Topics for Discussion

XII. Look up the adjectivessick and illin an English-English dictionary or a reference book and study their uses. Collect illustrative material. Ask your comrades to comment on the use of the adjectives in your examples.

ХIII. Render into English;

ЧЕЛОВЕК СО СЛОМАННЫМ НОСОМ

Когда Огюст услышал, что скоро должна состояться выставка, он решил сделать бюст, вернее, голову и послать ее в Салон (The Salon). У него не было своей студии (a studio), не было денег на гипс и мрамор, он не мог позволить себе нанять натурщика, но мысль о том, что у него есть возможность принять участие в выставке, разжигала его воображение. Он был полон решимости преодолеть все трудности.

Огюст хотел вылепить красивую мужскую голову, но единственный, кто согласился позировать (to sit for) ему за чашку супа и стакан вина, был Биби, старый пьяница со сломанным носом. Вначале Биби показался Огюсту отвратительным, и ему было трудно сосредоточиться. Однако, после того как Огюст разорвал десятки набросков,- его замысел начал принимать определенные очертания. А как только он взял в руки глину, его уже нельзя было остановить. Безобразие Биби, казалось, не имело больше значения. Огюст работал день и ночь; он потерял счет времени. Пока он работал, ничего другого для него не существовало.

За неделю до открытия выставки голова еще не была готова. И вдруг Биби исчез. Огюст был в отчаянии. Теперь, когда Огюсту осталось добавить только несколько завершающих штрихов, натурщик был ему особенно нужен. Огюст не хотел лепить голову по памяти, он боялся, что она станет фальшивой и сентиментальной. Но другого выбора у него не было, и Огюст продолжал работать.

Спустя несколько дней Биби появился в студни, но он был слишком пьян, чтобы позировать. Он только тупо смотрел на Огюста, пока тот пытался усадить его в угол и подпереть

мольбертом. Чтобы не дать ему уснуть, Огюст сварил кофе. Проглотив две чашки обжигающей жидкости, Биби оживился и сел прямо на стуле. "Это, возможно, продлится только несколько минут", - подумал Огюст. Он видел, что его опасения были правильны - ему не удалось схватить (to capture) то, что так поразило его в лице Биби. Он уничтожил все кроме подбородка и начал лепить все снова.

Когда выставка открылась, Огюст все еще переделывал голову "человека со сломанным носом".

XIV. Read the following excerpts and retell them in brief:

Negotiations went on for months between officials of the Ministry of Fine Arts and representatives of Auguste, for though his mind wandered only occasionally, he grew more feeble daily and barely had strength to get about. But finally, on September 13, 1916, he signed over all of his art to France in return for establishment of Rodin Museum at the Hotel Biron.

He was surprised at how much his work totaled. He was told that it came to fifty-six marbles, fifty-six bronzes, one hundred and ninety-three plaster casts, a hundred terra-cottas, over two thousand drawings and sketches, and hundreds of valuable antiques: Greek and Roman sculpture, and ancient Egyptian art. He hoped France would be equally generous...

* * *

The winter of 1916 was very severe. It was difficult to get coal and many people died of the cold. The Germans were attacking and the war was not going very well.

The weather improved with the coming of spring and so did Auguste. The next few months he spent every moment he could in his studio. He could not work, not even sketch, but he wanted to - he saw so many imperfections now.

If he had only ten more years, he thought, or five - he would even settle for one full working year - he could do so much now, so much he hadn't been aware of. Just as a man was learning, he reflected, a man lost his strength and was taken away. He tried to be concerned about the war and was unhappy.that it was still going badly, though he had heard that America had come in and should turn the tide, but it was very difficult to live in the present these days. He rarely had visitors. Almost everyone he knew was involved elsewhere or dead.

Then on November 1.2, 1917, his seventy-seventh birthday, he caught bronchitis again and had to go to bed.

