That is better than india-rubber.

"Blumberger always bought the bread here. Well, today — well, you know, ma-'am, that butter isn't--well, Blumberger's plan isn't good, for anything now " .

Miss Martha went into the back room. She took off the blue silk blouse and put on the old brown  one she had worn before, then she poured the mixture for her face out of the window.

14. Jack London (1876 - 1916)

Jack London, the famous American novelist and short-story writer, was born in San Francisco, California. The family was very poor. Speaking of his childhood, the writer said later that those were the hungriest years in his life. When the boy was eight, he learned to read. Since that time he read everything he could get. He borrowed books from the public library and spent all his free time with a book. He began to work very early, when he was a boy of nine. He got up at three in the morning and delivered newspapers, after that he went to school. After school he delivered evening papers. On week-ends he worked as a porter at a hotel.

After graduating from a grammar school at the age of thirteen, he continued working as a newspaper boy and did other small jobs. His father was seriously ill at that time and Jack had to feed the family. He found work in a factory, but his wages were so low that he worked overtime, standing at his machine for eighteen hours a day. When Jack was a boy, he dreamed of being a sailor and now, when he had a little free time, he spent it near the sea. On one such day he was offered work as a sailor on board a ship going to Japan. Jack London worked on that ship for a year and in 1893 came back to San Francisco. His family was near starvation. Jack found a job at a factory where he earned one dollar for ten hours of hard work. After a day at the factory Jack could think of nothing but sleep. Then a San Francisco newspaper offered a prize for the best story. Jack sent his short story and was awarded the first prize.

It was more and more difficult to get a job in San Francisco and Jack London marched with the army of unemployed to, Washington to ask for bread and work. Then he tramped at over the US and Canada and spent a month in prison for tramping. That month in prison helped him to understand the class struggle. He saw men go mad or beaten to death there. When London returned home he began to read books on socialism and in 1895 joined the Socialist Labour Party. He decided to continue his education and after three months of study entered the University of California. But he studied there only for one term: his family needed his help. London found a job at a laundry and at the same time decided to try his luck in literature.

Working day and night, he wrote poetry, essays and stories. He sent them to magazines, but nothing was published. Gold was found in Alaska at that time, so London went there. He hoped to become rich enough to devote himself to literature. He worked there for a year, but didn't find any gold. But there he found the heroes of his stories: strong and brave people.

In 1896, London came back home and found his father dead. Again he had to take different jobs. At the same time he continued to write, and in 1898 his story "To the Man on Trail" was published and was a success.

In the next four years the writer published his northern stories "The Son of the Wolf" and "A Daughter of the Snows" among others, which made Jack London famous and brought him enough money to devote himself to literature.  

In 1902 London visited the capital of England. He bought some old clothes, took a small room in the East End and lived there as a poor American sailor. He spent much time in the slums of London, and later wrote one of his best books "The People of the Abyss” (1903), revealing a horrible picture of poverty of English working people at that time.

His works "The War of the Classes" (1905), "Revolution" (1908), "The Iron Heel" (1907) were written under the influence of the Russian Revolution.

The years 1905—1909 were most successful for the writer. He published "White Fang", "Martin Eden" and many other works which brought the author great fame. In "Martin Eden" he used many facts from his own life.

His literary works of his last years were less important.

In 1916, Jack London left the Socialist Labour Party. The same year the writer died.

Martin Eden

Part 1

Martin Eden, a strong man and talented worker, belongs to a working-class family. He meets Ruth Morse, a girl from a rich bourgeois family, and falls in love with her. He decides to become her equal in knowledge and culture. He must make a career for himself and become famous. He begins to read and study and Ruth helps him.

A week of heavy reading had passed since the evening he first met Ruth Morse, and still he did not dare to go and see her. He was afraid of making mistakes in speech and manners.

Martin tried to read books that required years of preparatory work. One day he read a book on philosophy, and the next day a book on art. He read poetry, he read books by Karl Marx. He did not understand what he was reading but he wanted to know. He had become interested in economy, industry and politics. He sat up in bed and tried to read, but the dictionary was in front of him more often than the book. He looked up so many new words that when he saw them again, he had forgotten their meaning and had to look them up again. He decided to write the words down in a note-book, and filled page after page with them. And still he could not understand what he was reading. Poetry was not so difficult. He loved poetry and beauty, and there he found beauty, as he found it in music.

At last Martin Eden had enough courage to go and see Ruth. She met him at the door herself and took him into the living-room. They talked first of the books he* had borrowed from her, then of poets. He told her of his plans to educate himself.

"You should go back and finish grammar school, and then go through the high school and university," Ruth said.

"But that takes money," he said.

"Oh!" she cried, "I had not thought of that. But then you have relatives, somebody who could help you?"

He shook his head.

"My father and mother are dead. I've two sisters and some brothers,- I'm the youngest,—but they never helped anybody.

The oldest died in India. Two are in South Africa now, and another is on a fishing-boat at sea. One is travelling with a circus. And I think I am just like them. I've taken care of myself since I was eleven—that's when my mother died. I think I must study by myself, and what I want to know is where to begin."

"I should say the first thing of all would be to get a grammar. Your grammar is not particularly good."

He got red. "I know I talk a lot of slang. I know words, picked them up from books, but I cannot say them correctly, so I don't use them."

"It isn't what you say, so much as how you say it. You don't mind my saying that, do you? I don't want to hurt you."

"No, no," he cried. "Tell me everything. I must know, and I had better hear it from you than from anybody else."

"Well, then, you say 'You was'; it must be 'You were'. You say 'I seen' for 'I saw'."

"That is clear," said Martin. "1 never thought of it before."

"You'll find it all in the grammar," she said and went to the bookcase. She took one of the books from the shelf and gave it to Martin.

Several weeks went by, during which Martin Eden studied his grammar and read books. During those weeks he saw Ruth five or six times and each time he learned something. She helped him with his English, corrected his pronunciation and taught him arithmetic.

Part II

A few months after Martin had started to educate himself, he had to go to sea again as all his money was spent. He went as a sailor on a ship that was going to the South Sea.

The captain of the ship had a complete Shakespeare, which he never read. Martin had washed his clothes for him and in return was allowed to read the books. For a time all the world took the form of Shakespearean tragedy or comedy; even Martin's thoughts were expressed in the language of Shakespeare. This trained his ear and gave him a feeling for good English.

The eight months were spent well; he learned to understand Shakespeare and speak correctly, and what was most important, he learned much about himself. Now he knew that he could do more than he had done. He wanted to show Ruth the beauty of the South Sea and decided to do it in his letters.

And then the great idea came to him. He would describe the beauty of the world not only for Ruth but for other people as well. He could do it. He would be one of the eyes through which the world saw, one of the ears through which the world heard, one of the hearts through which it felt. He would be a writer. He would write everything — poetry and prose, novels and descriptions, and plays like Shakespeare, There was career and the way to win Ruth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              For the first time he saw the aim of his life, and saw it in the middle of the great sea. Martin decided to begin writing when he comes back. He would describe the voyage to the South Sea and sell it to some San Francisco newspaper. He would go on studying, and then, after some time, when he had learned and prepared himself, he would write great things.

Part III

When Martin Eden returned to San Francisco, he began to write. He sent his works to newspapers and magazines, but the editors sent his manuscripts back. Martin continued to write and study at the same time.

Martin lived in a small room where he slept, studied, wrote and cooked his meals. Before the window there was the kitchen table that served as desk and library. The bed occupied two-thirds of the room. Martin slept five hours; only a man in very good health could work for nineteen hours a day. He never lost a moment. On the looking-glass were lists of words: when he was shaving or combing his hair, he learned these words. Some lists were on the wall over the kitchen table, and he studied them while he was cooking or washing the dishes. New lists were always put there in place of the old ones. Every new word he met in his reading was marked and later put down on paper and pinned to the wall or looking-glass. He even carried them in his pockets and looked them through in the street or in the shop.

The weeks passed. All Martin's money was spent and publishers continued to send his manuscripts back. Day by day he worked on and day by day the postman delivered to him his manuscripts. He had no money for stamps, so the manuscripts lay on the floor under the table. Martin pawned his overcoat, then his watch.

One morning the postman brought him a short thin envelope. There was no manuscript in that envelope, therefore, Martin thought, they had taken the story. It was "The Ring of Bells". In the letter the editor of a San Francisco magazine said that the story was good. They would pay the author five dollars for it. And he would receive the check when the story was published.

Martin thought that five dollars for five thousand words was very little. After a few weeks the story was published but the check did not arrive. Martin wrote to the editor asking him for the money. But when answering his letter the editor asked for more of his works and did not send any money.

One morning Martin decided to go and get the five dollars from the editor of the magazine. He entered the office and said that he wanted to see Mr. Ford the editor. He was taken to the editor's room.

"I—I am Martin Eden," Martin began the conversation. He wanted to ask for his five dollars, but it was his first editor and he did not want to scare him. To his surprise Mr. Ford quickly stood up with the words "You don't say so!" and the next moment, with both hands, was shaking Martin's hand.

"Can't say how glad I am to see you, Mr. Eden!" Here he held Martin at a distance and looked at his suit which was old and past repair.

"I thought you were a much older man than you are. Your story, you know, showed such maturity. A masterpiece, that story - I knew it when I had read the first lines. Let me tell you how I first read it. But no; first let me introduce you to the staff."

Still talking, Mr. Ford led him into the office, where he  introduced him to the assistant editor Mr. White.

"And Mr. Ends, Mr. Eden, is our business manager, you know."

The three men were now standing round Martin and talking all together.

