48 Saroyan Stories by William Saroyan

Author:William Saroyan [Saroyan, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: american, fiction, literature, short stories
Publisher: Avon
Published: 1942-07-31T20:00:00+00:00

The Trains

He used to stand for hours at the window, staring, more asleep than awake, for­getting everything, deeply troubled by a feeling of homelessness which was all the more saddening in that he was home: in the warm valley where he had entered the world, where he had lived the first seventeen years of his life. He had been home four months now, from June to September, and was still homeless, in spite of the summer temperature which was perfect; in spite of the places he re­membered which were delightful to see; in spite of the faces he had known long ago which, though they had journeyed much through time, had remained essentially unchanged; in spite, even, of the sum­mer sky, daytime and nighttime, the summer odors which never during his travels had he ever forgotten, and which, when he first breathed them in again to his heart and spirit, his heart laughed and his spirit leaped; in spite, even, of the ab­surd sounds of the absurd city: the water-sprin­klers on the miserable lawns, the popcorn wagon whistles, the sound of the streets, in the morning, at high-noon, and at the peak of evening; and then after the people had gone home and the streets grew cold and empty; he was still homeless in spite of the chaotic, and often comical, presence of home in every fragment of time and place about him and within him, and it was this unfriendly condition which had brought about his deep inward bewilderment and stupor; his spiritual listlessness; his day-dreaming; his inability to work.

The child had come home from the world to be a child again: the child had opened the door of the house of home, and entered, and stretched out upon the bed of home, and slept, and awakened, and was still homeless. Home was not home. He was home: everything was in place, and yet he was a stranger. He was alone. And little by little a profound silence had come over his spirit, so that when he slept, it was not sleep, and when he wakened, it was not wakefulness. And he found it very difficult to speak, either with the people of the town, which ordinarily would have been the easiest thing in the world for him; or through his work, in his paint­ings : he could think of no word to say to anybody in the town; and no meaningful silence or poise or pre­cision or accuracy or purity to articulate in his paintings. He would go out in the evening and look about him for someone to speak to, and after many hours, walking, sitting in cafes, drinking, he would return silently to his two rooms; and this would be so, amazingly, even when he was drunk, when ordinarily he would be garrulous with goodwill and gayety. Once he staggered upstairs into a cheap whorehouse, went to a room with a girl, stared at her foolishly for several minutes, laughed out loud, begged her pardon with a bow and a gesture, gave her three dollars instead of two, and staggered down the stairs.

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