He felt at ease and somehow comforted in this room as he had not been comforted since his father died. The gold velvet chair fitted his lanky body, and he liked its luxurious softness. Donald Sharpe sat opposite him, and on the small table beside him was a tall-stemmed wineglass.
“You’re still quite young, Rannie,” he had said, “but this is such a gentle drink that I don’t think it will count.”
So saying, he had poured a glass of wine for his visitor and Rannie had tasted it and set it down on the table beside his chair.
“You don’t like it?” Sharpe asked.
“Not really,” he replied honestly.
“It’s an acquired taste, I suppose,” Sharpe said.
That was how the evening began. Now it had progressed to solid talk, interspersed with long moments of working silence.
He was a handsome man in a dark way, almost too handsome, not tall, and with a feminine lightness of bone structure. His eyes were his most notable feature, large and dark under clearly marked brows, their gaze penetrative, bold, or stealthy by turns. He continued to speak.
“Of course imagination is the beginning of creation. Without imagination there can be no creation. But I’m not sure that explains art. Perhaps art is the crystallization of emotion. One has to feel an overflow. I write poetry, for example. But days and months go by—sometimes a year or even longer—when I write nothing, not a line, because I’ve felt nothing deeply enough to crystallize. There has to be a concentration of emotion before I can crystallize it into a poem. I feel a relief, actual relief, emotionally, when I’ve written the poem. I have it, I have something in my hand as solid as a gem.”
His voice was beautiful, a baritone flexible and melodious. He leaned forward suddenly and with a total change of manner he put forward a question.
“What is your name—I mean, what do they call you at home?”
“My name is Randolph—Rannie for short.”
“Ah, but I always choose a special name for someone I like very much—as I do you. I shall call you Rann—two n’s.”
“If you wish—”
“But do you wish?”
“Rann—yes, I like it. I’m too big for diminutives.”
“Much too big! Where were we? Emotion! It’s still not at all clear to me, however, why we feel compelled to create art. I suppose it began in an awareness of beauty—dim, at first, perhaps merely surprise at a sudden sight of a flower or a bird. But the ability must have been there—the ability to perceive—which must have meant a step in intelligence, an awakening, a wonder.”
He listened to Sharpe’s voice in the same way he listened to music, half sensuously, and only now and again venturing to speak.
“But when did science begin?” he asked.
“Ah, very late,” Sharpe replied. “Natural man, the uneducated mind, poetized in myth and dream before he analyzed, I suppose, contradictorily enough, science began with religion. Priests had to learn time-telling and so they had to match the seasons and the stars—accuracy, in a word, which is the basis of science—and this led to factual truth. Galileo laid the foundation of modern science, of course, experimentally speaking, using bodies in motion and measuring and observing until he affirmed a theory—the theory—that the sun was the center of the universe, for which he died in banishment. Later, Isaac Newton put this same theory into mathematics! Yes, science is creativity as much as art is—the two go together—must go together, for each is basic and indispensable to human progress.”
Hours passed while he listened, now and then asking a question, but all the while yielding to the fascination of the man. The clock on the mantelpiece striking midnight startled him.
“Oh, I must go home—I still have a theme to finish for your class tomorrow, sir!”
Sharpe smiled. “I’ll give you an extra day. You’ve given me a pleasant evening. It’s not often that I have a listener who knows what I am talking about.”
“You’ve clarified my own wondering and thinking, sir.”
“Good! You must come again. A teacher keeps searching for the ideal pupil.”
“Thank you, sir. The search is mutual.”
They clasped hands, and Sharpe’s hand strangely felt hot and soft. It surprised him and he withdrew his own hand quickly.
When he reached home, his mother was sitting up for him in the kitchen.
“Oh, Rannie, I was wondering—”
“I’ve had a wonderful evening. I’ve learned a lot. And—Mother!” He paused.
“Yes, Rannie?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me Rannie anymore.”
“No? Then what? Randolph?”
“Just Rann—with two n’s.”
“Very well—if you wish. I’ll try to remember.”
“Thanks, Mother.”
She looked at him strangely, nevertheless, as though she were pondering a question. But he put off questions.
“Good night, Mother,” he said, and was gone.
He was sleepless. Donald Sharpe had awakened his whole being. The question now focusing itself in his mind was himself. What was he, artist or scientist? He felt the impulse, the urge, the necessity to create somehow compelling him—but to what? How could he know what to do when he did not know himself or who he was? How was this to be discovered? He felt a mighty impatience with going to school. What was the use of learning about the past, and of studying what other people had done? Yet was it not helpful to know what they had done? Galileo, for example, had been everything—musician, painter, scientist. But had he learned all this in school or had he learned by himself and for himself?
He was kept awake by his own questions. Around him the house was dark and silent. Downstairs in the dining room the old grandfather clock, which had belonged to his Dutch great-grandfather on his mother’s side, twanged out the early morning hours, one and two and finally three. The moon sank below the horizon before dawn brought him to sleep. It was a troubled sleep, broken by confused dreams. But the confusion was dominated by the recurrent appearance of Donald Sharpe.
When he woke in the morning, the sun was streaming through the eastern window of his room. He woke in a strange and quiet peace, altogether different from the turmoil of the night. This peace, as he lay enjoying it, savoring its rest, centered about Donald Sharpe. He relived again the hours that had passed so quickly the night before. Not since his father’s death had he enjoyed anything as much as the evening. Indeed, perhaps he had never had such enjoyment before; the stretching of his mind to meet Sharpe’s had been stimulated by the charm of the man, his youth, his maturity, even his physical beauty stirred the very soul, an attraction beyond any person he had ever known. And this attraction was to a living person, someone who might become, perhaps already was, his friend. He had never had a real friend. Boys of his own age might be partners in sports and casual occupations, but he had met none with whom he could talk on terms of equality. Now he had a friend!
The certainty ran through his blood, an elixir of joy. He sprang out of bed and rushed to meet the day, a shower, clean clothes, an enormous breakfast. He had not been hungry for days. Now he could scarcely wait to get to his breakfast. His first class of the morning was with Donald Sharpe.
“YOU MUST PAY HEED TO your conscious mind,” Donald Sharpe said.
He stood before his class, a hundred or more students sitting before him, rising tier upon tier until the last row under the ceiling. He spoke to them all, but Rann, seated in the middle seat of the first row, met his warm, half-caressing gaze.