"I'll tell you what I came for," Martin said finally. "To be paid for that story all of you like so well. Five dollars, I think, is what you promised me would be paid after publication."

Mr. Ford started to put his hand into his pocket, then turned suddenly to Mr. Ends and said that he had left his money at home. It was clear that Mr. Ends did not like that.

"I am sorry," said he, "but I paid the printer an hour ago." Both men looked at Mr. White, but he laughed and shook his head.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Mr. Ford. "We'll send you a check the first thing in the morning. You have Mr. Eden's address, haven't you, Mr. Ends?"

Yes, Mr. Ends had the address.

"Then it is understood, Mr. Eden, that we'll send you the check tomorrow," Mr. Ford said.

"I need the money today," Martin answered firmly.

"Mr. Ford has already explained the situation," Mr. Ends said. "And so have I. The check will be sent."

"I also have explained," said Martin, "and I have explained that I need the money today."

"It's too bad        -" Mr. Ford began.

At that moment Mr. Ends turned as if to leave the room. At the same time Martin turned and caught him by the throat with one hand. To the horror of Mr. White and Mr. Ford they saw Martin shake their business manager.

"Lay out, you killer of young talent," Martin ordered. "Lay out, or I'll shake it out of you, even if it's all in nickels." Then, to Mr. White and Mr. Ford: "You stand there, or somebody will get hurt." Mr. Ends found in his pockets four dollars and twenty-five cents.

"You next!" Martin shouted at Mr. Ford. "I want seventy-five cents more."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Mr. Ford did not wait, but searched his pockets with the result of sixty cents.

"Are you sure that is all?" Martin asked. "What have you in your vest pockets?"

Mr. Ford quickly turned two of his pockets inside out. A ferry ticket fell to the floor from one of them. He took it and was going to put it back in his pocket, when Martin cried:

"What's that? A ferry ticket? Here, give it to me. It is ten cents. I've now got four dollars and ninety-five cents. Five cents is needed." He looked at Mr. White and the man gave him a

nickel.

"Thank you," Martin said addressing all three of them. "I wish you a good day."

15. Theodore Dreiser (1871 - 1945)

Theodore Dreiser was an old man when he joined the Communist Party of America. It was in July 1945. His whole life had been a preparation for that step and a hard life it had been, too!  

He was born in the family of a strict Catholic, narrow-minded and despotic. It was because of his father that he hated religion to the end of his days. His parents were not rich. When 16 years of age, he left home to earn his living in Chicago, which at that time was growing into a big city. All seemed wonderful to the young lad. He managed to get a job, but it paid only 5 dollars a week, besides it was not what he wanted. He was eager to study. At last he was admitted to the University. Yet a year later he left it because of financial difficulties. It was in those days that he began to write for newspapers. But it was not so easy to become a newsman. He had to call at the offices many times before he got some work.

In 1900 his first novel "Sister Carrie" appeared and was immediately withdrawn from print by the publisher. The author was severely attacked by critics. The novel was pronounced "immoral".

Dreiser could not long get over the failure of his first literary attempt. Only after a lapse of nearly 10 years – in 1911 – he published his "Jennie Gerhardt", also the life-story of a girl. This book likewise received a hostile reception due to alleged immorality. Dreiser was boycotted by publishers.

Three of his other works, "The Financier" (1912), "The Titan" (1914) and "The Stoic" (which was published only after the writer's death in 1947), give the whole life-story of an American capitalist, showing the ways in which the wealth of big capitalists is made. "The Genius" (1915) tell of the fate of an artist in the bourgeois world.

He described his visit to the USSR in "Dreiser Looks at Russia" (1928).

Besides the works mentioned above, Dreiser also published several collections of short stories.

Dreiser's literary work occupies an important place in American critical realism. His novels and short stories give a true picture of American society and its influence on the life of the people.

"The Financier", "The Titan", and "The Stoic" compose "The Trilogy of Desire". Its purpose was to show the ways and practices of American big business at the turn of the 20th century.

Frank Cowperwood – a chief character of all the three novels – is a representative of a big business. "The Financier" gives a broad panorama of American social life. Cowperwood begins his career by titling against the ruling clique in Philadelphia. He suffers a defeat and is thrust into jail. Having served his term he continues his struggle and using a chance becomes a millionaire again, goes to Chicago and looks for a greater field of financial activity. There is no problem of moral or conscience for him when there is a chance to get money.

"The Titan" portrays Cowperwood as a businessman with a perfect knowledge of all the ins and outs of financial world. He artfully bribes all high officials and becomes the owner of the Chicago tramway. Cowperwood rolls in wealth but his appetites are insatiate.

Cowperwood's life-story is brought to an end in the third part of the trilogy – "The Stoic". The novel remained unfinished. The action is laid in London where Cowperwood is engaged in the construction of a subway. Here he is different: in the previous two novels the writer sympathized with his hero, portraying him as a man of wide-ranging enterprise. In "The Stoic", Cowperwood is a typical shark of capitalism. He is as unprincipled in business dealing as he is immoral in love affairs. In the last years of his life the bitter truth grows upon him that the chase for money and big business to which he has devoted all his life are empty things. His disillusion in life soon brings him to death.

"An American Tragedy" is Dreiser's masterpiece. It marks a new stage in Dreiser's work.

The novel speaks of the fate of a common American, Clyde Griffiths. His parents are failures in life and make their living in the streets of Kansas City, singing psalms. Clyde is tormented by the poverty and his fancy is set astir by the luxury. Sincerely believing that wealth alone makes people happy he determines to pave his way to fortune. He detests hard work, prefers to make money in an easy manner and begins his life as a bell-boy in a luxurious hotel. His way of life and of making money lead him to a crime. Clyde is arrested and put to death on the electric chair.                                                                                                                                                                              

Clyde Griffiths' fate is characteristic of the world in which he was brought up. Spiritually backward, with no ideals but a longing to gain success in the world, he is pushed onto a path of crime by the world that surrounds him for he sees that by honest labour he would never become rich enough to enter the world of pleasure and luxury.  He sees that when a man becomes rich nobody dares to find out the source of his riches. He sincerely hopes that his marriage to Sondra would solve all his problems and cover up his past. The ammoralizing effect of the environment leads Clyde to a tragedy, which is not his personal tragedy, but the one of an average American. Due to the great artistic power with which Dreiser presented this typical case, "An American Tragedy" is in full justice regard of the best books in American literature.

The extracts from "An American Tragedy" given below tell how Clyde looked for a job, and how he started working at a big hotel in Kansas City.

An American Tragedy

Parti Clyde began to think harder(than^ever about himself. And the result of his thinking was that he must do something for himself and soon. Up to this time the best he had been able to do was to work at such jobs as all boys between their twelfth

I and fifteenth years take urr selling newspapers during the summer months of one year, working in a poor little shop all one

I summer long, and on Saturdays, for a period during the winter, opening boxes and unpacking goods, for which he received the great sum of five dollars a week, a sum which at the time seemed almost a fortune. He felt himself rich and could sometimes go to "tXie theatre or to the cinema though his parents were against it. But Clyde felt that he had a right to go with his.ownjnoney, also to take his younger brother Frank, who was glad enough to go with him and say nothing, t

Later in the same year, wishing to get out of school and start a regular job, he got a place as an assistant to a soda-water clerk in one of the cheaper drugstores of the city which was near a theatre. A sign "Boy Wanted", which was directly 6rrhis way to school, first interested him. Later, in conversation foitli)the young man whose assistant he would be and from whom he would learn the trade, he foujidjiiut^hat ne m'ght make as much as fifteen and even eighteen dollars a week.

But to learn thejrade. as he was told, needed time and the friendly help_ of an expert. If he wished to come here and work forfive or six dollars tobeginwrth, he might soon know enough about the art of making sweetanhks, like lemonades, coca-colas andjojiik While_he was learning, he would have to wash and rub all the machinery of the soda-water counter and also to .s^veepout and dust the store at so early an hour as seven-thirty and"then dgliyex ^^^torders_^^he owner would send out by him. •

Yet this interesting job he decided to take after a talk with his mother. For one thing, he could drink as many ice-cream

sodas as he wanted free. In the next place, as he thought, it was an open door to a trade. InjthjTthjrdJlace, he would have to work there sometimes at night, as late as twelve o'clock. And this took him out of his home where his father and mother held^ religious meetings. They could not ask him to attend any meetings, not even on Sundays, because he would work Sunday afternoons and evenings. Jk

Clyde soon found out tohis_pjeasure, that the placgj^as^much, visitejt^gjrls, who sat at the tables and laughed and talked, d For the first time in his life, while Clyde was busy washing glasses and making drinks, he studied these girls with great interest. % How well-dressed they were, and what interesting things they discussed—parties, dances, the shows they had seen, the places in or near Kansas City to which they were soon going, the different actors or actresses—mostly actors-who were now playing or soon coming to the city. And to this day, in his B$n home he had heard nothing of all this.

But very soon Clyde understood that this job was not quite what he had expected. For* Albert Sieberling, whose assistant he was, kept his knowledge about the trade to himself and did all the more pleasant tasks^ Clyde had very little money and he did not make any friends.

Clyde was already sixteen and old enough to make his own way in life. And yet he was^earning almost nothing—not enough to live on, if he were alone. So he decided to find something better. Jf.

Part II

Looking here and there, Clyde thought one day that he would speak to the manager of the soda-water counter, that was con-nectedffitrUhe drugstore in the biggestlwtel in Kansas Citv. -the Green-Davidson Hotel. One day he entered the drugstore. He came up to a short well-dressed man of about thirty-five. "Well!" the man asked when he saw the boy.

