Reproduction 2 Home After Langston Hughes

After eight years travelling about Europe with a jazz band Roy Williams came back home at last. He came back well-dressed but very thin. He was quite ill. He had a feeling that he was going to die, and he wanted to see his mother and sister before his death.

Oh, how glad his mother was to see him. She was a poor working woman, but she always understood his love for music.

When he was quite a little boy she bought him a violin and did all she could to pay for his music lessons, but very often she had no money to pay Millar, the music teacher. She was afraid and cried bitterly when Roy went to Europe with his jazz band, but now she was glad that her son was a real artist.

Negroes and white people all came to Roy's concert. All the Negroes looked at Roy with the greatest interest. In was the first time they had seen a man in evening dress, the first time most of them had heard classical music, the first time they had seen one of their race come back Europe.

Roy played well that evening even though he felt ill. He thought of his old dream of becoming a great artist and playing in a large hall before thousands of people. It could never come true now: he was seriously ill.

He thought about these people in the hall listening to him. The white people and the Negroes who ware looking at him. Ha had to play well – this evening, at least.

When the concert was over, even the white men shook Roy's hand and said how good it was. The coloured people said: "Roy, you play very fine".

A white woman in a red hat came up to Roy and shook his hand too. She complimented him more warmly than the others. They spoke a little about music. She was a piano and violin teacher, but she had no pupils who could play like Roy.

"That was Miss Reese", Roy's mother told him afterwards. "She is the music teacher at; the white High School".

One morning he received a letter from her, asking him to play for her class. Roy felt very ill, but he went and played at the school. Miss Reese was very kind to him. She accompanied him on the piano and after the concert she said to the white children:

"This is art, my dear young people, this is true art".

That afternoon the white children went home and told their parents about the well-dressed Negro and his concert at school.

Roy want home to bad. Ha was very weak now. Sometimes he was so weak he could not even play. Often he could not eat. Sometimes he could not sleep and then he dressed and went out for a walk.

One night Roy walked out of the house for the last time. As usual, he put on his European overcoat and hat, and took his cane because he felt very weak, and went out. It was very quiet in the streets. He felt a little better, and he remembered the boulevards of Paris, the lights and the music of Europe. It was all like a drama.

Roy was in the main street now, but he didn't see the people, he only saw the figures of his dream and only heard his dream music. Some of the people looked at his European coat and cane and laughed at him. A European coat on a Negro in Hopkinsville Missouri.

"Good evening, Roy", said she. Roy looked up.

"Good evening, Miss Reese", he said.

He was glad to see her. Forgetting he was not in Europe, he took of his glove and held out his hand to his lady

the only person on Hopkinsville who really understood music. They smiled at each other, the young coloured man and the old music teacher. Then she asked him:

"Are you still working on Saransate?"

"Yes, said Roy, and I like it very much".

"Have you heard Heifetz play it?"

But before Roy could open his Mouth to answer, he got a heavy blow on the face. He fell and his head hit the glass window of a shop. Miss Reese screamed. Then a lot of young white men came running. "This Negro was talking to a white woman, insulting a white woman. Yes, he was. Yes, sir. She even screamed.'

So they struck him and knocked him down: they were all like madmen.

The little Negro whose name was Roy Williams lay in the street, his mouth full of blood. He did not see anything. He was dead.

This was the end of his dreams.

1. Listen to the story

2. Reproduce it in writing using the following:

to hunt for a job, without success, to went smth passionately, to bring hope, to look eagerly, to shine with happiness, to thank smb for smth, to employ, to make a fortune, to produce an impression, a well -to-do person, I can't help doing...

3)Write a conclusion to the story explaining why Bryce Green did not offer Caister a job.

4)Write the story in the first person m if you were

a) Gilbert Caister

b) Bruce Green