The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze

by William Saroyan

  I hurdled the fire hydrant six or seven times, leaping away over it, hearing myself landing solidly on the earth, feeling tremendous.

  Then I began to walk, not slowly, not casually, but vigorously, leaping now and then because I couldn’t help it. Each time I came to a tree, I leaped and caught a limb, making it bend with my weight, pulling myself up and letting myself down. I walked into the town, into the streets where we had put up our buildings, and suddenly I saw them for this first time, suddenly I was really seeing them, and they were splendid. The city was almost deserted, and I seemed to be alone in it, seeing it as it really was, in all its fineness, with all its meaning, giving it its real truth, like the truth of my hidden face, the inward splendor. The winter sun came up while I walked and its light fell over the city, making a cool warmth. I touched the buildings, feeling them with the palms of my hands, feeling the meaning of the solidity and the precision. I touched the plate-glass windows, the brick, the wood and the cement.

  When I got home, everyone was awake, at the breakfast table. Where have you been? they asked. Why did you get up so early?

  I sat in my chair at the table, feeling great hunger. Shall I tell them? I thought. Shall I try to tell them what is happening? Will they understand? Or will they laugh at me?

  Suddenly I knew that I was a stranger among them, my own people, and I knew that while I loved them, I could not go out to them, revealing the truth of my being. Each of us is alone, I thought. Each is a stranger to the other. My mother thinks of me as a pain she once suffered, a babe at her breast, a small child in the house, a boy walking to school, and now a young man with an ugly face, a restless and half-mad fellow who moves about strangely.

  We ate mush in those days. It was cheap and we were poor, and the mush filled a lot of space. We used to buy it in bulk, by the pound, and we had it for breakfast every morning. There was a big bowl of it before me, about a pound and a half of it, steaming, and I began to swallow the food, feeling it sinking to my hunger, entering my blood, becoming myself and the change that was going on in me.

  No, I thought. I cannot tell them. I cannot tell anyone. Everyone must see for himself. Everyone must seek the truth for himself. It is here, and each man must seek it for himself. But the girl, I thought. I should be able to tell her. She was of me. I had taken her name, her form, the outward one and the inward one, and I had breathed her into me, joining her meaning to my meaning, and she was of my thought, of my motion in walking over the earth, and of my sleep. I would tell her. After I had revealed my hidden face to her, I would speak to the girl about ourselves, about our being alive together, on the same earth, in the same moment of eternity. I had never spoken to the girl. I had loved her secretly, worshipping her, worshipping the very things she touched, her books, her desk, the earth over which she moved, the air about her, but I had never had the courage to speak to her. I wanted my speaking to mean so much, to be so important to each of us, that I was afraid even to think of breaking the silence between us.

  I went for a little walk, I replied.

  Everyone began to laugh at me, even my mother. What’s the matter with you? they asked. Why can’t you sleep? Are you in love again? Is that it? Are you dreaming of some girl?

  I sat at the table, swallowing the hot food, hearing them laughing at me. I cannot tell them, I thought. They are laughing at me. They think it is something to laugh about. They think it is a little joke.

  I began to blush, thinking of the girl and worrying about something to say that would satisfy and silence them, stopping their laughter. Then they began to laugh louder than ever, and I couldn’t help it, I began to laugh too.

  Yes, they laughed. It must be some girl. Look how handsome he is getting to be. Dreaming about a girl always does that.

  I ate all the mush in the bowl and got up from the table. If I try to tell them the truth, I thought, they will laugh more than ever.

  I’m going to school, I said, and I left the house. But I knew that I would not go to school that day. I had decided not to go in the middle of the night, when I had been unable to sleep. In school, in that atmosphere, it would never happen. I would never be able to understand what it was that turned in me, circling toward truth, and it would be lost, maybe forever. I decided to walk into the country, and be alone with the thought, helping it to emerge from the bewilderment and confusion of my mind, and the fever of my blood, carrying it to silence and simplicity, giving it a chance to reach its fullness and be whole.