"Yon don't happen t.n need a soda-counter assistant, do you?" Clyde said, looking at the man with hope.

"No, no, no," answered the man quickly and turned fovaji But seeing the look of disappointment in Clyde's face, he turned his head and added:

"Did you ever work in a place like this before?"

"No р1ас<£а& fine(as*)t;his. No, sir," answered Clyde, looking _ ground- "I'm working now at Mr. Klinkle's store at 7th and ' Brooklyn Street but it isn't anything like this one and I would like to get something better if I could."

"Ah," said the man, rather pleasedCby)Clyde's words about his store. "Well, you are quite right. But thereisnl anything . here that I could offer you. But if you'd like~"to~be;ajoell-boy, I canTell you where you might get a place. They're looking for an exfcrjjjboy in the hotel inside there now. The captain of the boys, was telling me he was in need of one. I should think that would be@ gj3od(as/helping about a soda counter."

Then he quickly added: "But you mustn't say that I sent you, because I don't know you. Just ask for Mr. Squires inside there and he can tell you all about it."

Part HI

Thanking his adviso^fophis kindness, Clyde went to a green door which opened from the hart of this drugstore into the. Jab.-

oo by (p

 pfyhe hotel

 When he entered the lobby

 y    ^jgig

j^L Under his feet was a black-and-white marble floor. There were agreat_jnanv_black marble columns, and between the columns were lamps, chairs and sofas.

 p As Clyde stocnL looking (about^the lobby, he saw

 of people-some^omen and children, and jg men as he could see-^dthei walking or standing about and talk-ingforjsitting in chairs.

Suddenly Clyde remembered the name of Squires and began tolool^fp? him in his office. He saw that not far from the door through which he had come, was a desk, at which stood a young man of about his own age in a brown удЩшп bright with many buttons. And on his head was a small cap. He was busyjUUtiog-ina big book which Jayjjperjjaefore him. Other boys about his own age, and unifjjoned.as he was, were seated upon a long bench

near him or were seen running here and there, sometimes returning to the desk with a slip of paper or a key or notejjf some kind, and then seating themselves upon theJ2£nch. to wait for another cjd]j which came quickly enough^A telephone upon the small desk at which stood the uniformjed youth was ringing all the time, and after learning what was wanted, this youth rang a small bell before him, or called "front", to_wjiich the first boy on the bench jumped^uihand would run («then to one of the en-trance^onto the elevators. The boys wouicTcarry the bags and suitcases of the arrivals, showjthejn the way tQ_thgjr rooms, bring them drinks or cigarettes from the stores.

Clyde stood, looking at all this, and hoped that he might get a job here. But wouIcTKe? And where was Mr. Squires? He came to the youth at the small desk. "Do you know where I will find Mr. Squires?" he asked.

"Here he comes now," answered the youth, looking up.

Clyde turned round and saw a man of twenty-nine or thirty years of age. His nose was long and thin, his eyes sharp, his lips thin. He was weiLdressed. Hejjaid np^attentioijf^) Clyde. His assistant at the desk said?

"ThaTyoung fellow there is waiting to see you." ¥

"You want to see me?" asked the captain of the bell-boys, turning to Clyde and noticing his not-very-good clothes. №

"The owner of the store here," began Clyde, who wanted to make a good impression on this man, but did not quite know how to do it, "said that I might ask you if there was any work for me here as a bell-boy. I'm working now at Klinkle's drugstore at 7th and Brooklyn Street as an assistant, but I would like to get out of it."

Clyde was^nervousUhafc he could not find the right words to say what he wanted. He only knew that he had to_§ay_some-thing to make that man like him and he added: "Ifyou would take me, I would try very hard and be very willing/'

The man before him looked at him coldly, but he liked Clyde's diplomatic words.

"But you haven't had any training in this work?"

"No, sir, but couldn't I pjckiLup^quicklyj^Fi tried hard?"

"Well I don't know," said the head of the bell-boys. "I haven't anytime to talk to you now. Come here Monday afternoon. I'll see you then." He turned and walked away.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, one of the most outstanding American writers of the lost generation, was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the family of an unsuccessful businessman. Yet the money, inherited from Fitzgerald's grandfather, a wealthy grocer, enabled him to attend Princeton, a university for well-to-do Americans. The cult of success, popular at Princeton, lies at the basis of Fitzgerald's dual attitude to the rich. Influenced by the spirit of competition ruling at the University, he tried to join the most fashionable and respectable students' clubs, enjoying their carefree, aristocratic, idle atmosphere. He was fascinated by the independence, privileges and elegance that money gave. Money gave style and ease and beauty. Poverty was mean, gray and narrow. It is much later that he found out the falseness of his belief.

Fitzgerald left Princeton without a degree because of illness and poor grades. However, his literary career started at the University. He wrote pieces for the "Tiger", the university magazine, and contributed texts to several campus variety shows.

In 1917, he joined the army as a second lieutenant. All his life he regretted the fact that he spent his time in service in American training camps and was never sent to the war in Europe.

His major novels appeared from 1920 to 1934: "This Side of Paradise" (1920), "The Beautiful and Damned" (1922), "The Great Gatsby" (1925) and "Tender is the Night" (1934). Fitzgerald's best stories have been collected in four volumes: "Flappers and Philosophers" (1920), "Tales of the Jazz Age" (1922), "All the Sad Young Men" (1926) and "Taps at Reveille" (1925).

The main theme of almost all Fitzgerald's fiction is the attraction and the corrupting force of money. Once he said to Hemingway, "The very rich are different from you and me." And when Hemingway made a remark, "Yes, they have more money," he did not understand the joke. He thought that they were a special glamorous race and only gradually, moving from one painful revelation to another, as his work progressed, he found out their corruption, inhumanity, spiritual emptiness and futility. He found it out together with his heroes who are largely autobiographical.

Fitzgerald is the first American author to portray the lost generation, a generation, for whom "all the battles have been fought" and "all the gods were dead". The young generation has no ideals to uphold against the corruption of the rich. They are empty people afraid of poverty and idolizing richness, trying to fill their spiritual void with all kinds of wild entertainments.

"The Great Gatsby"

Fitzgerald's best work "The Great Gatsby" tells the life story of Jay Gatsby, the son of a poor farmer, who falls in love with a rich and beautiful girl Daisy Fay who answers his love while his uniform conceals for a time his poverty. When the war is over, she marries the rich and elegant Tom Buchanan. Gatsby devotes his whole life to obtaining money and social position to make himself worthy of Daisy, though the only road open to him is bootlegging and dealing in dubious stocks.

When later he meets Daisy again, she is impressed by rumours of his incredibly large fortune, his mysterious origin, his rich mansion and his gorgeous and fashionable parties and makes him believe she would leave Tom. Yet once, driving Jay back from New York to Long Island in his car, she runs over and kills Myrtle Wilson, her husband's vulgar mistress. Myrtle's husband, whom Tom has persuaded that Gatsby was driving the car, follows Jay and shoots him. Daisy, having learned about Gatsby's dubious source of income, deserts him even before his death, notwithstanding the fact that Gatsby gallantly takes the blame of Myrtle's death upon himself.

Gatsby's fanatic attempt to reach his dreams is contrasted to the disillusioned drifting life of the cynical members of upper society who do not know what to do "this afternoon, the day after that and the next thirty years", and whose existence with wild parties and vulgar merriment is compared to the terrible grey "valley of ashes" with the sordid eyes of an oculist's

advertising sign watching the gaudy show. Fitzgerald stresses that Gatsby's romantic dreams of the vast possibilities for happiness on "the fresh green breast of the New World" no longer correspond to reality.

The device of the intelligent and sympathetic observer at the centre of the novel allowed the author gradually to expose the moral corruption behind the false structure of upper class respectability and splendour, at the same time the stature of Gats-by gradually growing and achieving almost poetic elevation. Satire in the portrayal of the empty pleasures of the rich is combined with lyrical atmosphere enveloping Gatsby's romantic dream.

Thus, if Dreiser was the scientist dissecting vast cross-sections of American society with his social observations, Fitzgerald was the chronicler of its moral atmosphere.

The Great Gatsby

One afternoon late in October I saw Tom Buchanan. He was walking ahead of me along Fifth Avenue in his alert, aggressive way, his hands out a little from his body as if to fight off interference, his head moving sharply here and there, adapting itself to his restless eyes. Just as I slowed up to avoid overtaking him he stopped and began frowning into the window of a jewelry store. Suddenly he saw me and walked back, holding out his hand.

"What's the matter, Nick? Do you object to shaking hands with me?"

"Yes. You know what I think of you."

"You're crazy, Nick," he said quickly. "Crazy as hell. I don't know what's the matter with you."

"Tom," I inquired, "what did you say to Wilson that afternoon?"

He stared at me without a word, and I knew I had guessed right about those missing hours. I started to turn away, but he took a step after me and grabbed my arm.

"I told him the truth," he said. "He came to the door while we were getting ready to leave, and when I sent down word that we weren't in he tried to force his way upstairs. He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn't told him who owned the car. His hand was on a revolver in his pocket every minute he was in the house-" He broke off defiantly. "What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy's, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you'd run over a dog and never even stopped his car."

There was nothing I could say, except one unutterable fact that it wasn't true.

"And if you think I didn't have my share of suffering—look here, when I went to give up that flat and saw that damn box of dog biscuits there on the sideboard, I sat down and cried like a baby. By God it was awful—"

I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people. Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...

