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The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana :: Эко Умберто
Страница: 15 из 286But I had never seen either emeralds or peas. Don’t worry, Gratarola said, in English they have more than three thousand terms for different colors, yet most people can name eight at best. The average person can recognize the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet-though people already begin to have trouble with indigo and violet. It takes a lot of experience to learn to distinguish and name the various shades, and a painter is better at it than, say, a taxi driver, who just has to know the colors of traffic lights.
Gratarolo gave me a pen and paper. Write, he said. "What the hell am I supposed to write?" was what I wrote, and it felt as if I had never done anything but write. The pen was sleek and glided smoothly over the paper. "Write whatever comes to mind," Gratarolo said.
Mind? I wrote: love that within my mind discourses with me, the love that moves the sun and the other stars, stars hide your fires, if I were fire I would burn the world, I’ve got the world on a string, there are strings in the human heart, the heart does not take orders, who would hear me among the angels’ orders, fools rush in where angels fear to tread, tread lightly she is near, lie lightly on her, a beautiful lie, touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, wonder is the poet’s aim.
"Write something about your life," Paola said. "What did you do when you were twenty?" I wrote: "I was twenty. I won’t let anyone say that’s the best time of a person’s life." The doctor asked me what first came to mind when I woke up. I wrote: "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect."
"Maybe that’s enough, Doctor," Paola said. "Don’t let him go on too long with these associative chains, or he might go crazy on me."
"Right, because I seem sane to you now?"
All at once Gratarolo barked: "Now sign your name, without thinking, as if it were a check."
Without thinking. I traced "GBBodoni," with a flourish at the end and a round dot on the i.
"You see? Your head doesn’t know who you are, but your hand does. That was to be expected. Let’s try something else. You mentioned Napoleon. What did he look like?"
"I can’t conjure up an image of him. Just words."
Gratarolo asked Paola if I knew how to draw. Apparently I’m no artist, but I manage to doodle things. He asked me to draw Napoleon. I did something of the sort.
"Not bad," Gratarolo remarked. "You drew your mental scheme of Napoleon-the tricorne, the hand in the vest. Now I’ll show you a series of images.
Gratarolo gave me a pen and paper. Write, he said. "What the hell am I supposed to write?" was what I wrote, and it felt as if I had never done anything but write. The pen was sleek and glided smoothly over the paper. "Write whatever comes to mind," Gratarolo said.
Mind? I wrote: love that within my mind discourses with me, the love that moves the sun and the other stars, stars hide your fires, if I were fire I would burn the world, I’ve got the world on a string, there are strings in the human heart, the heart does not take orders, who would hear me among the angels’ orders, fools rush in where angels fear to tread, tread lightly she is near, lie lightly on her, a beautiful lie, touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, wonder is the poet’s aim.
"Write something about your life," Paola said. "What did you do when you were twenty?" I wrote: "I was twenty. I won’t let anyone say that’s the best time of a person’s life." The doctor asked me what first came to mind when I woke up. I wrote: "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect."
"Maybe that’s enough, Doctor," Paola said. "Don’t let him go on too long with these associative chains, or he might go crazy on me."
"Right, because I seem sane to you now?"
All at once Gratarolo barked: "Now sign your name, without thinking, as if it were a check."
Without thinking. I traced "GBBodoni," with a flourish at the end and a round dot on the i.
"You see? Your head doesn’t know who you are, but your hand does. That was to be expected. Let’s try something else. You mentioned Napoleon. What did he look like?"
"I can’t conjure up an image of him. Just words."
Gratarolo asked Paola if I knew how to draw. Apparently I’m no artist, but I manage to doodle things. He asked me to draw Napoleon. I did something of the sort.
"Not bad," Gratarolo remarked. "You drew your mental scheme of Napoleon-the tricorne, the hand in the vest. Now I’ll show you a series of images.