SAROYAN

The little boy named Ulysses Macauley one day stood over the new gopher hole in the backyard of his house on Santa Clara Avenue in Ithaca, California. The gopher of this hole pushed up fresh moist dirt and peeked out at the boy, who was certainly a stranger but perhaps not an enemy. Before this miracle had been fully enjoyed by the boy, one of the birds of Ithaca flew into the old walnut tree in the backyard and after settling itself on a branch broke into rapture, moving the boy's fascination from the earth to the tree. Next, best of all, a freight train puffed and roared far away. The boy listened, and felt the earth beneath him tremble with the moving of the train. Then he broke into running, moving (it seemed to him) swifter than any life in the world.

When he reached the crossing he was just in time to see the passing of the whole train, from locomotive to caboose. He waved to the engineer, but the engineer did not wave back to him. He waved to five others who were with the train, but not one of them waved back. They might have done so, but they didn't. At last a Negro appeared leaning over the side of a gondola. Above the clatter of the train, Ulysses heard the man singing:

"Weep no more my lady, O weep no more today

We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home

For the old Kentucky home far away"

Ulysses waved the Negro too, and then a wondrous and unexpected thing happened. This man, black and different from all the others, waved back to Ulysses, shouting: "Going home, boy - going back where I belong!"

The small boy and the Negro waved to one another until the train was almost out of sight.

Lembrei-me hoje deste livro, lido por volta de 1979/80 na biblioteca do Centro Cultural Americano. William Saroyan (1908-1981) não é, nos dias que passam, um autor muito lido. The human comedy, escrito em 1943, não tem sequer tradução feita em território português. Mas esta história, plena de alusões à Odisseia, conquistou-me na altura. O otimismo e a complacência da narrativa fazem-me hoje falta.

O início da obra, que transcrevi, é citado na capa da edição que me recordo de ter lido. Saroyan morreu há pouco mais de 30 anos (18.5.1981). O Centro Cultural Americano, que ficava na Duque de Loulé, já não existe, tanto quanto sei. Mas há sempre forma de perpetuar as coisas. Encomendei, há minutos, na amazon, um exemplar de The human comedy. Para uma amiga que gosta de ler inglês e que quer estudar Clássicas.