New Full-Immersion Summer Workshops Coming Soon!!!

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY is currently planning a series of Full-Immersion Summer Workshops to be held over the course of July and August 2015.

We will have General English Workshops in the evenings and Business English Workshops on the weekends.

Please stay tuned for more details on exact dates, locations and prices!!!

Your,

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY

21.04.2015 First ENGLISH MOVIE HAPPY HOUR at CINEMA ARSENALE!!!

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY and CINEMA ARSENALE have teamed up to bring a string of new cinema-related English programs to Pisa.

The first program of this series is here in the form of our first 'ENGLISH MOVIE HAPPY HOUR!!!'

Here are the English program notes:

'ENGLISH MOVIE HAPPY HOUR'

A new cultural meeting point for Pisa’s English-speaking community.

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY, in line with its philosophy of ‘Imparare l’Inglese attraverso le tue passioni ('Learn English through your passions'), has teamed up with CINEMA ARSENALE to create a new series of cinematic events in English that aim to bring together Pisa’s unique international community of students, professors, travelers and English-loving locals.

CINEMA  ARSENALE has long hosted quality English films in their original language and now they will start following some of these screenings with a new ‘ENGLISH MOVIE HAPPY HOUR’ – the perfect opportunity to practice your English while sharing your impressions and interpretations with film-lovers from around the world!

The first ‘ENGLISH MOVIE HAPPY HOUR’ will follow the April 21 screening of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 'Birdman' – the Oscar-winning masterpiece that has captured the imagination of mainstream and high-brow audiences around the world and is sure to lead to thought-provoking and inspiring debate! 

When cinema is at its best, its impressions linger with us long after the credits roll and the lights come up and we are excited about providing a platform where film-lovers from around the world can meet and exchange their impressions and perspectives, all in the warm, informal atmosphere of a traditional Happy Hour.

Prof. Shemtov, founder of TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY, will be on hand to offer some linguistic support for English speakers of all levels, as well as provide some background and insight into many of the film’s unusual phrases and terminology.

We look forward to welcoming you to our first ‘ENGLISH MOVIE HAPPY HOUR' and we hope to be able to provide you with many more exciting programs in the future! 

(The Happy Hour will take place at 20:30 after the screening of 'Birdman' on April 21, 2015 and entrance is free).  

 
Here are the notes in Italian from CINEMA ARSENALE's April 2015 program (The entire program can be found here):

ENGLISH MOVIE HAPPY HOUR in Cinema Arsenale's April 2015 Program

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY - Corsi di Inglese a Pisa - Imparare l'Inglese attraverso le tue passioni!

Cinema Arsenale - Pisa

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY Announces New Partnership with CINEMA ARSENALE!!!

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY and CINEMA ARSENALE have announced a new partnership to bring new cinema-related English programs to Pisa!!!

Firstly, all holders of valid TUSCANE ENGLISH ACADEMY 5-lesson cards will be treated to a discount on all CINEMA ARSENALE film screenings!

Also, we will be working together to bring you an array of film-related English discussions, lessons, Happy Hours, etc. that will cater to Pisa's unique international community.

Stay tuned for details!

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY - Corsi di Inglese a Pisa - Imparare l'Inglese attraverso le tue passioni!

Cinema Arsenale - Pisa

08.05.2015 TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY Presents 'Sacks' by Raymond Carver at SMS Biblio

Raymond Carver

As we announced in an earlier blog post, TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY will present Sacks by Raymond Carver as the second program of SMS Biblio's new SMS English Club.

May 8, 2015, 17:00-18:00 - Free of charge!

The program will be led by Prof. Shemtov, founder of TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY.

We will begin by discussing the more challenging words and phrases in the story, then we will read the entire story together, and then we will have an open discussion.

We ask all participants to read the entire short story in advance and print it out and bring it along.

We look forward to welcoming you there!

Your,

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY


Here is the entire text:

Sacks 

by

Raymond Carver

IT’S October, a damp day. From my hotel window I can see too much of this Midwestern city. I can see lights coming on in some of the buildings, smoke from the tall stacks rising in a thick climb. I wish I didn’t have to look.

I want to pass along to you a story my father told me when I stopped over in Sacramento last year. It concerns some events that involved him two years before that time, that time being before he and my mother were divorced.

I’m a book salesman. I represent a well-known organization. We put out textbooks, and the home base is Chicago. My territory is Illinois, parts of Iowa and Wisconsin. I had been attending the Western Book Publishers Association convention in Los Angeles when it occurred to me to visit a few hours with my father. I had not seen him since the divorce, you understand. So I got his address out of my wallet and sent him a wire. The next morning I sent my things on to Chicago and boarded a plane for Sacramento.

