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Bullet Park :: Cheever John
Страница: 20 из 131Nailles wanted to pass the tickets on to someone else, he so disliked musicals and had never heardof Loesser or Runyon, but Nellie had a new dress she wanted to wear and for this reason they went to the theater. He listened suspiciously to the overture but his rapture seems to have begun with the opening fugue and to have mounted, number by number. On the final chorus he got to his feet and began to smash his hands together, roaring, "Encore, encore." When the house lights went on he continued to clap and shout and he was one of the last people to leave the theater.
He thought that he had seen that night the writing of theatrical history and he had evolved some sentimental theory about the tragedy of the sublime. He got Frank Loesser all mixed up with Orpheus and when he read in the paper that Loesser had divorced he thought-sadly-that this had something to do with the perfection of Guys and Dolls. He had no interest in going to any of Loesser's other shows since he was convinced that they would be tragically inferior. No man-no artist-could repeat such a triumph. He seemed to feel that Loesser, like the architect of St. Basil's, should have plucked out his eyes. That opening night seemed to him to have had the perfection of a midsummer day whose sublimity hinted at the inevitability of winter and death.
He began to sing along with the recording. He had bought the recording immediately after the opening and had not replaced it, so that its tonal values were faded. He didn't care. He dispensed with the words and substituted a series of inchoate noises (dadadadad) but on "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" he got to his feet, smashed his fist into his palm and sang the verses he remembered. On the last chorus he made a groping gesture to illustrate a man reaching for stars and when the last note had been played he sighed and said: "That's a great show, really great. It's too bad you never saw it. Well, good night."
Now on this Sunday morning he seemed to be looking for the boy. Tony's room was cold. The boy kept the heat turned off and slept with both windows open. The cold made the room seem to have been emptied for more than the morning. He might have been gone for a year, Nailles felt, but why? He looked around with love at the intimate and common clutter: rucked and cleated football shoes, a football sweater, a pile of books including Stephen Crane, Somerset Maugham, Samuel Butler and Hemingway. Sometime earlier, looking for a dictionary, he had taken one from his son's bookcase and as he opened the dictionary fifty or more printed photographs of naked women slipped and cataracted to the floor. He had been provoked, it had been his principal reaction.
He thought that he had seen that night the writing of theatrical history and he had evolved some sentimental theory about the tragedy of the sublime. He got Frank Loesser all mixed up with Orpheus and when he read in the paper that Loesser had divorced he thought-sadly-that this had something to do with the perfection of Guys and Dolls. He had no interest in going to any of Loesser's other shows since he was convinced that they would be tragically inferior. No man-no artist-could repeat such a triumph. He seemed to feel that Loesser, like the architect of St. Basil's, should have plucked out his eyes. That opening night seemed to him to have had the perfection of a midsummer day whose sublimity hinted at the inevitability of winter and death.
He began to sing along with the recording. He had bought the recording immediately after the opening and had not replaced it, so that its tonal values were faded. He didn't care. He dispensed with the words and substituted a series of inchoate noises (dadadadad) but on "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" he got to his feet, smashed his fist into his palm and sang the verses he remembered. On the last chorus he made a groping gesture to illustrate a man reaching for stars and when the last note had been played he sighed and said: "That's a great show, really great. It's too bad you never saw it. Well, good night."
Now on this Sunday morning he seemed to be looking for the boy. Tony's room was cold. The boy kept the heat turned off and slept with both windows open. The cold made the room seem to have been emptied for more than the morning. He might have been gone for a year, Nailles felt, but why? He looked around with love at the intimate and common clutter: rucked and cleated football shoes, a football sweater, a pile of books including Stephen Crane, Somerset Maugham, Samuel Butler and Hemingway. Sometime earlier, looking for a dictionary, he had taken one from his son's bookcase and as he opened the dictionary fifty or more printed photographs of naked women slipped and cataracted to the floor. He had been provoked, it had been his principal reaction.