The next few days as his fever rose and his lungs grew congested he lapsed into unconsciousness and drifted on a vast sea without a beginning or an end. There were many faces in front of him, his sister Maria, Papa, Mama, Lecoq. He saw himself arguing with Papa about going to the Petite Ecole - what a battle that had been! And now he saw sculpture as far as he could look: "The

Thinker", "Balzac", "Hugo", "The Burghers of Calais", "Mozart", "The Gates" - were they opening for him now? He had tried to work honestly, not to invent, but to observe, to follow nature: a woman, a stone, a head, were all formed by the same principles. He lay there marvelling at the world he had created, and suddenly he cried out proudly, "And people say that sculpture is not a fine art!"

He closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep, looking like his own sculpture.

(From "Naked Came I" by David Weiss)

ADDITIONAL TEXTS

I

IS SCULPTURE BORING?

In 1846 the French poet Baudelaire wrote an essay called "Why sculpture is boring". Because the sculpture he saw exhibited was indeed boring, no one could blame him for coming to such conclusions about sculpture in general. If he were writing about the art today he would need to be blind to find it boring. Today sculpture is even more original and alive than painting.

The difference between a piece of modern sculpture and one of a century ago is even more startling than between two paintings separated by the same time-lag. Today, instead of being restricted to bronze and stone, the sculptor welds, assembles, carves and casts in iron, steel, fibreglass, plastic, wood; in short, he uses everything and anything. He may paint his work, he may set it on a pedestal or arrange it in sections on the floor.

Like all modern art, modern sculpture is easier to grasp if we know something about its history.

In spite of the generally dismal state of the sculpture of a century ago, much really creative work was being done. And it was done not by sculptors but by people officially regarded as painters: Honore Daumier^* Edgar Degas,^** and Paul Gauguin.^*** Time and time again great painters turn out great pieces of sculpture. Michelangelo apart, it is not often that great sculptors are also painters of distinction.

It is perhaps not surprising that painters should have been the most original sculptors in the nineteenth century. The sculptors of the period were obsessed by the past, the painters by originality and experimentation. At that time, originality meant reality. From Courbet ^**** to Cezanne,^***** painters tried to reproduce nature, or what they thought was nature, as faithfully as possible.

The painter-sculptors had no direct followers, however. The first sculptor to bring something new to the art and to have an enormous influence on the subsequent development of sculpture was Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). At about the same time as Degas, Rodin was attempting on a broader front to solve the problems of realism in sculpture. He had learned a great deal from the Greeks and Michelangelo, but had learned it better than his contemporaries, and eventually went much further than they.

Rodin so successfully created a Realist sculpture that when he showed "The Age of Bronze" (a man rousing himself from sleep) in an exhibition in 1877, he was accused of taking a plaster cast from a live figure and then casting it in bronze. This was in fact frequently done by academic sculptors, but with disastrous results.

Rodin's figure was not, of course, cast from a human being. It simply looked more real than anything visitors to the exhibition had ever seen. Rodin understood that certain conventions were necessary to make a sculpture look life-like. Copying, however, precise, can never by successful. Rodin also understood that one of the most important conventions was the way a sculptor treats the surface of a sculpture and makes it work for him. He had noticed that the surface of a Greek statue was not smooth but rough, and that it was precisely this roughness which gave it life. Rodin therefore worked on his surfaces, articulated them so that they controlled light and used it to great effect. Rodin could model a surface to attract light, to make light explain a shape, to diffuse light or to concentrate it.

But the Frenchman's contribution to sculpture does not end with his discovery of light as a medium nor with his masterly Sift for creating realistic sculpture.

Rodin proved that it was possible to create a type of sculpture which retained the art's traditional virtues without being trite or imitative. At the same time it was a contemporary type of sculpture which extended the range of the art of sculpture and demonstrated possibilities for further exploration. It is an achievement which younger artists fruitfully drew on for more than half a century.