IT took me a minute to pick him out. He was standing where everyone else was—behind the gate, that is—white hair, glasses, brown Sta-Prest pants.

“Dad, how are you?” I said.

He said, “Les.”

We shook hands and moved toward the terminal.

“How’s Mary and the kids?” he said.

“Everyone’s fine,” I said, which was not the truth.

He opened a white confectionary sack. He said, “I picked up a little something you could maybe take back with you. Not much. Some Almond Roca for Mary, and some jellybeans for the kids.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t forget this when you leave,” he said.

We moved out of the way as some nuns came running for the boarding area.

“A drink or a cup of coffee?” I said.

“Anything you say,” he said. “But I don’t have a car,” he said.

We located the lounge, got drinks, lit cigarettes.

“Here we are,” I said.

“Well, yes,” he said.

I shrugged and said, “Yes.”

I leaned back in the seat and drew a long breath, inhaling from what I took to be the air of woe that circled his head.

He said, “I guess the Chicago airport would make four of this one.”

“More than that,” I said.

“Thought it was big,” he said.

“When did you start wearing glasses?” I said.

“A while ago,” he said.

He took a good swallow, and then he got right down to it.

“I liked to have died over it,” he said. He rested his heavy arms on either side of his glass. “You’re an educated man, Les. You’ll be the one to figure it out.”

I turned the ashtray on its edge to read what was on the bottom: HARRAH’S CLUB/RENO AND LAKE TAHOE/GOOD PLACES TO HAVE FUN.

“She was a Stanley Products woman. A little woman, small feet and hands and coal-black hair. She wasn’t the most beautiful thing in the world. But she had these nice ways about her. She was thirty and had kids. But she was a decent woman, whatever happened.

“Your mother was always buying from her, a broom, a mop, some kind of pie filling. You know your mother. It was a Saturday, and I was home. Your mother was gone someplace. I don’t know where she was. She wasn’t working. I was in the front room reading the paper and having a cup of coffee when there was this knock on the door and it was this little woman. Sally Wain. She said she had some things for Mrs. Palmer. ‘I’m Mr. Palmer,’ I says. ‘Mrs. Palmer is not here now,’ I says. I ask her just to step in, you know, and I’d pay her for the things. She didn’t know whether she should or not. Just stands there holding this little paper sack and the receipt with it.

“‘Here, I’ll take that,’ I says. ‘Why don’t you come in and sit down a minute till I see if I can find some money.’

“‘That’s all right,’ she says. ‘You can owe it. I have lots of people do that. It’s all right.’ She smiles to let me know it was all right, you see.

“‘No, no,’ I says. ‘I’ve got it. I’d sooner pay it now. Save you a trip back and save me owing. Come in,’ I said, and I hold the screen door open. It wasn’t polite to have her standing out there.”

He coughed and took one of my cigarettes. From down the bar a woman laughed. I looked at her and then I read from the ashtray again.

“She steps in, and I says. ‘Just a minute, please,’ and I go into the bedroom to look for my wallet. I look around on the dresser, but I can’t find it. I find some change and matches and my comb, but I can’t find my wallet. Your mother has gone through that morning cleaning up, you see. So I go back to the front room and says, ‘Well, I’ll turn up some money yet.’

“‘Please, don’t bother,’ she says.

“‘No bother,’ I says. ‘Have to find my wallet, anyway. Make yourself at home.’

“‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she says.

“‘Look here,’ I says. ‘You hear about that big holdup back East? I was just reading about it.’

“‘I saw it on the TV last night,’ she says.

“‘They got away clean,’ I says.

“‘Pretty slick,’ she says.

“‘The perfect crime,’ I says.

“‘Not many people get away with it,’ she says.

“I didn’t know what else to say. We were just standing there looking at each other. So I went on out to the porch and looked for my pants in the hamper, where I figured your mother had put them. I found the wallet in my back pocket and went back to the other room and asked how much I owed.

“It was three or four dollars, and I paid her. Then, I don’t know why, I asked her what she’d do with it if she had it, all the money those robbers got away with.

“She laughed and I saw her teeth.

“I don’t know what came over me then, Les. Fifty-five years old. Grown kids. I knew better than that. This woman was half my age with little kids in school. She did this Stanley job just the hours they were in school, just to give her something to keep busy. She didn’t have to work.
They had enough to get by on. Her husband, Larry, he was a driver for Consolidated Freight. Made good money. Teamster, you know.”

