The Count and the Wedding Guest, by O. Henry

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SUMMARY
Andy Donovan, a young man who lived in a boarding house, met a new boarder called Miss Conway and almost immediately felt in love with her. Miss Conway was a very discreet woman, but one day she appeared gorgeously dressed in mourning black. Mr Donovan got astounded seeing her so beautifully attired, but respected her grief and offered her to share her feelings and to listen to her sad story.
She told him she was on the point of marrying an Italian Count, Fernando Mazzini, but unfortunately, he had an accident and he died. The girl was unconsolably sorry, and Donovan felt pity for her. In telling her story, the girl even showed a picture of her late fiancé.

So, Donovan, even as he knew it would be a difficult enterprise for him to try to replace the charm of her dead boyfriend, after a month he succeeded in getting her love.

Once they announced their engagement, Donovan told her he was a bit worried because he had to invite a close friend of his to their wedding and didn’t know if she would like it. The man was "Big Mike" Sullivan and, although he was a very important person in New York, he had friends in all the social classes. But there was a reason why he couldn’t invite him to the wedding, and he couldn’t discover it. He asked her if she really loved him more than he loved Count Mazzini, and at that moment she went down and started to cry. Yes, she loved Donovan, but she lied about her past. So, she asked him if she would forgive her.

Who was Big Mike? What was the lie?

 

QUESTIONS

-What can it be the difference between pity and love? Have you read the novel Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig? (There is also a film)

-We don’t know anything about the life of the two protagonists. Can you imagine what kind of life they lived?

-Why is Big Mike important? What, according to you, was his job?

-What do you know about Mazzini? And about Tammany? P’pkispee? The Bowery, in New York?

 

VOCABULARY

unobtrusive, blighted, hop-skip-and-a-jump, hoisted, cinch, mullygrubs, stringing, livery, trousseau, locked, to the mustard, look swell, Bully girl!

Old Friends, by Endo Shusaku

1. Endo Shusako or Shusako Endo?: Japanese names in modern times consist of a family name (surname), followed by a given name; in that order. Nevertheless, when a Japanese name is written in the Roman alphabet, ever since the Meiji era official policy has been to reverse the order, but recently the government has stated its intention to change this policy. (From Wikipedia)

2. At the Wikipedia: Shūsaku Endō

3. A Catholic writer. He is a very singular case of Japanese writer because he is considered a Catholic author, when almost all the Japanese writers tend to follow the culture and religion (Shinto or Buddhism) of their country. In Western literature there are also Catholic writers; the most famous ones are the English Graham Greene and the German Heinrich Böll. But why are they called "Catholic authors"? Only because their characters act as practising Catholics (they attend Mass, they pray...), and one of their side topics is religion. This is a curious description for an artist, because we usually talk about romantic, realistic, mystery authors.

4. Two well known Japanese writers are Yukio Mishima and his friend Yasunari Kawabata. The first one was an extreme right-wing activist and in 1970 he tried a coup against the government because he said the 1947 Constitution was imposed by the USA. He failed, and then he committed suicide by the ritual hara-kiri. His friend Kawabata, who won the Nobel Prize in 1968, committed suicide gassing himself allegedly because of his friend death.

5. Another rare Japanese writer was Lafcadio Hearn (not typical Japanese names or surnames!). He was of a Greek-Irish descent (his first-first name was Patrick) and lived for 10 years in New Orleans, where he wrote a book about his stay there. Then he went to live in Japan, where he changed his name to a Japanese one (Koizumi Yakumo), married a Japanese woman and wrote short stories in Japanese about ghosts (typical there).

6. But the writer I wanted to recommend you is Natsume Soseki and his book Botchan, a novel about the funny adventures of a student in a secondary school. This book has been compared to Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye. Don’t miss them!

 

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STORY

What does the old friend do? (occupation)
What was the reason of their meeting?
What is the meaning of “We had reached that age”?
Who was Father Bosch?
What happened to him during the war?
What is the meaning of the metaphor “bowling alleys”?
Why was he accused of being a spy?
Can you give a personal example of “at some time of their lives, people all taste the same sorrows and the same trials”?
We can see two sides of Father Bosch character: what are they?
What is the “convict number tattooed in her arm”?
“I am a Catholic and I know I am supposed to forgive the others... But I have no desire to forgive them.” What do you think of this sentence?
In the story, what does the symbol “smell of onions in one’s reek” stand for?
What’s the meaning of Father Bosch’s smile at the end of the story?
He said “I only feel pain in the winter when it’s cold. When spring comes, I’m fine again. This is the way it always is”. What did he mean with this?

 

VOCABULARY: pay attention to the context and say a synonym or a definition in English

pate, squawk, muse, tow, catcher, rifle, plot, attend, aisle, pew, livestock, score, reek, umpteenth