Test 16

Directions: (Questions 1—10).

Read the text and choose the one best answer to each question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the text. Mark the answer on your answer sheet.

Задания: (1—10)

Прочитайте текст и ответьте на вопросы, следующие за текстом, выбрав один из предложенных вариантов ответа.

Painting the Fence

(after H.A. Smith)

My wife , Betsy, and I were on the Queen Elizabeth, coming back from our first trip to Europe. On the first day, we played our favourite game, trying to guess what the different people were. Betsy called my attention to one man with gray hair that stood up on his head, and with deep dark blue eyes. He was dressed in an old sweater and trousers, and had summer shoes on his feet. I immediately guessed that he was an artist, a French artist. Betsy laughed at me, because we had agreed that people seldom or never look like what they really are. She said he was probably a member of the British Parliament.

On the second day, I was walking around the deck, when I saw the same man. He had pulled his chair into a corner where the wind wasn't so sharp and when I pushed my nose into his corner, he raised his head and gave me a very angry look. I began to move away, saying I was sorry, when suddenly his expression changed.

"Wait!" he called out. "You are an American?"

His English was good, and he asked me if I had a moment to help him with a small problem. He wanted to know if there was a United states senator named Boat or Ship. He showed me the ship's daily crossword puzzle. The question he could not answer was "A senator who crosses the river". I thought for a minute and then remembered — Senator Bridges! I told him

and he quickly wrote it in, and then flew away along the deck without saying good-bye.

I didn't see him again until the next day.

We went to his room and had a drink. He said his name was Roland and thanked me again and again for helping him with the puzzle. Then he asked me about myself. We talked for half an hour, and at last he asked me whether I could keep a secret. I told him I could, and then he told me that his real name was Lautisse.

I told Betsy all about it, so after lunch we went to the library and asked the librarian who Lautisse was. She told us that Lautisse was probably the most famous painter in the world. She found a book with a photograph of him and his biography. It said that Lautisse had suddenly stopped painting, saying he had decided never to paint again, and that he had not painted anything for the last ten years. After that Betsy made me invite him to our room and he came. We became quite friendly, and he told us he was an unhappy man and hated people; that he lived alone in his villa on the Riviera and never saw anybody. He planned to spend a month in New York where nobody knew him, and Betsy invited him to come to our place in the country for a week-end.

Lautisse came on the twelve o'clock train and I met him at the station. We had promised that there wouldn't be any other guests and that we wouldn't talk to him about art.

I got up early the next morning, and while I was having breakfast I remembered about a job that I had to do. There is a low white fence around our vegetable garden, that I built my-self and that I am very proud of. The fence needed new paint, and after breakfast I went out with a bucket half full of white paint. But before I could begin, Lautisse came into the garden. I asked him whether he had had breakfast, and he said my wife was preparing it for him. He asked me what I was going to do and I told him. I said I wasn't in a hurry; the fence could wait and I could walk around the garden with him. But he insisted on my beginning immediately.

I am not Tom Sawyer — I didn't want anybody to paint the fence for me. So, after a minute or two, I stopped him. "I'll continue," I said. "No, no!" he cried, and he went on, working more quickly. And when Betsy called to him that his breakfast was ready, he said impatiently, "No, no! No breakfast. I will paint the fence."

I argued with him, but he refused to listen. I went into the house and told Betsy: "I can't do anything with him. He is going to paint the whole fence." Betsy laughed at me. "Let him," she said. "He's having a good time." So I took the Sunday newspaper and began to read; but every half hour I went out to watch him painting. I was a little angry, because I had wanted to paint my fence myself. But of course, I said nothing: he was my guest. He spent three hours, and finished the whole fence. Then he came in, with paint on his clothes and on his hands and face. His eyes were shining. "I finished it!" he cried happily. "The whole thing." He made me come with him to look at his work.

In the afternoon, he asked me if our place was near Chip- paqua, because he had a friend there. When I told him Chipaqua was the next town, he asked if it was possible to telephone Gerston, the sculptor who lived there. So I got Gerston for him, but he talked in French, and I have no idea what the conversation was about.

He went back to New York that evening. At the station he shook my hand and said I was a fine fellow, and he hadn't en-joyed himself so much in years.

We didn't hear anything from him or about him for ten days. And then suddenly his name was in all the newspapers. A correspondent in France had found out about Lautisse's secret trip to New York, and had sent a telegram to his New York newspaper office. The office had found him at his hotel and had insisted on an interview. At the end of the article they wrote:

"Since his arrival Lautisse has spent all of his time in New York, except for a week-end at the home of Mr.

The day after the story appeared, a reporter and a photographer from one of the newspapers arrived at our house while I wasn't at home. So Betsy had to talk to them. They wanted to know everything about the great man, and of course Betsy told them about the garden fence. They took pictures of it, and of the paint bucket and the next morning there was a long story in the newspaper, headed: Lautisse Paints Again.