He stopped and wiped his face.

“Anybody can make a mistake,” I said.

He shook his head.

“She had these two boys, Hank and Freddy. About a year apart. She showed me some pictures. Anyway, she laughs when I say that about the money, says she guessed she’d quit selling Stanley Products and move to Dago and buy a house. She said she had relations in Dago.”

I lit another cigarette. I looked at my watch. The bartender raised his eyebrows and I raised my glass.

“So she’s sitting down on the sofa now and she asks me do I have a cigarette. Said she’d left hers in her other purse, and how she hadn’t had a smoke since she left home. Says she hated to buy from a machine when she had a carton at home. I gave her a cigarette and I hold a match for her. But I can tell you, Les, my fingers were shaking.”

He stopped and studied the bottles for a minute. The woman who’d done the laughing had her arms locked through the arms of the men on either side of her.

“IT’S fuzzy after that. I remember I asked her if she wanted coffee. Said I’d just made a fresh pot. She said she had to be going. She said maybe she had time for one cup. I went out to the kitchen and waited for the coffee to heat. I tell you, Les, I’ll swear before God, I never once stepped out on your mother the whole time we were man and wife. Not once. There were times when I felt like it and had the chance. I tell you, you don’t know your mother like I do.”

I said, “You don’t have to say anything in that direction.”

“I took her her coffee, and she’s taken off her coat by now. I sit down on the other end of the sofa from her and we get to talking more personal. She says she’s got two kids in Roosevelt grade school, and Larry, he was a driver and was sometimes gone for a week or two. Up to Seattle, or down to L.A., or maybe to Phoenix. Always someplace. She says she met Larry when they were going to high school. Said she was proud of the fact she’d gone all the way through. Well, pretty soon she gives a little laugh at something I’d said. It was a thing that could maybe be taken two ways. Then she asks if I’d heard the one about the traveling shoe-salesman who called on the widow woman. We laughed over that one, and then I told her one a little worse. So then she laughs hard at that and smokes another cigarette. One thing’s leading to another, is what’s happening, don’t you see.

“Well, I kissed her then. I put her head back on the sofa and I kissed her, and I can feel her tongue out there rushing to get in my mouth. You see what I’m saying? A man can go along obeying all the rules and then it don’t matter a damn anymore. His luck just goes, you know?
“But it was all over in no time at all. And afterwards she says, ‘You must think I’m a whore or something,’ and then she just goes.

“I was so excited, you know? I fixed up the sofa and turned over the cushions. I folded all the newspapers and even washed the cups we’d used. I cleaned out the coffee pot. All the time what I was thinking about was how I was going to have to face your mother. I was scared.

“Well, that’s how it started. Your mother and I went along the same as usual. But I took to seeing that woman regular.”

The woman down the bar got off her stool. She took some steps toward the center of the floor and commenced to dance. She tossed her head from side to side and snapped her fingers. The bartender stopped doing drinks. The woman raised her arms above her head and moved in a small circle in the middle of the floor. But then she stopped doing it and the bartender went back to work.

“Did you see that?” my father said.

But I didn’t say anything at all.

“SO that’s the way it went,” he said. “Larry has this schedule, and I’d be over there every time I had the chance. I’d tell your mother I was going here or going there.”

He took off his glasses and shut his eyes. “I haven’t told this to nobody.”

There was nothing to say to that. I looked out at the field and then at my watch.

“Listen,” he said. “What time does your plane leave? Can you take a different plane? Let me buy us another drink, Les. Order us two more. I’ll speed it up. I’ll be through with this in a minute. Listen,” he said.

“She kept his picture in the bedroom by the bed. First it bothered me, seeing his picture there and all. But after a while I got used to it. You see how a man gets used to things?” He shook his head. “Hard to believe. Well, it all come to a bad end. You know that. You know all about that.”

“I only know what you tell me,” I said.

“I’ll tell you, Les. I’ll tell you what’s the most important thing involved here. You see, there are things. More important things than your mother leaving me. Now, you listen to this. We were in bed one time. It must have been around lunchtime. We were just laying there talking. I was dozing maybe. It’s that funny kind of dreaming dozing, you know. But at the same time, I’m telling myself I better remember that pretty soon I got to get up and go. So it’s like this when this car pulls into the driveway and somebody gets out and slams the door.

“‘My God,’ she screams. ‘It’s Larry!’