1 shook hands with him, it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though 1 were talking to a child. Then he went into the jewelry store to buy a pearl necklace—or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons—rid of rny provincial squeamishness forever.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

Ernest Hemingway was one of the greatest American writers of his age. He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in the family of a doctor. His father was fond of hunting and fishing and in his school-days Ernest became an excellent sportsman. He played football, was a member of the swimming team and learned to box, as a result of which his nose was broken and an eye injured. At school he was a successful pupil. He wrote poetry and prose to the school literary magazine and edited the school newspaper.

In 1917, when the United States entered the First World War, Hemingway wanted to join the army but was refused because of his eye. Then he left home and went to Kansas City. He lived in his uncle's house and worked as a newspaper reporter. In 1918, he tried to join the army again and was given the job of driving American Red Cross ambulances on the Italian front. Two months later he was badly wounded in the leg. He was taken to hospital in Milan where he had twelve operations. Some time later he returned to the army. Hemingway was awarded a silver medal by the Italian Government. His war experiences influenced the life and all the works of the writer.

In 1920, Hemingway returned to the US and began to work as a foreign correspondent of a newspaper.

At that time, he was earning enough to support himself by his pen and he began writing stories. His dream was to become a novelist. To get the material for his future stories and novels Hemingway travelled all over the world. He visited Spain, Switzerland, Germany and other countries. His first work, "Three Stories and Ten Poems", was written in 1923. Hemingway's first novel "The Sun Also Rises" known in our country as "Fiesta", was published in 1926. Then followed his masterpiece, the novel "Farewell to Arms", a protest against war. It was published in 1929 and made the author famous.

Hemingway continued to write short stories. The collection includes "The Killer", "In Another Country" and others. Here the author shows the disappointment of young people in the post-war period.

In 1935, Hemingway published his novel "The Green Hills of Africa" in which he expresses the idea that nature and art are the two things that live long in the world.

When the Civil War in Spain began in 1936, Hemingway collected money (140,000 dollars) for an ambulance service in the Spanish Republic and went to Spain. He took part in the war as an anti-fascist correspondent. He met many progressive people in Spain. After the end of the Civil War in Spain Hemingway wrote one of his best novels "For Whom the Bell Tolls", where he speaks about the American, who died in the fight for the Republic in Spain. Hemingway's sympathy with the Spanish people and their struggle against fascism was expressed in his speech at the Congress of American Writers in 1937.

During the Second World War Hemingway was a war correspondent. He took part in air raids over Germany and fought against the fascists together with French partisans.

The last years of his life Hemingway spent in Cuba, visiting the USA and Spain. He loved freedom and supported the revolution in Cuba and greeted the revolutionary government there. Hemingway's last work, "The Old Man and the Sea" (1952), is about the courage of an old fisherman, who was fighting a big fish and the sea for many hours and won the victory over them. In 1954, the author was awarded the Nobel prize for literature and "The Old Man and the Sea" was mentioned as one of his best works.

In 1960, he returned to the United States and very soon died there.

In Another Country

In the autumn the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. It was cold in the autumn in Milan and darkness came very early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant to walk along the streets looking in the windows. There were many people outside the shops. It was a cold autumn and the wind came down from the mountains.

We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and we came to the hospital by different ways across the town. Two of the ways

were along canals, but they were long. You always crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts. The chestnuts were warm in your pockets for some time. The hospital was very old and very beautiful, and you walked across a yard from where funerals were usually starting. Behind the old hospital were the new buildings, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in each other and sat in the machines that were helping us to get well.

The doctor came up to the machine where I was sitting and said: "What did you like best to do before the war? Did you go in for sports?"

I said: "Yes, football."

"Good," he said. "You will be able to play football again better than ever."

My knee did not bend and the machine would bend the knee and make it move as in riding a bicycle. But it did not bend yet. The doctor said: "That will come. You are a lucky man. You will play football again like a champion."

In the next machine was a major, who had a little hand like a child's. He winked at me when the doctor examined his hand and said: "And will I too play football, doctor?" He had been a very great fencer, and before the war the greatest fencer in Italy. The doctor went to his office in a back room and brought a photograph which showed a hand that had been as small as the major's before it had taken the machine course, and after the treatment it was a little larger. The major held the photograph with his good hand and looked at it with great attention. "Wounded?" he asked. "An industrial accident," the doctor said. "Very interesting, very interesting," the major said, and handed it back to the doctor. "Do you believe in it?" "No," said the major.

There were three boys of the same age I was, who came every day. They were all three from Milan, and one of them was going to be a lawyer, one was to be a painter, and one wanted to be a soldier. Sometimes after we finished with the machines, we walked back together to the cafe, which was next door to the

Scala. Another boy who walked with us sometimes and made us five, wore a black silk handkerchief across his face because he had no nose and was preparing for an operation. He had gone to the front from the military academy, and had been wounded an hour after he had gone into the front line for the first time.

We all had the same medals, except the boy with the black silk handkerchief across his face, and he had not been at the front long enough to get any medals. The tall boy with a very pale face, who had prepared to be a lawyer, had been a lieutenant in the army and had three medals, while each of us had only one. He had lived a very long time with death and was a little detached. We were all a little detached and there was nothing that held us together, except that we met every afternoon at the hospital. The boys at first were very polite about my medal and asked me what I had done to get it. I showed them the papers which were written in very beautiful language and full of nice words, but which really said, if you drop all the nice words, that I had got the medal because I was an American. After that their manner changed a little though I remained their friend. I was never really one of them after they had read the papers, because it had been different with them and they had done much more to get their medals.

I had been wounded, it was true; but we all knew that it was really an accident. I knew that I was very much afraid to die. The three young men with the medals were like hunting hawks; and I was not a hawk; they, the three, knew it and so we drifted apart. But I stayed good friends with the boy who had been wounded his first day at the front.

The major, who had been the great fencer, did not believe in bravery. So he remained a good friend too, and we spent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar! He said I spoke Italian well and we talked together very easily. The major came to the hospital very regularly, though I am sure he did not believe in the machine. He was a small man and he sat straight up in his chair with his right hand in the machine.

"What will you do when the war is over if it is ever?" he asked me one day. "Speak grammatically!"

"I will go to the States."

"Are you married?"

"No, but I hope to be."

"Then you are a fool," he said.

He looked angry. "A man must not marry."

"Why mustn't a man marry?"

"He cannot marry," he said angrily. "He may lose everything. He must find things in his life which he cannot lose."

"But why should he lose anything?"

"He will lose it," the major said. He was looking at the wall. Then he looked down at the machine and took his hand out of it. He went into the other room and I heard him ask the doctor if he might use the telephone. When he came back into the room, I was sitting in another machine. He had his cap on and came straight to my machine.

"I am sorry," he said. "You must forgive me. My wife has just died."

"Oh -" I said feeling sick for him. "I am sorry."

"It is very difficult," he said. "I cannot understand it." He

looked past me through the window. Then he began to cry. "I

cannot believe it," he said again. And then crying, his head up.

looking at nothing, he walked past the machine and out of the

door.

The doctor told me that the major's wife who was very young and whom he had married when he was invalided out of the war, had died of pneumonia. She had been sick only a few days. No one expected her to die. The major did not come to the hospital for three days. Then he came at the usual hour.

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

William Faulkner, one of the leading American 20th-century novelists, was born in New Albany, Mississippi, in a declined aristocratic family. Faulkner was in the eleventh grade of the Oxford High School when the First World War broke out. His war experiences played an important part in the formation of his character. He enlisted as a cadet in the Canadian branch of the Royal Flying Corps in 1918. He was trained as a pilot in Toronto, but the war ended before he was commissioned. His disappointment at missing the experience of combat is reflected in several of his early stories.

After the war Faulkner returned to Oxford and worked as a postmaster at the University of Mississippi. At the same time he took some courses at the University. Faulkner began to write soon after the war. At first he wrote poetry. He went to New York where he worked in a book-store at the same time writing stories. His first published work, a volume of poems entitled "The Marble Faun", appeared in 1924. It did not win public attention. In the following year he went to New Orleans, where he met Sherwood Anderson who encouraged him to write "Soldier's Pay". It was published in 1926. In spirit Faulkner's first novel was close to the moods of the lost generation. He showed the tragedy of the war generation returning to peacetime life crippled both physically and spiritually. The writer portrayed a man as a mere plaything at the mercy of blind forces. The only saving grace to Faulkner was the purity, kindness and sacrifice of an individual. The novel established his reputation as a creative writer but it was not a great success.

From 1925 to 1929 he continued working at odd jobs as carpenter and housepainter writing novels at the same time. "Mosquitos" was published in 1927 and "Sartoris" in 1929. The latter initiated the theme of the disintegration of the aristocratic South to which Faulkner returned repeatedly throughout his literary career.

In the same year Faulkner published "The Sound and the Fury" which established his fame in literary circles. He gave up his odd jobs to devote himself to full-time writing. "Sanctuary" (1931), a story of violence and murder, which he wrote solely to make money, created a sensation and brought its author financial independence. Since then his fame increased with every new novel.

In the thirties Faulkner wrote his dark horror novels full of violence, pathology and irrationality: "As I Lay Dying" (1930), "Light in August" (1932) and "Absalom, Absalom!" (1936). In 1942, Faulkner published a collection of stories entitled "Go Down, Moses, and Other Stories". It includes on of his best stories "The Bear". In 1948 he wrote "Intruder in the Dust", one of his most significant social novels on the Negro problem. In the forties and fifties Faulkner published his best work—"The Snopes Trilogy" consisting of "The Hamlet" (1940), "The Town" (1957) and "The Mansion" (1959). Faulkner's last major novel was "The Fable" (1954), a complicated parable of humanity and war. Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. He died at the age of sixty-five.