(From "The Story of Sculpture". The Marshall Cavendish Learning System. London, 1969)

II

THE DOYEN OF SOVIET SCULPTURE

In 1965, in the new halls of the Artists' Club in Moscow an exhibition was held to mark the ninetieth birthday of Sergei Konenkov.

Konenkov's extraordinary talent is devoted to Man, in particular to what is beautiful in Man. Konenkov's genius is complex and many-faceted. It embraces a variety of subjects, depicting heroism and lyricism, tragedy and humour, Russian fairy-tales and songs, dreams and reality.

On display at the exhibition were marble and bronze busts of Surikov, Dostoyevsky, Mussorgsky, and many other personalities. There were also allegorical compositions expressing the struggle for freedom, the victory of the revolution as well as folklore characters who people forests, fields and silent rivers, such as "Pan", "Yegorych, the Bee-Keeper", etc. There are certain "eternal", themes running throughout Konenkov's work. The most characteristic is the theme of liberated man or of struggle for his freedom: "Samson Breaking His Bonds" (1902), "Liberated Man" (1947), "We will Destroy the Whole World of Violence" (1957). About the same time another lifelong theme was already visible in the young sculptor's work - that of the working-man. Konenkov's "The Stone-Breaker", completed in 1898, was considered to be the best portrayal of a worker in Russian sculpture at that time.

Konenkov greeted the October Revolution as the dawn of a new era for mankind, as the light that would illuminate the whole world. He immediately became a follower of Lenin's plan for monumental propaganda. In his "Self-Portrait" (1954) the sculptor conveyed the power of Man's creativity. The work was awarded the Lenin Prize.

(From "Artists and Arts" Manual of English, book II by A. Zelinskaya)

1. Modern sculpture in Great Britain or the United States.
2. A famous Soviet sculptor.
3. A fine arts museum.

^*Daumier [do 'mje] (1808-1879), a French painter

^**Degas [də ' a:] (1834-1917), a French impressionist painter

^***Gaugin [ о ' æn] (1848-1903), a French painter

^****Courbet [kur'bei] (1819-1877), a French painter

^*****Cezanne [sei'zæn] (1836-1906), a French painter

REVISION (UNITS ELEVEN-THIRTEEN)

1. Translate the following sentences and situations:

I

1. Полковник впервые услышал историю о Спитфайере Джонни, английском летчике, когда он присутствовал на конференции руководителей движения Сопротивления. 2. Невероятный рассказ о подвигах таинственного Спитфайера Джонни не мог обмануть полковника. 3. "То, что вы мне рассказали, сводится к следующему: Спитфайер Джонни сражался с врагом целый год, руководил группой Сопротивления, и никто не может сказать, как он выглядел. Должно быть, он был человеком-невидимкой". 4. Полковник был полон решимости раскрыть тайну Спитфайера Джонки. 5. Нб раскрыть эту тайну оказалось нелегко. Прошел месяц, а усилия полковника пока еще не дали результатов. Он знал только, что Спитфайер Джонни числился среди пропавших без вести. 6. Однако после разговора с Харлингом, участником движения Сопротивления, полковник воспрянул духом. Его версия таинственной

истории начала принимать определенную форму. 7. Теперь в его распоряжении (at one's disposal) были важные факты. Не хватало всего одного звена. 8. Загоревшись желанием добраться, наконец, до истины, полковник отправился на ферму к Дайкерам. 9. Увидев полковника, Эни и брат бросили работу и подошли поздороваться с ним. 10. В то время, как Эни держалась свободно и непринужденно, ее брат, казалось, был слегка выбит из колеи приходом незнакомца. Полковник почувствовал в нем некоторую настороженность, но он отнес это за счет его молодости. Яну было не больше шестнадцати-семнадцати лет. П. Через несколько минут они вошли в дом, и Эни начала рассказывать полковнику о Спитфайере Джонни, в то время как Ян сидел в кресле и молча наблюдал за гостем. 12. Полковник давно понял, что Спитфайер Джонни - это выдумка Эни и ее брата, но у него не хватило духа прервать рассказ девушки. Он не мог не восхищаться мужеством молодых патриотов.