“I must have gone crazy. I seem to remember thinking that if I run out the back door he’s going to pin me up against this big fence in the yard and maybe kill me. Sally is making a funny kind of sound. Like she couldn’t get her breath. She has her robe on, but it’s not closed up, and she’s standing in the kitchen shaking her head. All this is happening all at once, you understand. So there I am, almost naked with my clothes in my hand, and Larry is opening the front door. Well, I jump. I just jump right into their picture window, right in there through the glass.”

“You got away?” I said. “He didn’t come after you?”

My father looked at me as if I were crazy. He stared at his empty glass. I looked at my watch, stretched. I had a small headache behind my eyes.

I said, “I guess I better be getting out there soon.” I ran my hand over my chin and straightened my collar. “She still in Redding, that woman?”

“You don’t know anything, do you?” my father said. “You don’t know anything at all. You don’t know anything except how to sell books.”

It was almost time to go.

“Ah, God, I’m sorry,” he said. “The man went all to pieces, is what. He got down on the floor and cried. She stayed out in the kitchen. She did her crying out there. She got down on her knees and she prayed to God, good and loud so the man would hear.”

My father started to say something more. But instead he shook his head. Maybe he wanted me to say something.

But then he said, “No, you got to catch a plane.”

I helped him into his coat and we started out, my hand guiding him by the elbow.

“I’ll put you in a cab,” I said.

He said, “I’ll see you off.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “Next time maybe.”

We shook hands. That was the last I’ve seen of him. On the way to Chicago, I remembered how I’d left his sack of gifts on the bar. Just as well. Mary didn’t need candy, Almond Roca or anything else.

That was last year. She needs it now even less.

SMS English Club

SMS Biblio -Pisa

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY - Corsi di Inglese a Pisa - Imparare l'Inglese attraverso le tue passioni!

24.04.2105 TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY Presents 'The Telephone Man' by Bailey White at SMS Biblio

Bailey White

As we announced in an earlier blog post, TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY will present The Telephone Man by Bailey White as the second program of SMS Biblio's new SMS English Club.

April 24, 2015, 17:00-18:00 - Free of charge!

The program will be led by Prof. Shemtov, founder of TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY.

We will begin by discussing the more challenging words and phrases in the story, then we will read the entire story together, and then we will have an open discussion.

We ask all participants to read the entire short story in advance and print it out and bring it along.

We look forward to welcoming you there!

Your,

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY


Here is the entire text:


THE TELEPHONE MAN 

by

Bailey White


Essie and Helen were two old sisters who lived together in their childhood home. And Arthur was a man with only one hand, who'd been in love with Essie for as long as anyone could remember. `You know that one hand can do almost anything,' he said to Helen. They were in that house rolling out the living room rug, and Essie was out in the yard trying to mow a clearing in the tall weeds beyond the bird feeder with a little push mower. She wanted a vista, just like the one she'd seen at Birdsong Nature Center. But the grass was too thick, and the lawn mower kept choking down.

`The one hand has nothing to do with it, Arthur,' said Helen. `You know that. It's just Essie. She's not a marrying woman.' `And what the hand can't do, the knob can do,' said Arthur. Instead of the hook so famous in jokes and horror stories, Arthur had a wooden knob he'd carved himself out of a live oak knot. `I can drive nails with it.' `It's not the knob or the hand or anything at all to do with you, Arthur,' said Helen. Helen was the sweet one. Essie did everything the same way she mowed that grass, straight ahead and all screwed up with concentration.

The mower choked down again, and they watched Essie viciously pull the starter cord. The mower coughed and sputtered, and soon as it settled down to run, Essie shoved it into the tall grass: `Mmm, rrr.' She was wearing a loose denim dress and black hiking boots. `Mm,' said Arthur, `it hurts me to hear a small engine labor like that. She needs more horsepower than what she's got. She needs a Yazoo or a Snapping Turtle. What she really needs is that old Gravely mower your dad used to have. Where is that old Gravely mower?'

That was the first day of fall, and that evening was the first cool night. Essie was bedded down in the sofa under a down quilt reading about a beauty line in the Singing Springs Nursery catalog. And Helen was painting a picture of lemons, waiting for the damp spot on the paper to be just right, so she could get the stippled skin of the lemon in just one stroke.

`It's painful to see how hard he works trying to please you,' she said to Essie. `You admire big goldfish in the corner-house fountain, and Arthur digs a pond with that one hand and a shovel. You read a letter from Dorothy Wordsworth, and Arthur goes out and plants a hundred daffodils. Now you want a mowed vista, and Arthur's been out in the barn all afternoon trying to resurrect that giant mowing machine that's been sitting up on blocks since Daddy died.' `Arthur plants everything too deep,' said Essie. `You're too much alike, you and Arthur,' said Helen. `You, neither one of you, give up on anything, even when you should.'