William Faulkner is a very complicated and controversial writer. He belongs to the Southern School of American writers.

In his stories and novels Faulkner has been conducting a long, painful and heroic examination of the Southern myth. His attitude to it is dual. Faulkner pities the proud and courtly South -ern aristocrats watching their plantations fall a prey to the avarice of social upstarts. On the other hand, he is aware of their being doomed and corrupt. The Southern myth of chivalry is a falsehood because the land has been eternally cursed by the evil institution of slavery. Faulkner sees the Negroes and the whites bound together by the irony of history. They are involved in an inextricable web of shame, guilt and evil, corrupting both, the slaves and the slave-holders. His approach to the Negro problem is not social but purely aesthetic, moral and psychological.

Faulkner is a social-psychological novelist. The social scene in his novels had been presented in two ways—either in an objective (epic) manner or in a subjective (lyric) manner. In "The Snopes Trilogy" the disintegration of Southern gentry has been presented directly through the recording of the events. In "The Sound and the Fury" it has been portrayed indirectly by dissecting the twisted souls of the members of an aristocratic family.

The Snopes Trilogy The Hamlet

On the Monday morning when Flem Snopes came to clerk in Varner's store, he wore a brand-new white shirt. It had not even been laundered yet; the creases where the cloth had lain bolted on the shelf, and the sun-browned streaks repeated zebra-like on each successive fold, were still apparent. And not only the women who came to look at him, but Ratliff himself (he did not sell sewing machines for nothing. He had even learned to operate one quite well from demonstrating them, and it was even told of him that he made himself the blue shirts which he wore) knew that the shirt had been cut and stitched by hand and by a stiff and unaccustomed hand, too. He wore it all that week. By Saturday night it was soiled, but on the following Monday he appeared in a second one exactly like it, even to the zebra-stripes. By the second Saturday night that one was soiled too, in exactly the same places as the other. It was as though its wearer, entering into a new life and milieu already channeled to compulsions and customs fixed long before his advent, had nevertheless established in it even on that first day his own particular soiling groove.

He rode up on a gaunt mule, on a saddle which was recognized at once as belonging to the Varners, with a tin pail tied to it. He hitched the mule to a tree behind the store and untied the pail and came and mounted to the gallery, where already a dozen men, Ratliff among them, lounged. He did not speak. If he ever looked at them individually, that one did not discern it-a thick squat soft man of no establishable age between twenty and thirty, with a broad still face containing a tight seam of mouth stained slightly at the corners with tobacco, and eyes the color of stagnant water, and projecting from among the other features in startling and sudden paradox, a tiny predatory nose like the beak of a small hawk. It was as though the original nose had been left off by the original designer or craftsman and the unfinished job taken over by someone of a radically different school or perhaps by some viciously maniacal humorist or perhaps by one who had had only time to clap into the center of the face a frantic and desperate warning.

He entered the store, carrying the pail, and Ratliff and his companions sat and squatted about the gallery all that day and watched not only the village proper but all the country-side within walking distance come up singly and in pairs and in groups, men, women and children, to make trivial purchases and look at the new clerk and go away. They came not belligerently but completely wary, almost decorous, like half-wild cattle following word of the advent of a strange beast upon their range, to buy flour and patent medicine and plow lines and tobacco and look at the man whose name a week ago they had never heard, yet with whom in the future they would have to deal for the necessities of living, and then depart as quietly as they had come. About nine o'clock Jody Varner rode up on his roan saddle horse and entered the store. They could hear the bass murmur of his voice inside, though for all the answer he got he might have been talking to himself. He came out at noon and mounted and rode away, though the clerk did not follow him. But they had known anyway what the tin pail would contain, and they began to disperse noonward too, looking into the store as they passed the door, seeing nothing. If the clerk was eating his lunch, he had hidden to do it. Ratliff was back on the gallery before one o'clock, since he had to walk only a hundred yards for his dinner. But the others were not long after him, and for the rest of that day they sat and squatted, talking quietly now and then about nothing at all, while the rest of the people within walking distance came and bought in nickels and dimes and went away.

Jerome David Salinger (born 1919)

Salinger has become a classic because of his real understanding of American youth.

Jerome David Salinger was born in 1919 in New York. His father was a prosperous importer of ham and cheese. The boy grew up with a sister who was eight years older than he. He was said to be friendly with other children, but he always wanted to do unconventional things: for hours no one in the family knew where he was or what he was doing; he only showed up for meals. He seldom joined other boys in a game.

Salinger did not do well at school, so his parents enrolled him in a military academy. There at night, tenting a blanket over his head, Salinger wrote his first short stories. Literature had been the only subject he had really liked at school.

On graduating from the Valley Forge Academy he told his family that he wanted to become a writer. His father thought that was not the career for him. So Salinger was sent to Poland to learn the ham business. Some time later he returned to America.

Salinger tried to attend college but soon found that academic programme was of no avail to him. The first story he published was "The Young Men" (1940).

During the Second World War he spent four years in the army and was sent to Europe. In 1943, while Salinger was still in France, the American magazine "Saturday Evening Post" published his story "The Varioni Brothers". Sergeant Salinger sent the money he earned to the editor of the magazine "Story" to help other young writers.

In 1944, Salinger met Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway had read Salinger's stories and said that the young man had "a helluva talent" (a hell of a talent). Some other stories of his, published in 1946 in a very respectable literary magazine, brought him fame as a writer.

Salinger's short novel "The Catcher in the Rye" appeared in the summer of 1951. The book became popular with its read-

ers and was admired by many writers, too. Salinger uses an original form of narration. The story is told by a teen-ager in funny schoolboy slang. The tone is intimate and friendly. He seems to be full of laughter. But through the boy's artless humorous talk his tragic attitude towards life becomes soon visible.

The extract from the novel describes the talk between Hold-en and his sister Phoebe whom he loves. Holden tells her of his troubles. The conversation Holden has with Phoebe carries out the main idea of Salinger. Here is part of the conversation:

"Phoebe says: 'You don't like anything that's happening.'

"'It made me even more depressed when she said that.

"'Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Sure I do. Don't say that. Why the hell do you say that?'

"'Because you don't. You don't like any schools. You don't like a million things. You don't.'

"'I do! That's where you're wrong—that's exactly where you're wrong! Why the hell do you have to say that? Boy, was she depressing me?'

"'Because you don't,' she said. 'Name one thing.'

"'One thing? One thing I like?' I said 'Okay.'

"The trouble was, I couldn't concentrate too hot. Sometimes it's hard to concentrate.

'"One thing I like a lot you mean?' I asked her.

"She didn't answer me, though. She was in a cockeyed position way the bell over the other side of the bed. She was about a thousand miles away. 'C'mon, answer me,' I said. 'One thing I like a lot, or one thing and just like?'

"'You like, a lot.'

"'All right,' I said. But the trouble was I couldn't concentrate. ... There was this one boy at Elkton Hills, named James Castle, that wouldn't take back something he said about this very conceited boy, Phil Stabile. James Castle called him a very conceited guy, and one of Stabile's lousy friends went and squealed him to Stabile. So Stabile, with about six other dirty bastards, went down to James Castle's room and went in and locked the goddam door and tried to make him take tack what he said, but

he wouldn't do it. So they started in on him... but he still wouldn't take it back, old James Castle. And you should have seen him. He was a skinny little weak-looking guy, with wrists about as big as pencils. Finally, what he did, instead of taking back what he said, he jumped out of the window. I was in the shower and all, and even I could hear him land outside. But I just thought something fell out of the window, a radio or a desk or something, not a boy or anything. Then I heard everybody running through the corridor and down the stairs, so I put on my bathrobe and I ran downstairs too, and there was old James Castle lying right on the stone steps and all. He was dead, and his teeth, and blood were all over the place, and nobody would even go near him...

"That was about all I could think of, though..."

Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)

Eugene O'Neill was born in New York in the family of an actor. From his childhood the boy used to accompany his father on theatrical tours. In 1906, he entered the University of Princeton, Massachusetts, but stayed there for only a year. Much of the time between 1907-1913 was spent in travelling. Eugene O'Neill visited South Africa, Argentina, England.

Back home he wrote his first play "The Web" (1913-1914), which was followed by seven one-act plays and two long ones.

In 1916, Eugene O'Neill joined a group of artists and writers who banded together under the name of The Provincetown Players and his one-act play "Bound East for Cardiff" (1916) was first performed in Provincetown. The Provincetown Players turned into a regular theatrical group that defied the commercial theatre of the time, the success of which mostly depended upon spectacular effects, large casts, melodramatic plots. The new theatre broke the conventional traditions of the commercial theatre by experimenting in new manners of production. Little by little they influenced the commercial theatres and their playwrights gained popularity with the public.

During the First World War The Provincetown Players ran a little theatre in Greenwich Village which in the 1920s became known as Greenwich Village Theatre. It was managed by Eugene O'Neill: besides in 1923, he became one of the founders of the Theatre Guild which produced most of his plays.

With the production of "Beyond the Horizon" in 1920 (Pulitzer Prize), Eugene O'Neill won wide popularity. This play was followed by "The Emperor Jones" (1920), "Diff'rent" (1920), "Gold" (1921), "Anna Cristie" (1921, Pulitzer Prize 1922) and others.

In the 1920s, Eugene O'Neill stood close to the writers who threw light upon the moral frustration of the society. Such plays as "The Hairy Ape" (1922) and "All God's Chillun Got Wings"

(1924) are notable for this approach. The plays "Desire Under the Elms" (1924), "Marco Millions" (1928) attack the lust for acquisition and mercenary interests.