II

1. Певцы Пражского Национального театра были не такими блестящими, как певцы в Вене, но Моцарту пришлось примириться с этим. 2. Он внес много изменений в арии, стараясь приспособить их к голосам певцов. 3. До начала премьеры оставалось несколько часов, а увертюра все еще не была переписана для оркестра. Бондини был вне себя. "Нам придется отменить спектакль. Все мои усилия оказались напрасными", - сказал он. 4. Вольфганг очень волновался перед спектаклем. Он всегда принимал неудачи близко к сердцу. 5. Как только оркестр заиграл, Вольфганг забыл свои страхи. Увертюра, которую так и не успели отрепетировать, прошла хорошо. 6. Бондини был в восторге от успеха новой оперы Моцарта. "Его музыка может творить чудеса!" - сказал он своим друзьям.

III

1. Охваченный желанием попасть в Академию Художеств, Огюст начал регулярно посещать занятия в художественной школе. 2. Лекок привязался к Огюсту с самых первых дней. Он увидел, что юноша был талантлив и хотел учиться. 3. Отец Огюста был против его увлечения рисованием. "Ты не должен заниматься живописью", - говорил он сыну. - "Из этого ничего не выйдет. Одумайся, пока не поздно". 4. Однажды у Огюста украли краски, которые он достал с большим трудом, и он перестал посещать класс живописи. 5. Постоянные неудачи стали сказываться на настроении Огюста. Он начал терять веру в себя. Лекока это очень беспокоило. 6. Однажды Огюста отправили в класс ваяния. Несколько часов, проведенных там, свершили чудо. Огюст снова воспрянул духом. Теперь он знал, что никогда не бросит искусство. Он почувствовал, что был рожден скульптором.

II. Read the text and, using it as a basis, think of situations which will contain the following word combinations:

to take charge of; to take too much to heart; to take to doing smth; to take to smb; to come round; to tell on smb; no good will come of it; to be concerned about smb; to consult smb about smth; to put smth down to smth; to lose one's heart to smb; to concentrate; to be put out by; to be determined to do; to go out (every night); to be awake; to go off (of an event)

SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLS

I

Old Jerome Warren lived in a hundred-thousand-dollar house in New York. He had an adopted son, the son of an old friend named Gilbert who was becoming a successful painter as fast as he could squeeze the paint out of his tubes. Another member of the household was Barbara Ross, a step-niece. Man is born to trouble; so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took up the burdens of others.

Gilbert and Barbara got along swimmingly. There was an understanding all round that the two would soon get married.

But at this point complications must be introduced.

Thirty years before, when old Jerome was young Jerome, there was a brother of his, named Dick. Dick went West to seek his or somebody else's fortune. Nothing was heard of him until one day old Jerome had a letter from his brother. It was badly written on ruled paper that smelled of salt bacon and coffee-grounds.

His letter disclosed that Dick was on the point of death. All that his thirty years of prospecting had given him was one daughter, nineteen years old, whom he was shipping East for Jerome, to clothe, feed, educate, comfort and cherish for the rest of her life or until marriage.

They met Nevada Warren at the station. She was a little girl, deeply sunburned and very good-looking. With an easy exhibition of strength she swung along a heavy suitcase, which the uniformed porters tried in vain to take from her.

"I am sure we shall be the best of friends," said Barbara, pecking at the firm sunburned cheek.

"Dear little niece," said old Jerome, "you are as welcome to my house as if it were your father's own."

"Thanks," said Nevada.

"And I am going to call you 'cousin'," said Gilbert, with his charming smile.

II

One morning old Jerome was lingering long after breakfast over the dullest morning paper in the city before setting forth to his office. He had become quite fond of Nevada, finding in her much

of his dead brother's quiet independence and unsuspicious frankness.