Then the telephone rang. `I can't leave this lemon,' said Helen, and Essie was tangled up in the quilt. There were the four rings, then the digital-sounding voice they had for the outgoing message, then the tone. And a man's voice, deep and weary, said, `Hey, baby, I know it's been a long time,' a sigh and a pause. `Baby?' said Essie. And she sat up and leaned toward the telephone; her catalog slid to the floor. `I know I done wrong,' the voice said. `I just want to let you know I'm going to get out of this mess before long, and I'm sorry for what I done. Call me.'
`Poor thing,' said Helen. `He's got the wrong number, and he doesn't know it.' She took up her brush and stroked the yellow onto the shaded side of the lemon. Essie picked up her catalog and lay back in the sofa, but the pages had flipped from the A's to the Z's. And she lay there for a long time staring at the zanthosomas. `Baby,' she whispered. `Just probably some girlfriend trouble,' said Helen. `He'll get it figured out.'

The next morning, at first light, Arthur was back in the barn taking the mower apart. It was an old Gravely mower from the 1940s, and it had not run since Mr. Baker died in 1970. Rats had chewed up the wiring. The belts and tires were rotten and crumbling. And when Arthur opened the hood, lizards came skittering out. All morning Essie and Helen heard rattling and clanging, and at noon Arthur came in covered with grease, wiping his hand on a rag he had safety-pinned to his belt loop.

He had scrubbed all the gummed up oil out of the air cleaner with a toothbrush and laid it out on a rag in the sun to try. And he'd taken the carburetor apart and had the float bowl, the needle valve and the sediment bowl soaking in a coffee can of kerosene. Essie and Helen came out and stood with their hands clutched against their bellies and peered down at the mower. `Lookit here,' said Arthur. `This is the whole fuel system all varnished up from old gas. I've got to get this cleaned up and cut a new gasket for the sediment bowl and the carburetor. I've got to get all this rust and trash out of the gas tank and see--can I get some fire out of this magneto. Then this old Gravely will mow anything you want mowed. This is a fine, fine machine. This old Gravely will mow down all those little sweet gums coming up in there, all that sumac, that bahia grass that would choke down any other mower. This Gravely will mow it. I'll mow the whole thing right up to the fence wire.'

`No,' said Essie, drawing shapes in the air with her arms. `I just want a swath from the bird feeder, curving around the camellia bushes and out into the sunny place, just like at Birdsong.' `Arthur, quit working on this old thing,' said Helen. `It's too much for just that little bit of mowing. Essie can get Randy to come over with his bush hog on Saturday and mow that strip for $25.' `He'd scalp it,' said Arthur. `You watch, I'll have this thing purring like a kitten by Saturday. This is a fine old machine. They don't make them like this anymore.'

That night when the breeze would blow just right, they could smell a whiff of gasoline through the open windows. Essie was in the living room, and Helen was in the kitchen making a tomato sandwich when the telephone rang. But Essie didn't answer it. She stopped and stood in the middle of the room through the three rings, the outgoing message, then that voice, tired and sorrowful. `I'm in a bad place, baby. I need to talk to you.' `Essie, pick it up and tell that man we are not his girlfriend. He needs to check the number,' said Helen. `I want to hear this,' said Essie. `I'll make it up to you, baby. I swear I will,' said the telephone man. `Call me.'

The next morning Arthur was back, and he worked all that day and the next day with his mind the whole time on just two things: one, the Gravely mower; and, two, Essie. Every now and then a little shred of a thought would work its way to the surface, and he would be moved to sing out a word or a phrase. And all afternoon Helen and her little painting students on the porch were to hear, "Elberta Peach," or, "Ag Tires from Axelrod's," or, "Rave on."

For most of one afternoon he thought about a day 50 years ago out at Reed Pond, the day he fell in love with Essie and never got over it: Essie in her black bathing suit eating an Elberta peach. Arthur could bring that day up in his mind anytime he wanted to and see it just as clear, the pickerel weed and cypress trees on the far bank, the sparkle on the water, then the posts of the dock and the wet and the dry spots, then Essie and her laughing eyes, the way she looked at him right before her teeth sank into that Elberta peach, then moving on from there, his own hands on his knees--both of them in those days--and on Johnny Lovett's transistor radio that he was so proud out Buddy Holly singing "Rave on."