  Walking through the country, moving quietly among the leafless grape vines and fig trees, the thought became whole, and I knew the truth about myself and man and the earth and God.

  At the proper hour I returned home, as if I were coming home from school, and the following day I went to school. I knew I would be asked for an excuse and an explanation for my absence, and I knew that I would not lie about it. I could tell them that I had been at home, sick with a cold, but I didn’t want to do it. There would be a punishment, but I didn’t care about that. Let them punish me if they liked. Let old man Brunton give me a strapping. I had walked into the country, into the silence, and I had found the truth. It was more than anything they would ever be able to teach. It was something that wasn’t in any of their books. Let them punish me. I wanted also to impress the girl. I wanted her to understand that I had strength, that I could tell the truth and be punished for it, that I would not make up a cheap lie just to get out of a strapping. My telling the truth ought to mean something to her, I thought. Being so much a part of myself, she would be able to see beneath the surface and understand what I had done, and why.

  After the roll was taken, my name was called and our teacher said: You were not at school yesterday. Have you brought an excuse?

  No, I said, I have not.

  Suddenly I felt myself to be the object of the laughter of everyone in the class-room, and I could imagine everyone thinking: What a stupid fellow! I looked at this girl whom I loved so much and I saw that she too was laughing, but I would not believe it. This sometimes happens. It happens when a man has given another person his own dignity and meaning, and the other person has not acquired that dignity and meaning. I saw and heard the girl laughing at me, but I would not believe it. I hadn’t intended to entertain her. I hadn’t intended to entertain anyone, and the laughter made me angry.

  Why were you away from school? said the teacher. Where were you?

  I was in the country, I said, walking.

  Now the laughter was greater than ever, and I saw the girl I secretly loved laughing with the others, as if I meant nothing to her, as if I hadn’t made her a part of myself. I began to feel ill and defiant, and there was warm perspiration on the palms of my hands.

  The teacher stood over me, trembling. One must, perhaps, be a teacher to be able to appreciate precisely how angry she felt. For years she had been asking boys why they had been absent from school, and for years the boys had replied that they had been at home, ill. She had known that in most cases they had not told the truth, but the tradition had been maintained and everything had remained solid in her world. Now everything was being shattered, and she was standing over me, trembling with rage. I think she tried to shake me, and I would not let her do it, holding myself solidly. For a moment she budged at me, hating me, and then she said, You Armenians, you, you . . . and I thought she would burst into tears. I felt sorry for her, for the stupidity she had preserved in herself after so many years of trying to teach school, a woman almost fifty years of age.

  And I hadn’t meant to hurt her. That hadn’t been my object at all. I had meant simply to tell the truth. I had meant to reveal to the girl my true face, the face which had been shaped by the dignity and simplicity of man and which she had helped to shape, and I had meant to reveal to her the truth of my presence on earth. And then her laughter, just like the laughter of the others . . . it mangled something in me, and I stood in the midst of the noise, embarrassed and bewildered, bleeding, and breaking to pieces. God damn it, I thoug
ht. This is not true. God damn it, this is a lie.

  But I knew that I was deceiving myself. And I knew that I would never be able to speak to the girl about my love for her, and the meaning of that love to me, and to the earth and the universe, and to man.

  I was sent to the principal of the school, and he stood over me, grumbling in a deep voice. You, he said, you are a disgrace to this school. You are a disgrace to your own race. You break rules. Then you come to school flaunting your crime. What have you to say for yourself.

  Nothing, I said.

  Why did you do it? he asked.

  I wanted to walk, I said.

  You could have waited till Saturday, he said.

  No, I said. I had to walk yesterday.

  Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t strap you? he asked.

  That’s up to you, I said.

  I was angry. I felt bitter about the girl, and I wasn’t afraid of the principal, or of the strapping I knew he would give me. It was all over. I would have to walk alone with the secret. I would have to accept the sickness in me that the girl had made by laughing, but the truth would remain whole and I would have it to keep forever, walking alone, in the secrecy of my heart.