A maid brought in a note for Miss Nevada Warren.

"A messenger-boy delivered it at the door, please," she said. "He's waiting for an answer."

Nevada, who was whistling a Spanish waltz between her teeth, and watching the carriages and autos roll by in the street, took the envelope. She knew it was from Gilbert, before she opened it, by the little gold palette in the upper left-hand corner.

After tearing it open she pored over the contents for a while, and then, with a serious face, she went and stood at her uncle's elbow.

"Uncle Jerome, Gilbert is a nice boy, isn't he?"

"Why, bless the child!" exclaimed Jerome; "of course he is. I raised him myself."

"He wouldn't write anything to anybody that wasn't exactly - I mean that everybody couldn't know and read, would he?"

"I'd just like to see him try it," said Uncle Jerome. "Why, what-"

"Read this note he just sent me, uncle, and see if you think it's all right and proper. You see, I didn't know much about city people and their ways,"

Old Jerome threw his paper down and read the note.

"Why, child," said he, "you had me almost excited, although I was sure of that boy. He's a duplicate of his father, and he was a gilt-edged diamond. He only asks if you and Barbara will be ready at four o'clock this afternoon for an automobile drive over to Long Island."

"Would it be all right to go?" asked Nevada, eagerly.

"Yes, yes, child, of course. Go, by all means."

Nevada flew to the door, and said to the maid:

"Tell the boy to say to Mr. Warren, "You bet we'll go. I'll answer for Miss Barbara."

"Nevada," called old Jerome, "pardon me, my dear, but wouldn't it be as well to send him a note in reply? Just a line would do."

"No, I won't bother about that," said Nevada, gayly, "Gilbert will understand-he always does. I never rode in an automobile in my life; but I've paddled a canoe down Little Devil River, and if it's any livelier than that I'd like to know."

III

Two months are supposed to have elapsed. Barbara sat in the study of the hundred-thousand-dollar house. She was alone. Uncle Jerome and Nevada had gone to the theatre. Barbara had not cared to go. She wanted to stay at home and study in the study. If you were a beautiful New York girl and saw a little brown Western witch attracting a young man you wanted yourself, you too wouldn't be interested in musical comedy.

She sat by the library table holding a sealed letter. The letter was addressed to Nevada Warren and in the upper left hand corner of the envelope was a little gold palette. Barbara would have given her pearl necklace to know what the letter contained; but she could not open it by the aid of steam or some other method and read it, because her position in society forbade such an act.

At eleven-thirty the theatre-goers returned. It was a delicious winter night with big snow flakes downpouring from the east. Old Jerome went immediately upstairs to bed. Nevada, colored like a rose, with sapphire eyes, fluttered into the study, the only cheerfully lighted room and started talking about the stormy nights in the mountains around Dad's cabin.

"Here's a letter for you, dear," said Barbara. "It came by special delivery just after you had gone."

(to be continued)

III. Read the end of the story and retell it using the following verb-postpositive phrases wherever possible. Reread the whole story and discuss the title:

to sit up; to be up to; it's up to you; to bring about; to look away; to hold out; to pick up; to tear up; to drive about; to go out; to pace about; to spring up; to put up with; to put away; to take in; to fold up

SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLS

(continued)

"Who is it from?" a"sked Nevada, pulling a button of her glove.

"Well, really," said Barbara with a smile. "I can only guess. The envelope has that queer little thing in one corner that Gilbert calls a palette."

"I wonder what he's writing me about," remarked Nevada listlessly, still struggling with the buttons of her glove. "Oh, it'll be midnight before I get these gloves off! Open the letter, will you, Barbara, and read it to me."

"Why, dear, it's for you, you wouldn't wish any one else to read it, of course."

Nevada raised her steady, calm, sapphire eyes from her gloves.

"Nobody writes me anything that everybody mightn't read," she said. "Go on, Barbara. Maybe Gilbert wants us to go out in his car again tomorrow."