By the end of the 1920s, Eugene O'Neill got interested in Sigmund Freud's psycho-analysis which became the basic motive of his trilogy "Mourning Becomes Electra" (1931), as well as "Strange Interlude" (1928, Pulitzer Prize), "Dynamo" (1929), and "Days Without End" (1934).

After 1934, though Eugene O'Neill continued to write extensively, no new plays of his were staged until 1946, when "The Iceman Cometh" was produced. It was followed by "A Moon for the Misbegotten" in 1947. These plays are marked by a strong feeling of disillusionment and disgust with life.

Three of O'Neill's plays: "Long Day's Journey into the Night", an autobiographical play, written in 1940-1941, "More Stately Mansions", written in 1938, and "A Touch of the Poet", written in 1940, were all produced posthumously, in 1956, 1963, 1957 respectively.

Eugene O'Neill was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1936.

THE HAIRY APE (1922) A Comedy of Ancient and Modern Life

Scene Two

A section of the promenade deck.

(Mildred Douglas and her aunt are discovered reclining in deck chairs. The former is a girl of twenty, slender, delicate, with a pale, pretty face marred by a self-conscious expression of disdainful superiority. She looks fretful, nervous, and discontented, bored by her own anaemia. Her aunt is a pompous and proud and fat old lady. She is a type even to the point of a double chin and lorgnettes. She is dressed pretentiously, as if afraid her face alone would never indicate her position in life. Mildred is dressed all in white. The impression to be conveyed by this scene is one of the beautiful, vivid life of the sea all about—sunshine on the deck in a great flood, the fresh sea wind blowing across it. In the midst of this, these two, incongruous, artificial figures, inert and disharmonious, the elder like a grey lump of dough touched up with rouge, the younger looking as if the vitality of her stock had been sapped before she was conceived, so that she is the expression not of its life energy but merely of the artificialities that energy had won for itself in the spending.)

MILDRED {looking with affected dreaminess): How the black smoke swirls back against the sky! Is it not beautiful? AUNT {without looking up): I dislike smoke of any kind.

MILDRED: My great-grandmother smoked a pipe—a clay pipe. AUNT {ruffling): Vulgar!

MILDRED: She was too distant a relative to be vulgar. Time mellows pipes.

AUNT {pretending boredom but irritated): Did the sociology you took up at college teach you that—to play the ghoul on every possible occasion, excavating old bones? Why not let your great-grandmother rest in her grave?

MILDRED {dreamily): With her pipe beside her—puffing in Paradise.

AUNT {with spite): Yes, you are a natural born ghoul. You are even getting to look like one, my dear.

MILDRED {in a passionless tone): I detest you, aunt. {Looking at her critically) Do you know what you remind me of? Of a cold pork pudding against a background of linoleum tablecloth in the kitchen of a—but the possibilities are wearisome. {She closes her eyes.)

AUNT (with a bitter laugh): Merci for your candour. But since I am and must be your chaperon—in appearance, at least-let us patch up some sort of armed truce. For my part you are quite free to indulge any pose of eccentricity that beguiles you—as long as you observe the amenities—

MILDRED {drawling): The inanities?

AUNT {going on as if she hadn't heard): After exhausting the morbid thrills of social service work on New York's East Side—how they must have hated you, by the way, the poor

that you made so much poorer in their own eyes!—you are now bent on making your slumming international. Well, I hope Whitechapel will provide the needed nerve tonic. Do not ask me to chaperon you there, however. I told your father I would not. I loathe deformity. We will hire an army of detectives and you may investigate everything—they allow you to see.

MILDRED {protesting with a trace of genuine earnestness): Please do not mock at my attempts to discover how the other half lives. Give me credit for some sort of groping sincerity in that at least. I would like to help them. I would like to be some use in the world. Is it my fault I don't know how? I would like to be sincere, to touch life somewhere. {With weary bitterness) But I'm afraid I have neither the vitality nor integrity. All that was burnt out in our stock before I was born. Grandfather's blast furnaces, flaming to the sky, melting steel, making millions-then father keeping those home fires burning, making more millions—and little me at the tail end of it all. I'm a waste product in the Bessemer process—like the millions. Or rather, I inherit the acquired trait of the by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, none of the strength of the steel that made it. I am sired by gold and damned by it, as they say at the race track—damned in more ways than one. {She laughs mirthlessly.)

AUNT {unimpressed—superciliously): You seem to be going in for sincerity today. It isn't becoming to you, really—except as an obvious pose. Be as artificial as you are, I advise. There's a sort of sincerity in that, you know. And, after all, you must confess you like that better. MILDRED {again affected and bored): Yes, 1 suppose I do. Pardon me for my outburst. When a leopard complains of its spots, it must sound rather grotesque. {In a mocking tone) Purr, little leopard. Purr, scratch, tear, kill, gorge yourself, and be happy—only stay in the jungle where your spots are camouflage. In a cage they make you conspicuous.

AUNT: I don't know what you are talking about. MILDRED: It would be rude to talk about anything to you. Let's just talk. (She looks at her wrist watch.) Well, thank goodness, it's about time for them to come for me. That ought to give me a new thrill, aunt.

AUNT (affectedly troubled): You don't mean to say you're really going? The dirt—the heat must be frightful-Mi LD RED: Grandfather started as a puddler. I should have inherited an immunity to heat that would make a salamander shiver. It will be fun to put it to the test. AUNT: But don't you have to have the captain's—or some one's—permission to visit the stokehole?

MILDRED (with a triumphant smile): I have it—both his and the chief engineer's. Oh, they didn't want to at first, in spite of my social service credentials. They didn't seem a bit anxious that I should investigate how the other half lives and works on a ship. So I had to tell them that my father, the president of Nazareth Steel, chairman of the board of directors of this line, had told me it would be all right.

AUNT: He didn't.

MILDRED: How naive age makes one! But I said he did, aunt. I even said he had given me a letter to them—which I had lost. And they were afraid to take the chance that I might be lying. (Excitedly) So it's ho! for the stokehole. The second engineer is to escort me. (Looking at her watch again) It's time. And here he comes, I think. (The second engineer enters. He is a fine-looking man of thirty-five or so. He stops before the two and tips his cap, visibly embarrassed and ill at ease.)

SECOND ENGINEER: Miss Douglas?

MILDRED: Yes (Throwing off her rugs and getting to her feet) Are we all ready to start?

SECOND ENGINEER: In just a second, ma'am. I'm waiting for the Fourth. He's coming along.

MILDRED (with a scornful smile): You don't care to shoulder this responsibility alone, is that it?

SECOND ENGINEER (forcing a smile): Two are better than one. (Disturbed by her eyes, glances out to sea—blurts out) A fine day we're having.

MILDRED: Is it?

SECOND ENGINEER: A nice warm breeze-

MI LDRED: It feels cold to me.

SECOND ENGINEER: But it's hot enough in the sun-

MILDRED: Not hot enough for me. I don't like Nature. I was never athletic.

SECOND ENGINEER (forcing a smile): Well, you'll find it hot enough where you're going. MILDRED: Do you mean hell?

SECOND ENGINEER (flabbergasted, decides to laugh): Ho-ho! No, I mean the stokehole. MILDRED: My grandfather was a puddler. He played with boiling steel.

SECOND ENGINEER (all at sea-uneasily): Is that so? Hum, you'll excuse me, ma'am, but are you intending to wear that dress?

MILDRED: Why not? SECOND ENGINEER: You'll likely rub against oil and dirt. It can't be helped.

MILDRED: It doesn't matter. I have lots of white dresses.

SECOND ENGINEER: I have an old coat you might throw over—

MILDRED: I have fifty dresses like this. I will throw this one into the sea when I come back. That ought to wash it clean, don't you think?

SECOND ENGINEER (doggedly): There's ladders to climb down that are none too clean—and dark alley-ways'—

MILDRED: I will wear this very dress and none other.

SECOND ENGINEER: No offence meant. It's none of my business. I was only warning you—

MILDRED: Warning? That sounds thrilling.

SECOND ENGINEER (looking down the deck-with a sigh of relief): There's the Fourth now. He's waiting for us. If you'll come—

MILDRED: Go on. I'll follow you. (He goes. Mildred turns a mocking smile on her aunt.) An oaf—but a handsome, virile oaf.

AUNT (scornfully): Poser!

MILDRED: Take care. He said there were dark alley-ways—

AUNT (in the same tone): Poser!

MILDRED (biting her lips angrily): You are right. But would that my millions were not so anaemically chaste!

AUNT: Yes, for a fresh pose I have no doubt you would drag the name of Douglas in the gutter!

MILDRED: From which it sprang. Good-bye, aunt. Don't pray too hard that I may fall into the fiery furnace.

AUNT: Poser!

MILDRED (viciously): Old hag! (She slaps her aunt insultingly across the face and walks off, laughing gaily.)

AUNT (screams after her): I said poser!

Lillian Hellman (1906-1984)

Lillian Hellman is a well-known American playwright. She was born in New Orleans in the family of a businessman. In her school years she read much and had a short career as an actress. Then she continued her education at New York University. After finishing the university course, she attended classes at Columbia University in the Russian and English novel. She liked Dostoyevsky and wanted to write a book on literature.

Lillian Hellman tried to write short stories, reviewed books and sometimes got some jobs from publishers. In the spring of 1929, she earned enough money to go to Europe. She travelled in Germany and came to understand what fascism was. The following year Hellman moved to Hollywood, where she found a job as a play reader for a film company. At that time she met Hammett, a well-known journalist and writer of detective novels, who became her friend and teacher in writing. He criticized her stories and taught her how to work. "Read, think and study, and then write," he said.

