SUMMARY
This is a story of true love.
Joe Larrabee and Delia Caruthers wanted to be artists: the boy, a painter, and the girl, a musician. Both of them went to New York from their villages in
search of opportunities.
They met in a club where people talked about art and artists, and they fell in love and got married straight away. Happier couldn’t they be: they had their art and they had each other. But they had to live in poverty. Their love was “through thick and thin”.
They attended lessons to improve their art; Joe painted
in the great Magister workshop, and Delia’s teacher was Rosenstock.
But the money didn’t last as much as they would like, and they had to do something to earn their living; so Delia looked for pupils
to teach piano classes, and Joe had to sell his paintings to any redneck that came from the country, for example, Peoria; but neither of them allowed the other to abandon their art.
So they went on being short of money for a while. Every day they told each other their daily routine and how they did in their jobs. But one day, Delia came home with her hand bandaged; she told her husband she got burnt serving a dish
to her pupil at her house (according to Delia, the pupil was a General's daughter). But Joe knew where
the cloth for the bandage came from and started questioning Delia. At the end, she had to tell
the truth, and so he also had to confess his secret. Was this disclosure going to
kill their love?
QUESTIONS
What is love? Can you give us an ultimate definition?
Do you think sexual love is essentially different from friendly love?
How do we know if they had or didn’t have talent? Are
there any hints in the text?
How do you know if a person has any talent?
Tell us something about Émile Waldteufel, oolong, Joseph
Rosenstock, Benvenuto Cellini.
Do you believe in living “through thick and thin”? Do
you have any anecdotes about this romantic ideal?
VOCABULARY
chipped in, atelier, A sharp, janitor, dresser,
mantel, sandbag, switchman, chafing dish, hatchet, scalloped, trump, veal,
goatee, freight depot, Welsh rarebit [rabbit, sic], iron, make up