"Well, dear," she said, "I'll read it if you want me to."

She opened the envelope, and read the letter with swift-travelling eyes; read it again, and cast a quick, shrewd glance at Nevada, who, for the time, seemed to consider gloves as the world of her interest.

For a quarter of a minute Barbara looked at Nevada with a strange steadfastness; and then a smile, a very small smile, flashed like an inspired thought across her face.

Barbara seemed to hesitate.

"Really, Nevada," she said, with a little show of embarrassment, "you shouldn't have insisted on my opening this. I'm sure it wasn't meant for any else to know."

"Then read it aloud," Nevada said. "Since you've already read it, what's the difference?"

"Well," said Barbara, "this is what it says: 'Dearest Nevada - Come to my studio at twelve o'clock to-night. Do not fail.' "

Barbara rose and dropped the note in Nevada's lap. "I'm awfully sorry," she said, "that I knew. It isn't like Gilbert. There must be some mistake. Just consider that I am ignorant of it, will you, dear? I must go upstairs now, I have such a headache. I'm sure I don't understand the note. Perhaps Gilbert has been dining too well, and will explain. Good night!"

When Nevada heard Barbara's door close upstairs, she ran swiftly to the front door, and let herself out into the snowstorm.

White with snow she reached Gilbert's studio and knocked.

Gilbert opened the door. He had a crayon pencil in one hand and a pipe in his mouth. The pipe dropped to the floor.

"Am I late?" asked Nevada. "1 came as quick as 1 could. Uncle and me were at the theatre this evening. Here I am, Gilbert. You wanted me to come and I came. You said so in your letter. What did you send for me for?"

"You read my letter?" inquired Gilbert.

"Barbara read it for me, I saw it afterwards. It said: 'Come to my studio at twelve to-night and do not fail.' I thought you were sick, of course, but you don't seem to be."

"Aha," said Gilbert irrelevantly. "I'll tell you why I asked you to come, Nevada. I want you to marry me immediately - tonight. What's a little snowstorm? Will you do it?"

"You might have noticed that I would, long ago," said Nevada. "And I rather like the snowstorm idea, myself. I surely would hate one of those flowery church noon-weddings. Gilbert, I didn't know you had grit enough to propose in this way. Let's shock them!"

"Oh, Nevada! I'm the happiest man in the world!" Gilbert exclaimed. "By the way, what did you do with the letter J sent you today?"

"I've got it here," said Nevada,-pulling it out from under her cloak.

Gilbert drew the. letter from the envelope and looked it over carefully. Then he looked at Nevada thoughtfully.

"Didn't you think it rather queer that I should ask you to come to my studio at midnight?" he asked.

"Why, no," said Nevada, rounding her eyes. "Not if you needed me. Out West when a friend sends you a hurry call we always get there to help him. So 1 didn't mind."

Gilbert rushed into another room and came back burdened with two warm overcoats.

"Put this raincoat on," he said, holding it for her. "We've got a quarter of a mile to go to get to the church."

He began to struggle into a heavy coat.

"Oh, Nevada," he said, "just look at the headlines on the front dage of that evening paper on the table, will you? It's about your section of the West, and I know it will interest you."

He waited a full minute, pretending to find trouble in the getting on of his coat, and then turned. Nevada had not moved. She was looking at him with strange and pensive directness.

"I was going to tell you," she said, "anyhow, before you - before we - before - well, before anything. Dad never gave me a day of schooling. I never learned to read or write..."

IV

When Mrs. and Mr. Gilbert Warren were returning home in a closed carriage, after the ceremony, Gilbert said:

"Nevada, would you really like to know what I wrote you in the letter tonight?"

"Fire away!" said the girl.

"Word for word," said Gilbert, "it was this: 'My dear Miss Warren - You were right about the flower. It was a hydrangea, and not a lilac.' "

"All right," said Nevada. "But let's forget it. The joke's on Barbara, anyway!"

(After 0'Henry)

REVISION II

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