That day was the beginning of it, and everything had started changing on that day and never stopped changing from then on: Essie gone off to college and becoming a demonstrator; Helen in New York City, an artist; and Reed Pond called Mirror Lake with long grands where the cypress trees used to be and the houses all around it, each one as big as the Taj Mahal. Just one thing hadn't changed and never would change, even when he was fighting the war and she was marching up and down the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, waving a peace sign. He wrote Essie a letter every week and signed every one of them, `Love, Arthur.' And when she took up with that dope-smoking Yankee artist, who drew pictures of little bright-colored people with big feet on every flat surface and Arthur got sent home with one hand--every time she came back, he would go over there and sit in her daddy's kitchen and say, `Essie, I love you.'

Then there was that wispy California boy who'd called himself a musician, though all he did was a lot of strumming in two chords, long, long songs that didn't have any subject matter to them. Arthur knew how he'd treated Essie, and when she finally left him and came back home to get her bearings, Arthur came over and stood on the bottom step while she looked at him from behind the screen door with her face swollen and sad. Arthur said, `If he hurts you, Essie, I'll kill him, one hand or no hands. You know I'll take care of you till the day you die because I love you.' But all Essie ever said was, `Arthur, Arthur'--and she was gone again and stayed gone this time.

Helen was the one who had talked to him about it, saying over and over, `She's not the marrying kind, Arthur,' and, `She likes change and excitement, Arthur.' And probably the truest thing Helen ever said: `You're an old friend, Arthur, and Essie likes things to be new.'

The first time Arthur ever heard of a bagel, Helen told him Essie was working in a bagel shop in Spokane, Washington. And when he saw one in a grocery store, he bought it and stood in the parking lot and gnawed and gnawed until he'd eaten the whole thing, just so he'd know what Essie was doing. Then Helen said she'd quit the bagels and was putting harpsichords together in Vermont; then in the bottom of the Grand Canyon living with Indians. There was a long gap of years, and finally the letter from Helen a year ago saying, `Dear Arthur, we're two tired old-lady sisters, and we're moving back home.'

And there they were again, just like they'd started: Essie and Helen back in that house; Helen still painting her pictures and Essie with her gray hair all piled up and deaf in one ear. But Essie's still Essie. `Now,' thought Arthur--and all year he dug fish ponds and planting daffodils and cleared out brush--`now,' he said, wiping his knob against his pants leg--`Now first thing tomorrow morning, get those ag tires from Axelrod's, hook up the spark plug. She's got gas, she's got fire, she's got to run.'

He put up his tools, spread a tarpaulin over the whole thing and came up on the porch. The telephone was ringing. `Arthur, come up here and let me fix you a cup of coffee,' said Helen. She called, `Essie, get the phone. Arthur, come over to the sink. I'll wash your hand with some of this orange cleaner.' The telephone rang again, but Essie didn't answer it. She sat down in a chair in the middle of the room with both her feet on the floor and her elbows on her knees, leaning towards the telephone. `I'm in a real dark place,' the voice said. `Baby, please call me.' Then there was the click and the dial tone.

For a while they just stood there, not saying anything, Helen holding the tub of orange cleaner at the sink and Arthur wiping his knob with the greasy rag over and over. Then Arthur said, `No, thank you, Helen. I'll just go on home.'

The next day was the perfect fall day, bright and cool, with a high blue sky and the welcome smell of a change of season, The tea olive trees in the first full bloom, scuppernong grapes and pine straw heated up by the sun and soon, with all of that, the smell of mown grass. From the house, Essie and Helen could hear the Gravely mower running just as smooth, and from the porch they could see through the great myrtle shade out into the sunny place Arthur perched up on the sulky behind the Gravely mower looping around and around, mowing just the shape Essie had drawn in the air, first his back on the loop going out, then his face on the loop coming back, every now and then turning to look over his shoulder at the mowed stripe unfurling behind the mower like a green grosgrain ribbon.

On the porch, Helen finished her lemon picture and propped it up on the railing to look at it. The hardest part had turned out to be the best, a place where the knife had sliced too deep, and it seemed you could look down through the clear layers of yellow and into the deep heart of the lemon. Essie finished filling out her order form, three abutilons from Singing Springs Nursery, and still they heard the mower near and far and near again, then farther and farther away.

`Seems like he's been mowing a mighty long time for that little bit of field,' said Helen. `We need to go out there and admire it for Arthur.' `We need to go out there and be sure he hadn't mowed everything down,' said Essie. `You know how he is.' They walked out just the way the eye was drawn into that garden, through the dappled shade of the great myrtle, around the dense green of the camellias and into the sunny place.