  The strapping made me cry, big as I was, strong as I was. While I cried, though, I knew that it wasn’t the strapping that was hurting me . . . it was this other thing, this incredible blindness everywhere. I cried bitterly, and when I returned to class my eyes were red and I was ashamed, and the whole class was laughing at me, even the girl.

  After school, walking alone, I tried to heal the wound in my heart, and I began to think again of the swift and bright truth of being, the truth I had earned for myself by walking alone through the silence of the earth, and walking, thinking of it, I could feel myself becoming whole again, and I could hear myself laughing through the vastness of the secret space I had discovered.

  The truth was the secret, God first, the word, the word God, out of all things and beyond, spaceless and timeless, then the void, the silent emptiness, vaster than any mortal mind could conceive, abstract and precise and real and lost, the substance in the emptiness, again precise and with weight and solidity and form, fire and fluid, and then, walking through the vineyards, I had seen it thus, the whole universe, quietly there in the mind of man, motionless and dark and lost, waiting for man, for the thought of man, and I felt the stirring of inanimate substance in the earth, and in myself like the swift growth of the summer, life emerging from time, the germ of man springing from the rock and the fire and the fluid to the face of man, and to the form, to the motion and the thought, suddenly in the emptiness, the thought of man, stirring there. And I was man, and this was the truth I had brought out of the emptiness, walking alone through the vineyards.

  I had seen the universe, quietly in the emptiness, secret, and I had revealed it to itself, giving it meaning and grace and the truth that could come only from the thought and energy of man, and the truth was man, myself, moment after moment, and man, century after century, and man, and the face of God in man, and the sound of the laughter of man in the vastness of the secret, and the sound of his weeping in the darkness of it, and the truth was myself and I was man.

  A

  Curved Line

  I was living next door to the high school. In the evenings the lights would go on and I would see men and women in the rooms. I would see them moving about but I wouldn’t be able to hear them. I could see that they were saying something among themselves and I thought I would like to go among them and listen. It was a place to go. I didn’t want to improve my mind. I was through with all that. I was getting a letter from the Pelman Institute of America every two weeks. I wasn’t taking their course. I wasn’t even opening the envelopes. I knew exactly what they were saying. They were saying Chesterton and Ben Lindsay had taken their course and now had fine big brains, especially Chesterton. I knew they were telling me I too could have a fine big brain, but I wasn’t opening the envelopes. I was turning the matter over to my niece who was four years old. I was thinking maybe she would like to take the course and have a brain like the wise men of the world. I was giving the letters to my niece, and she was taking them and sitting on the floor and cutting them with a pair of scissors. It was a fine thing. The Institute is a great American idea. My niece is cutting the letters with a small pair of scissors.

  It was a place to go at night. I was tired of the radio. I had heard NRA speeches, excerpts from Carmen, Tosti’s “Goodbye” and “Trees” every night for over a year. Sometimes twice a night. I knew what would happen every night. It was the same downtown. I knew all the movies, what to expect. The pattern never changed. It was the same with symphonies even. Once a lady conducted, but it was the same. Beethoven’s Fifth, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “The Blue Danube Waltz.” It’s been going on for years and years. The thing that worries me is that my great-grandchildren are going to have to listen to “The Blue Danube Waltz” too. It’s gotten so that even when the music isn’t being played, we hear it. It’s gotten into us. Years ago I used to like these fine things, but lately the more pathetic things interest me.

  I thought I would go among the people at the night school and listen to them. Going to the school was like walking from one room into another, it was so close. I liked the idea of walking headlong into a group of people who were either very lonely or pathetically ambitious.

  The night I went was a Tuesday. The classes were English for Foreigners, Sewing, Dressmaking and Millinery, Leather Work, Wood Work, Radio, Arithmetic, Navigation, Theory of Flight, Typewriting and Commercial Art. I had the printed schedule.