Two of Hellman's stories were published in 1933 in the literary newspaper edited by a number of well-known American writers: Theodore Dreiser and other. Her first play "The Children's Hour" was staged on Broadway in 1934 and was a success. The play deals with the problem of moral corruption of children. Next year the writer was invited to Hollywood as a scriptwriter to make a film of "The Children's Hour".

The next play "Days to Come" was about strikers and strikebreakers at a factory.

In 1936, Lillian Hellman was invited to go to Spain with a group of producers who wanted to make a documentary film. At that time a revolution took place in Spain and the Spanish people were defending it and trying to stop fascism. On the way to Spain they stopped in Paris and Lillian Hellman was introduced to Ernest Hemingway. Some time before she was invited to a Moscow theatre festival. After a short visit to Moscow, she joined her group in Spain and stayed there for a month. The doc-

umentary film "The Spanish Earth" was released in 1937 and was successful. Hemingway helped to make it and gave the producers some of the shots of fighting near Madrid.

When Hellman returned home, she began to write a new play. In 1939, the play "The Little Foxes" was performed and was a great success with the public and also with the critics. It showed how a family can be corrupted by greed for money. The members of the family try to get money by means of theft and even murder.

In 1941 Lillian Hellman wrote the anti-fascist play "Watch on the Rhine". The same year she visited the USSR again. She was a member of cinema workers' group which came to the USSR to shoot a film "The Northern Star" about the struggle of the peoples of the SU against German fascism.

She was present at the rehearsals of her plays "The Little Foxes" and "The Searching Wind" in Moscow theatres and stayed at the Leningrad front for two weeks.

In 1966 Hellman visited the USSR once more and attended the Fourth National Congress of the Union of Writers. Lillian Hellman was a professor of literature at Yale University.

The Little Foxes

The play shows a typical American bourgeois family. Regina Giddens, a beautiful woman of forty, hates her husband Horace; she and her two brothers, Oscar and Benjamin (Ben), fight each other for a larger part in a commercial enterprise organized by Marshall, a rich Chicago businessman.

Oscar, who is about fifty now, had married Birdie, a girl from a rich family. He did not love Birdie and married her only for her money. They have a son, Leo, whom his mother does not love, because he is very much like his father. Leo works in the bank, headed by Horace Giddens. Horace has serious heart trouble. He had spent six months in the hospital and was brought home by his daughter Alexandra who is seventeen years old. While Horace was ill, Leo stole his bonds for a large sum of money from the bank and gave them to his father to use in the enterprise.

Act III

Scene: The living-room of the Giddens house in a small town in the South. A staircase leading to the second floor. Spring 1900. Horace is sitting near the window in a wheel-chair. On the table near him is some medicine. He is talking to his wife about the theft of the bonds. HORACE. Leo took the key and opened the box. You remember the day I came back from the hospital? Oscar went to Chicago the same day. Well, he went with my bonds that his son Leo had stolen for him. And for Ben, of course, too.

REGINA. When did you find out the bonds were stolen? HORACE. Wednesday night.

REGINA. Why have you waited three days to do anything? This will make a fine story. (Suddenly laughs.) A fine story to hold over their heads. How could they be such fools? HORACE. But I'm not going to hold it over their heads. REGINA (stops laughing). What?

HORACE (turns his chair to see her). I am going to let them keep the bonds—as a loan from you. An eighty-eight-thousand-dollar loan; they should be grateful to you. They will be, I think.

REGINA (slowly, smiles). I see. You are punishing me. But I won't let you punish me. If you won't do anything, I will. Now. (She goes to the door.) HORACE. You won't do anything. Because you can't. (Regina stops.) I shall say that I lent them the bonds. REGINA. You are going to lend them the bonds and let them keep all the profit they make on them, and there is nothing I can do about it, is that right?  

HORACE. Yes.

REGINA. Why do you do it?

HORACE. I was coming to that. I am going to make a new will, Regina, leaving you those bonds. The rest will go to Alexandra. It's true that your brothers have borrowed those bonds for a short time. After my death I advise you to talk to Ben and Oscar. They won't admit anything. I will say nothing as long as I live. Is that clear to you?

REGINA. Yes, you will not say anything as long as you live.

HORACE. That's right. And after a time they will give you your bonds back and nobody except us will ever know what had happened. Your brothers will be soon here. They want to know what I am going to do. They will be happy to know that I'll do nothing. And that will be the end of that. There is nothing you can do to them, nothing you can do to me.

REGINA. You hate me very much.

HORACE. No.

REGINA. Oh, I think you do. Well, we haven't been very happy together. I don't hate you either. I have only contempt for you. I've always had.

HORACE. From the very first?

REGINA. I think so.

HORACE. I loved you. But why did you marry me?

REGINA. I wanted much from life. I wanted good things. Then, and then (smiles) Papa died and left the money to Ben and Oscar.

HORACE. And you married me?

REGINA. Yes, I thought- but I was wrong. You were a smalltown clerk then. You haven't changed.

HORACE (smiles). And that wasn't what you wanted.

REGINA. No. No, it wasn't what I wanted. After some time I found out I had made a mistake.

HORACE. Why didn't you leave me?

REGINA. This wasn't what I wanted, but it was something. (Horaceputs his hand to his throat.) You could die before I did. I couldn't know that you would get heart trouble so early and so bad. I'm lucky, Horace. I've always been

lucky. (Horace turns slowly to the medicine.) Г 1 be шску again. (Horace looks at her. Then he puts his hand to his throat. He moves the chair to the table and takes the medicine bottle and the spoon. Suddenly he drops the medicine bottle and it breaks.)

HORACE. Please, tell a servant to get the medicine in my room. (Regina does not move. Horace looks at her and suddenly understands. He tries to call servants but his voice is too weak to be heard outside the room. He gets up from his chair and goes to the staircase. But he slips and falls on the steps. Regina waits a second, then goes to the staircase and speaks.) REGINA. Horace, Horace. (When there is no answer she calls.) Come here, somebody! (The servants come into the room and run to the staircase.) He's had a bad attack. Take him to his room!

(The servants carry Horace to his room.) (Ben, Oscar and Leo come into the room. After a time Regina comes slowly into the room too.)

BEN. What happened?

REGINA. He's had a bad attack.

OSCAR. Too bad. I'm sorry we were not here to help you.

BEN. How is he? Can we go to him?

REGINA (shakes her head). He's not conscious.

OSCAR (walking around the room). Is it so bad? We must call

the doctor.

REGINA. I don't think there is much for him to do. BEN. Oh, don't say so. He has come through attacks before. He

will now.

REGINA. Well. We haven't seen each other since he came home. He told me about the bonds this afternoon. (There is silence.)

LEO. The bonds. What do you mean? What bonds? BEN (looks at him angrily. Then to Regina). Horace's bonds? REGINA. Yes.

OSCAR (steps to her). Well. Well, what about them? What-what could he say?

REGINA. He said that Leo had stolen the bonds and given them to you.

OSCAR (very loudly.) That's ridiculous, Regina!

LEO. I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't steal anything.

BEN. What did Horace tell you?

REGINA (smiles at him). He told me that Leo had stolen the bonds.

LEO. I didn't steal-

REGINA. Please. Let me finish. Then he told me that he was going to pretend that he had lent them to you. {Leo turns to Regina, then looks at Oscar, then looks back at Regina.) As a present from me—to my brothers. He said the rest of the money would go to Alexandra. That is all. (There is silence. Oscar coughs, Leo smiles.)

LEO (stepping to her). I told you he had lent them—

REGINA (doesn't listen to him, smiles at Ben). So I am very poor now, you see. But Horace said there was nothing I could do about it as long as he lived and could say he had lent you the bonds.

BEN. It can all be explained. It isn't so bad. REGINA. So you admit that the bonds were stolen.

BEN. I admit nothing. It's possible that Horace made up that part of the story to punish you.

REGINA (sadly). It's not a pleasant story. I feel bad, Ben, I didn't expect—                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

BEN. You shall have the bonds back. That was the understanding, wasn't it, Oscar?

OSCAR. Yes.

REGINA. I had greater hopes.

BEN. Don't say so. That's foolish. (Looks at his watch.) I think we must go and find the doctor ourselves. We shall continue this talk some other day.

REGINA. I think you had better stay and sit down. I have something more to say.

BEN (turns, comes to her). Since when do I take orders from you?

REGINA (smiles). You don't -yet. Come back, Oscar. You too, Leo.

OSCAR (laughs). My dear Regina-

REGINA. You are quite safe while Horace lives. But I don't think Horace will live. And if he doesn't live, I shall want seventy-five per cent of the profit.

BEN (steps back, laughs). Greedy! What a greedy girl you are. You want so much of everything.

REGINA. Yes. And if I don't get what I want, I am going to put all three of you into prison.

OSCAR. You are mad.

BEN. And on what evidence would you put Oscar and Leo into prison?

REGINA (laughs). Oscar, listen to him. He is ready to say that it was you and Leo! What do you say to that? (Oscar turns angrily to Ben.) Oh, don't be angry, Oscar. I am going to see that he goes in prison with you.

BEN. Try anything you like, Regina. And now we can stop all this and say good-bye to you. (Alexandra comes slowly down the steps.) It's his money and he wanted to let us borrow it. (As Ben turns to Oscar, he sees Alexandra. She goes slowly to the window, her head bent. They all turn to look at her.)

OSCAR. What? Alexandra—(She does not answer. After a second the servant comes slowly down the staircase.)