`Oh, good,' said Helen. `Arthur's taking a rest in the shade.' `But the mower's still running,' said Essie. `He's probably scared to shut it off for fear it won't start up again,' said Helen. `Arthur, it's beautiful,' she called, `absolutely beautiful.' But Arthur wasn't taking a rest. Arthur was lying stone dead, half in the shade and half in the sun, right where he'd fallen off that Gravely mower when the heart attack hit him. He was stiff. And the part of him that was in the sun was warm, and the part of him that was in the shade was cool.

After all the gasping was over and the cries of `Arthur, oh, Arthur' and the hopeless attempts of resuscitation and a little weeping, Essie and Helen tried to turn Arthur over to get him into a
more lifelike position. But his knees buttressed him, and he wouldn't roll. They gave up and just stood there looking down at him lying on the mowed grass, just like they looked down into the engine of the Gravely mower with their hands clasped at their bellies. His eyes were open, and he had a look on his face of wonder and delight, as if he'd just bitten into something unexpectedly good.

`I'll stay here with him,' said Helen. `I'll cover him up with something. You go call that cousin in Woodberry and 911 or whoever you're supposed to call.' Just as Essie came around the great myrtle tree, the telephone started ringing, and by the time she got to the porch steps, there was that familiar voice talking on the answering machine. Essie was not the kind to cry, but now the tears began to flow. She picked up the telephone and, without any greeting or pause, she cried out in a rough, choked voice, `Arthur is dead, and no one at this number wants to hear from you ever again.' Then she slammed the receiver down and banged out the screen door and sat down on the steps.

Out through the vista she could just see Helen sitting on the mowed grass, and there they sat for a long time, two old ladies clutching their knees with a dead man between them. And in the background the sound of the Gravely mower, first a steady hum, then a sputter and a cough as it ran out of gas, then just birdsong, a cardinal calling from the feeder, the loud tweet of a wren in the tea olive tree. Then, in the distance, the thin, wavering whistle of the white-throated sparrow, the first one of the season.

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TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY - Corsi di Inglese a Pisa, Imparare l'Inglese attraverso le tue passioni!

17.04.2105 TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY Presents 'Eveline' by James Joyce at SMS Biblio

James Joyce

As we announced in an earlier blog post, TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY will present Eveline by James Joyce as the first program of SMS Biblio's new SMS English Club.

April 17, 2015, 17:00-18:00 - Free of charge!

The program will be led by Prof. Shemto, founder of TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY.

We will begin by discussing the more challenging words and phrases in the story, then we will read the entire story together, and then we will have an open discussion.

We ask all participants to read the entire short story in advance and print it out and bring it along.

We look forward to welcoming you there!

Your,

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY


Here is the entire text:

Eveline

by

James Joyce


SHE sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired.

Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses. One time there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other people’s children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it — not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field — the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix and call out when he saw her father coming. Still they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then; and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisters were all grown up her mother was dead. Tizzie Dunn was dead, too, and the Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes. Now she was going to go away like the others, to leave her home.

Home! She looked round the room, reviewing all its familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from. Perhaps she would never see again those familiar objects from which she had never dreamed of being divided. And yet during all those years she had never found out the name of the priest whose yellowing photograph hung on the wall above the broken harmonium beside the coloured print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque. He had been a school friend of her father. Whenever he showed the photograph to a visitor her father used to pass it with a casual word:

“He is in Melbourne now.”

She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question. In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom she had known all her life about her. O course she had to work hard, both in the house and at business. What would they say of her in the Stores when they found out that she had run away with a fellow? Say she was a fool, perhaps; and her place would be filled up by advertisement. Miss Gavan would be glad. She had always had an edge on her, especially whenever there were people listening.

“Miss Hill, don’t you see these ladies are waiting?”

“Look lively, Miss Hill, please.”

She would not cry many tears at leaving the Stores.

But in her new home, in a distant unknown country, it would not be like that. Then she would be married — she, Eveline. People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been. Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father’s violence. She knew it was that that had given her the palpitations. When they were growing up he had never gone for her like he used to go for Harry and Ernest, because she was a girl but latterly he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her only for her dead mother’s sake. And no she had nobody to protect her. Ernest was dead and Harry, who was in the church decorating business, was nearly always down somewhere in the country. Besides, the invariable squabble for money on Saturday nights had begun to weary her unspeakably. She always gave her entire wages — seven shillings — and Harry always sent up what he could but the trouble was to get any money from her father. He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head, that he wasn’t going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets, and much more, for he was usually fairly bad on Saturday night. In the end he would give her the money and ask her had she any intention of buying Sunday’s dinner. Then she had to rush out as quickly as she could and do her marketing, holding her black leather purse tightly in her hand as she elbowed her way through the crowds and returning home late under her load of provisions. She had hard work to keep the house together and to see that the two young children who had been left to hr charge went to school regularly and got their meals regularly. It was hard work — a hard life — but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life.