That same afternoon a little man arrived in a big car with a driver. The man jumped out and ran to me, shouting "Where is it? Where is the fence?" When 1 made him talk more quietly, he told me he was Mr. Vegaro, from the Millard Galleries, and he wanted to see the fence Lautisse had painted.

He stood before that fence, shaking his head and crying: "Beautiful!" and "Wonderful!" Then suddenly he said: "Mr. Gregg, I'd like to buy your fence. П1 give you five hundred dollars for it." But at that moment, another car came up to the house, and two men jumped out of it and ran towards us shouting, "Stop! Stop!"

The three men stood around me, shouting at each other until I began shouting at them. They had come from the Widdicome Galleries and they too wanted to buy my fence, because it had been painted by the great Lautisse: Lautisse who had painted nothing for ten years, and whose pictures were worth a quarter of a million dollars.

"Gentlemen," I said. "I don't know anything about painting pictures, but I know how to paint a fence. I can tell you that a bear with a brush in its mouth could paint a fence almost as well as Lautisse."

"A thousand dollars for the fence!" said one of the Widdi-come man.

"Twelve hundred!" said little Mr. Vegaro.

"Fifteen hundred!"

"Wait a minute, wait!" I shouted. "Are you serious? Who is going to give you fifteen hundred dollars for that fence?"

"My God, man!" said the second fellow from Widdicome.

I held up my hands. "Gentlemen," I said. "I'm not going to sell the fence — not yet. I need a few days to ..."

"Three thousand!" the Widdicome man interrupted.

"Four thousand!" shouted Mr. Vegaro loudly.

Four thousand dollars ... more that enough for another trip to Europe! But I really wanted time to think. I told them to come back in three days.

I don't know how 1 didn't loose my mind the next few days. There were telephone calls from Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Maiami and Montreal. Galleries and museums sent people to talk to me. At the end of the second day I was offered twenty-five thousand, at the end of the third — fifty.

On the fourth day Lautisse's friend Gerston appeared. "I've enjoyed reading about your fence so much," he said after he had introduced himself, "that I simply had to come and look at it. Have you decided what you are going to do?"

I was glad to have somebody to talk to, who knew art and who didn't want to buy anything. He told me not to sell the fence yet, but to allow the Palmer Museum in New York to exhibit it for a week or two. He told me an interesting thing — that one reason for the great interest in the fence was that Lau- tisse had never, in any of his paintings used white paint.

The museum sent seven men who pulled the fence out of the ground — but oh! so carefully, so lovingly — and they took it to New York and put it in a big room in the Palmer Museum. Hundreds of people hurried to the museum to see it. 1 laughed when I saw it — my fence had a fence around it!

The exhibition ended on Saturday, and Gerston telephoned and asked me to meet him at the museum on Sunday. He was waiting for me when I arrived, and there was a little smile on his face. "Come in," he said. "I'm afraid you will be greatly surprised when you see what we have done."

I was surprised: the fence was cut into pieces, and the pieces were standing around the walls of the big room.

"Don't get excited," Gerston said.

There was something written in black paint in the bottom corner of each square. After a minute or two, I recognized it. The pieces were signed by Lautisse.

"But ... I don't understand," I said. "Why did he sign ... Where is he now?"

"Lautisse returned to France early this morning," Gerston said. "But last night he came here and signed each piece of your fence. Now you've really got something to sell!"

It was true. In one month, with Gerston's help, twenty-nine of thirty pieces were sold: each piece cost ten thousand dollars. There were buyers for the thirtieth piece also — many of them — but I refused to sell it. You can see it on the wall of our best room.

The author of the story and his wife

A played a game with different people on the ship.

В liked to imagine what the passengers really were.

С agreed that a stranger on the ship was a Frenchman.

The stranger looking man on the ship was

A a painter

В a Member of Parliament

С an athlete

The author of the story was walking around the deck

A while the stranger was trying to guess the word.

В and talking to a passenger about the fame of Senator Bridges.

С and pushing his nose into every corner.

Mr. Gregg and the French artist made friends

A while they were playing chess together.

В while they were discussing art.

С when the author helped the artist with a crossword puzzle.

The French artist didn't want to see people, because

A he was afraid of crowds.

В he was unhappy.

С he was very unpopular.

Lautisse agreed to spend a week-end with the Greggs, because

A they were very rich people.

i?they promised to invite interesting people to meet him. С they were simple, nice people and live in a quiet place in the country.

Lautisse decided to paint the fence, because A he wanted to help his new friend.

В he enjoyed the work.

С by painting the fence he wanted to pay for his visit.

The reporters, photographers and correspondences came to the author's house, because

A Lutisse's last work was a wonderful picture. В Lautisse had painted the fence in an unusual way. С the artist had begun to paint for the first time after a ten- year interval.

A lot of people wanted to buy the fence, because A it looked wonderful.

В it was painted by a famous artist. С it was made of some special material.

10. Lautisse signed each piece of the fence, because A he decided to play a joke on the Greggs. В he was leaving the USA and in this way was saying good-

buy to America. С he knew in this way his new friend could become rich.