OSCAR (to Alexandra). Well, what is-1 didn't know that he was so sick. The whole town loved him and respected him.

ALEXANDRA. Did you love him, Uncle Oscar? OSCAR. Certainly, I—What a ridiculous thing to ask! ALEXANDRA. Did you love him, Uncle Ben? BEN. He had-

ALEXANDRA (suddenly begins to laugh very loudly). And you, Mama, did you love him too?

REGINA. I know what you feel, Alexandra, but please try to control yourself.

ALEXANDRA (laughing). I'm trying, Mama.

BEN. Some people laugh at such a time, and some people cry. It's better to cry, Alexandra.

ALEXANDRA (stops laughing and goes to Regina). What was Papa doing on the staircase?

REGINA. Please go and lie down, my dear. ALEXANDRA. No, Mama. I'll wait. I've got to talk to you. REGINA. Go and rest now. ALEXANDRA. I'll wait, Mama.

REGINA (turns to Ben). As I was saying. Tomorrow morning I am going to the judge. I shall tell him about Leo.

BEN. Do not talk in front of the child, Regina.

REGINA. I didn't ask her to stay. Tomorrow morning I go to the judge.

OSCAR. And on what evidence?

REGINA. No evidence. I need no evidence. The bonds are stolen and they are with Marshall. That will be enough. If it isn't, I'll add what's necessary.

BEN. I am sure of that.

REGINA (turns to Ben). You can be quite sure.

OSCAR. You couldn't do anything like that. We're your own brothers. (Points to Horace's room.) How can you talk about such things when there not five minutes ago—

REGINA (slowly). They will put you in prison. But I won't care much if they don't. Because by that time you'll be ruined. I shall also tell my story to Mr. Marshall, who likes me, I think, and who will not want to be involved in your scandal. A respectable firm like Marshall and Company. And you know it. Now I don't want to hear any more from any of you. I'll take my seventy-five per cent and we'll forget the story. That is one way of doing it; and the way I prefer. You know me well enough. I will take the other way too, if I have to.

BEN (after a second, slowly). We haven't ever known you well enough, Regina.

REGINA. You're getting old, Ben. ( There is no answer. She waits, then smiles.) All right. I understand that it's settled and I get what I asked for.

OSCAR (angrily to Ben). Are you going to let her do this—

BEN (turns to look at him, slowly). Have you anything else to suggest?

REGINA (puts her arms above her head, laughs). No, he hasn't. All right. Now, Leo, I have forgotten that you ever saw the bonds. (7b Ben and Oscar) And as long as you boys both keep your promise. I've forgotten that we ever talked about them. You can write the necessary papers.

Ну, по правде говоря, мы не спешили и обыскали решительно все. У меня в таких делах большой опыт. Я осмотрел здание сверху донизу, комнату за комнатой, gосвящая каждой все ночи целой недели. Начинали мы с мебели. Мы открывали все ящики до единого, а вы, я полагаю, знаете, что для опытного полицейского агента никаких «потайных» ящиков не существует. Только болван, ведя подобный обыск, умудрится пропустить «потайной» ящик. Это же так просто! Каждое бюро имеет такие-то размеры – занимает такое-то пространство. А линейки у нас точные. Мы заметим разницу даже в пятисотую долю дюйма. После бюро мы брались за стулья. Сиденья мы прокалывали длинными тонкими иглами – вы ведь видели, как я ими пользовался. Со столов мы снимали столешницы.
– Зачем?
– Иногда человек, желающий что-либо спрятать, снимает столешницу или верхнюю крышку какого-нибудь сходного предмета меблировки, выдалбливает ножку, gрячет то, что ему нужно, в углубление и водворяет столешницу на место. Таким же образом используются ножки и спинки кроватей. – Но нельзя ли обнаружить пустоту выстукиванием? – осведомился я.
– Это невозможно, если, спрятав предмет, углубление плотно забить ватой. К тому же во время этого обыска мы были вынуждены действовать бесшумно.
– Но ведь вы не могли снять… вы же не могли разобрать на части всю мебель, в которой возможно устроить тайник вроде описанного вами. Письмо можно скрутить в тонкую трубочку, не толще большой вязальной спицы, и в таком виде вложить его, например, в перекладину стула. Вы же не разбирали на части все стулья?
– Конечно, нет. У нас есть способ получше: мы исследовали перекладины всех стульев в особняке, да, собственно говоря, и места соединений всей мебели Д., с помощью самой сильной лупы. Любой мельчайший след недавних повреждений мы обнаружили бы сразу. Крохотные опилки, оставленные буравчиком, были бы заметнее яблок. Достаточно было бы трещинки в клее, малейшей неровности – и мы обнаружили бы тайник.
– Полагаю, вы проверили и зеркала – место соединения стекла с рамой, а также кровати и постельное белье, ковры и занавеси?
– Безусловно; а когда мы покончили с мебелью, то занялись самим зданием. Мы разделили всю его поверхность на квадраты и перенумеровали их, чтобы не пропустить ни одного. Затем мы исследовали каждый дюйм по всему особняку, а также стены двух примыкающих к нему домов – опять-таки с помощью лупы.
– Двух соседних домов! – воскликнул я. – У вас было немало хлопот.
– О да. Но ведь и предложенная награда огромна.
– Вы осмотрели также и дворы?
– Дворы вымощены кирпичом, и осмотреть их было относительно просто. Мы обследовали мох между кирпичами и убедились, что он нигде не поврежден.
– Вы, конечно, искали в бумагах Д. и среди книг его библиотеки?
– Разумеется. Мы заглянули во все пакеты и свертки, мы не только открыли каждую книгу, но и пролистали их все до единой, а не просто встряхнули, как делают некоторые наши полицейские. Мы, кроме того, самым тщательным образом измерили толщину каждого переплета и осмотрели его в лупу. Если бы в них были какие-нибудь недавние повреждения, они не укрылись бы от нашего взгляда. Пять-шесть томов, только что полученных от переплетчика, мы аккуратно проверили иглами.
– Полы под коврами вы осмотрели?
– Ну конечно. Мы снимали каждый ковер и обследовали паркет с помощью лупы.
– И обои на стенах?
– Да.
– В подвалах вы искали?
– Конечно.
– В таком случае, – сказал я, – вы исходили из неверной предпосылки: письмо не спрятано в особняке, как вы полагали.

Но чем больше я размышлял о дерзком, блистательном и тонком хитроумии Д., о том, что документ этот должен был всегда находиться у него под рукой, а в противном случае утратил бы свою силу, и о том, что письмо совершенно несомненно не было спрятано там, где считал нужным искать его префект, тем больше я убеждался, что, желая спрятать письмо, министр прибег к наиболее логичной и мудрой уловке и вовсе не стал его прятать.
[…] Особенно внимательно я изучал большой письменный стол, возле которого сидел мой хозяин. На этом столе в беспорядке лежали различные бумаги, письма, два-три музыкальных инструмента и несколько книг. Однако, тщательно и долго оглядывая стол, я так и не обнаружил ничего подозрительного. В конце концов мой взгляд, шаривший по комнате, упал на ажурную картонную сумочку для визитных карточек, которая на грязной голубой ленте свисала с маленькой медной шишечки на самой середине каминной полки. У сумочки были три кармашка, расположенные один над другим, и из них торчало пять-шесть визитных карточек и одно письмо. Оно было замусоленное, смятое и надорванное посредине, точно его намеревались разорвать, как не заслуживающее внимания, но затем передумали. В глаза бросалась большая черная печать с монограммой Д. Адрес был написан мелким женским почерком: «Д., министру, в собственные руки». Оно было небрежно и даже как-то презрительно засунуто в верхний кармашек сумки. Едва я увидел это письмо, как тотчас же пришел к заключению, что передо мной – предмет моих поисков. Да, конечно, оно во всех отношениях разительно не подходило под то подробнейшее описание, которое прочел нам префект. Печать на атом была большая, черная, с монограммой Д., на том – маленькая, красная, с гербом герцогского рода С. Это было адресовано министру мелким женским почерком, на том титул некоей королевской особы был начертан решительной и смелой рукой. Сходилась только величина. Но, с другой стороны, именно разительность этих отличий, превосходившая всякое вероятие, грязь, замусоленная надорванная бумага, столь мало вязавшаяся с тайной аккуратностью Д. и столь явно указывавшая на желание внушить всем и каждому, будто документ, который он видит, не имеет ни малейшей важности, – все это, вкупе со слишком уж заметным местом, выбранным для его хранения, где он бросался в глаза всякому посетителю, что точно соответствовало выводам, к которым я успел прийти, – все это, повторяю я, не могло не вызвать подозрений у того, кто явился туда с намерением подозревать. Я продлил свой визит, насколько это было возможно, и все время, пока я поддерживал горячий спор на тему, которая, как мне было известно, всегда живо интересовала и волновала Д., мое внимание было приковано к письму. Я хорошо разглядел его, запомнил его внешний вид и положение в кармашке, а кроме того, в конце концов заметил еще одну мелочь, которая рассеяла бы последние сомнения, если бы они у меня были. Изучая края письма, я обнаружил, что они казались более неровными, чем можно было бы ожидать. Они выглядели надломленными, как бывает всегда, когда плотную бумагу, уже сложенную и прижатую пресс-папье, вкладывают по прежним сгибам, но в другую сторону. Заметив это, я уже ни в чем не сомневался. Мне стало ясно, что письмо в сумочке под каминной полкой было вывернуто наизнанку, как перчатка, после чего его снабдили новым адресом и новой печатью.