  I went to the class in Commercial Art. Beauty with a motive. Practical grace. I didn’t know what to expect, but I walked in and sat down. There was a fat woman who gasped when she talked, and always talked. She was the teacher, and she had memorized a number of things from books about art and when I was in hearing distance I heard her gasp, “There are five arts, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and poetry.” She was telling this to a middle-aged, dried-up little lady who was amazed, almost astounded. The little lady had just come to class, and she hadn’t heard. It was news to her, and she was amazed that there were five arts. It appeared as if she believed one might have been sufficient. There was a sheet of white paper on the table before her, pencil, bottle of ink and pen. She was delighted with the whole idea. She began to draw a picture of Marlene Dietrich. She had a tencent movie magazine to copy from, but her sketch didn’t look like Marlene Dietrich. Everything was out of proportion. It looked like a very good Matisse. Only a very shrewd art critic would have been able to tell that it was not an original Matisse. It had all the artless subtlety. It was certainly the face of a woman. The dried-up lady couldn’t think of anything else to draw. There were three other women drawing pictures of Marlene Dietrich. It was part of the course.

  The men were painting display cards. They were thinking of increasing their incomes.

  I heard the women talking about inspiration, and one of the younger women actually looked inspired, but I suppose she was slightly ill.

  One of the men was making a pen and ink sketch of Lincoln. He was absolutely inspired. The instant I saw him I could tell he was aflame with wonderful sentiments. Every student of art draws Lincoln. There is something about the man. If you start to draw him, no matter how poorly you draw it will look exactly like Lincoln. It’s the spirit, the inspiration. No one remembers how he looked. His face is like a trademark. The man had worked his sketch to the point where it was all but finished, and he was amazed. He was a man in his late thirties, and he wore a small Hitler-style moustache. I have reason to believe, however, that he was not a Nazi. It is simply that people, unknown to one another and separated by oceans and continents, are apt, now and then, to come upon the same sort of revelation in regard to some great human problem, such as sex, or to grow the same style of moustache. There is the well-known case of Havelock Ellis and D. H. Lawrence, beards and all. I sat at the tabl
e behind the man with the Nazi moustache. The teacher had said that she would be with me in a moment. I sat and watched the man who was sketching Lincoln. He was looking about nervously to see if anyone was noticing what he had done. He expected something to happen. He hadn’t known he had had it in him. The others were mere sign painters.

  There was a young girl on the opposite side of his table. She was doing a charcoal portrait of a pretty girl. I thought it was someone she knew. It was Clara Bow. I hadn’t noticed the movie magazine she was copying from. She had already made her sketch of Marlene Dietrich. All over the class it was this way.

  The man who was sketching Lincoln wanted the girl to notice what he had done, but she was busy putting the finishing touches on Clara Bow. Finally, with the will and impetuosity of the true artist, he got up and walked past the girl to get to the pencil sharpener. He wasn’t using his pencil. He was making a pen and ink sketch of Lincoln. On his way back to his seat, he stood over the girl, studying carefully her sketch of Clara Bow. The girl couldn’t draw with the man looking over her shoulder. She couldn’t move her hand. She was embarrassed. The man said her sketch was very good, but that she hadn’t shaded the eyes just right. Having made a sketch of Lincoln, he had become a graduate art critic. He wanted to talk about art first. The girl didn’t know what to say. She said something I didn’t quite hear. It was something apologetic and not well articulated. I felt sorry for the man. His idea hadn’t worked. He had expected something to happen. He had expected a warm interest in him from the girl. He had hoped she would ask to see what he had done, and then he would have thrilled her with his sketch of Lincoln. It hadn’t worked. He sat down sullenly and began to put the last touches to Lincoln. Then he signed his name to the work and ran a heavy line beneath his name, giving it force and character. When the roll was taken I found out that the girl’s name was Harriet. I didn’t get the last name. She looked to be a clerk in the basement of some big department store. She was probably lonely too.