She was about to explore another life with Frank. Frank was very kind, manly, open-hearted. She was to go away with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Ayres where he had a home waiting for her. How well she remembered the first time she had seen him; he was lodging in a house on the main road where she used to visit. It seemed a few weeks ago. He was standing at the gate, his peaked cap pushed back on his head and his hair tumbled forward over a face of bronze. Then they had come to know each other. He used to meet her outside the Stores every evening and see her home. He took her to see The Bohemian Girl and she felt elated as she sat in an unaccustomed part of the theatre with him. He was awfully fond of music and sang a little. People knew that they were courting and, when he sang about the lass that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly confused. He used to call her Poppens out of fun. First of all it had been an excitement for her to have a fellow and then she had begun to like him. He had tales of distant countries. He had started as a deck boy at a pound a month on a ship of the Allan Line going out to Canada. He told her the names of the ships he had been on and the names of the different services. He had sailed through the Straits of Magellan and he told her stories of the terrible Patagonians. He had fallen on his feet in Buenos Ayres, he said, and had come over to the old country just for a holiday. Of course, her father had found out the affair and had forbidden her to have anything to say to him.


“I know these sailor chaps,” he said.

One day he had quarrelled with Frank and after that she had to meet her lover secretly.
The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in her lap grew indistinct. One was to Harry; the other was to her father. Ernest had been her favourite but she liked Harry too. Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed; he would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long before, when she had been laid up for a day, he had read her out a ghost story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when their mother was alive, they had all gone for a picnic to the Hill of Howth. She remembered her father putting on her mothers bonnet to make the children laugh.

Her time was running out but she continued to sit by the window, leaning her head against the window curtain, inhaling the odour of dusty cretonne. Down far in the avenue she could hear a street organ playing. She knew the air Strange that it should come that very night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could. She remembered the last night of her mother’s illness; she was again in the close dark room at the other side of the hall and outside she heard a melancholy air of Italy. The organ-player had been ordered to go away and given sixpence. She remembered her father strutting back into the sickroom saying:

“Damned Italians! coming over here!”

As she mused the pitiful vision of her mother’s life laid its spell on the very quick of her being — that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness. She trembled as she heard again her mother’s voice saying constantly with foolish insistence:

“Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!”

She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her.

She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall. He held her hand and she knew that he was speaking to her, saying something about the passage over and over again. The station was full of soldiers with brown baggages. Through the wide doors of the sheds she caught a glimpse of the black mass of the boat, lying in beside the quay wall, with illumined portholes. She answered nothing. She felt her cheek pale and cold and, out of a maze of distress, she prayed to God to direct her, to show her what was her duty. The boat blew a long mournful whistle into the mist. If she went, tomorrow she would be on the sea with Frank, steaming towards Buenos Ayres. Their passage had been booked. Could she still draw back after all he had done for her? Her distress awoke a nausea in her body and she kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer.

A bell clanged upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand:

“Come!”

All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing.

“Come!”

No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amid the seas she sent a cry of anguish.

“Eveline! Evvy!”

He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.

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SMS Biblio - Pisa

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY - Corsi di Inglese a Pisa, Imparare l'Inglese attraverso le tue passioni!

New English Club at SMS Biblio - Pisa's Public Lending Library

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY has partnered with SMS Biblio - Pisa's public lending library - to launch a brand new SMS ENGLISH CLUB which will feature an array of English programs for the public!

The first series of programs will feature readings and discussions of classic English short stories - in their original forms - that were chosen by Prof. Shemtov, founder of TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY.



The first program will take place April 17, 2015, from 17:00-18:00, and will feature Eveline by James Joyce. (You can find the entire text here.)

On March 24, 2015, from 17:00-18:00, we will read and discuss The Telephone Man by Bailey White. (You can find the entire text here.)

On  May 8, 2015, from 17:00-18:00, we will read and discuss Sacks by Raymond Carver. (You can find the entire text here.)

All programs are open to the public and free of charge.

Considering the advanced the level of these texts, we ask all readers to read the stories in advance and print them out and bring them along to the reading. All texts will be available in their entirety on this blog as well as the Facebook page of SMS Biblio.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Your,

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY

SMS English Club

SMS Biblio - Pisa

TUSCAN ENGLISH ACADEMY - Corsi di Inglese a Pisa, Imparare l'Inglese attraverso le tue passioni!