Free The Crazed by Ha Jin Page A

our teacher, whose rigmarole didn’t seem to bother him at all. Today I had with me only a pocket English dictionary. I sat down and began reviewing the word entries I had underlined.
    About half an hour later Mr. Yang stirred and muttered something. I tried to ignore him, but couldn’t help glancing at him from time to time. His flabby face, less puffy today, was duck-egg green, and his hair looked shaggy despite the fact that I had washed and combed it the previous afternoon. His lips quivered weirdly. For a moment I couldn’t understand his odd facial expression—the corners of his mouth jerked while he breathed noisily.
    Was he crying? He didn’t look so. He must be smiling at someone. I knew that whenever he was in good spirits, his tongue would lick his upper teeth. He had often smiled like this in class. I averted my eyes. As long as he kept everything to himself, I’d go on perusing the dictionary.
    But soon he started speaking aloud. I couldn’t help but crane forward listening. He seemed to be reciting something. He definitely looked happy, pinkish patches rising on his face while his lungs labored wheezily. All of a sudden words poured out of his mouth:
    Oh glorious stars, oh light infused with

Divine Power, to you I owe all my genius—

Whatever be its worth.

Born with you and hidden with you,

He who is the father of mortal life,

When I first breathed the Tuscan air.

And far away, as I was granted the grace to enter

The high wheeling sphere in which you roll around,

Your very region was assigned to me.

Devoutly my soul sighs to you now

So that it may gain the strength

For the hard journey leading to the final end.
    He paused, beaming, but his mouth, its corners twitching, reminded me of a rabbit that had just bitten hot pepper. “You cannot trap my soul, nobody can!” he cried stridently.
    What poem is that? I wondered. Its joyful, sonorous tone and its fluid cadence suggested a foreign poem. The heavenly vision was definitely not something that would occur in Chinese poetry. Then I realized it must be a passage from
The
Divine Comedy.
    He recited again:
    “You are so close to the ultimate bliss,”

Beatrice began, “that you must purify your passion

And keep your eyes clear and keen.

Before you go further into it,

Look down and see how much of the world

I have spread beneath your feet,

So that your heart, with full joy,

May show itself to the triumphant throng

Who comes rejoicing through the surrounding air.”
    He stopped, as if to think about the words voiced by Beatrice, whose name enabled me to locate where Mr. Yang was in
The Divine Comedy.
He was in
Paradiso,
because only in that book did Beatrice meet Dante.
    As he went on reciting, his face became more relaxed, but his words were disordered and unintelligible at times. I made no effort to follow him. Even if I had understood everything he uttered, I couldn’t have shared Dante’s heavenly vision. I was on earth, in this hellhole, whereas he was led by Beatrice through the divine domain and basked in the chaste love and the celestial light. Perhaps only a deranged person could enjoy such a sublime illusion.
    Then I curbed my irreverent thoughts as I remembered what
The Divine Comedy
meant to Mr. Yang. The poem had once saved his life.
    Two years ago, on an early-summer morning, I had gone to his office and found him hunched over his desk reading a well-thumbed book. Stepping closer, I attempted to sneak a look at its title. He realized my intention and raised the book to show me its front cover, which contained a picture of numerous fists, of various sizes, all stabbed upward into the air. It was
Inferno.
“Have you read Dante?” he asked me in a nasal voice. He had a stuffy nose as a result of a cold.
    “No, I haven’t.” Unable to say yes, I was somewhat embarrassed.
    “You should read
The Divine Comedy.
After you finish it, you will look at the world differently.”
    So I borrowed all three books of the poem from the