Rich Man, Poor Man by Irwin Shaw

Miss Lenaut’s blackboard script. He started to shade Miss Lenaut’s breasts artistically. He decided that the entire work would be more striking if he drew it as though there were a strong light coming from the left. He shaded the inside of Miss Lenaut’s thigh. He wished there were someone he knew in school he could show the drawing to who would appreciate it. But he couldn’t trust the boys on the track team, who were his best friends, to treat the picture with appropriate sobriety.
    He was shading in the straps on the ankles when he became conscious of someone standing beside his desk. He looked up slowly. Miss Lenaut was glaring down at the drawing on his
    desk. She must have moved down the aisle like a cat, high heels and all.
    Rudolph sat motionless. No gesture seemed worthwhile at the moment. There was fury in Miss Lenaut’s dark, mascaraed eyes and she was biting the lipstick off her lips. She reached out her hand, silently. Rudolph picked up the piece of paper and gave it to her. Miss Lenaut turned on her heel and walked back to her desk, rolling the paper in her hands so that no one could see what was on it.
    Just before the bell rang to end class, she called out, ‘Jordache.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Rudolph said. He was proud of the ordinary tone he managed to use.
    ‘May I see you for a moment after class?’ ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said.
    The bell rang. The usual clatter broke out. The students hurried out of the room to rush for their next classes. Rudolph, with great deliberation, put his books into his briefcase. When all the other students had quit the room, he walked up to Miss Lenaut’s desk.
    She was seated like a judge. Her tone was icy. ‘Monsieur Vartiste,’ she said. ‘You have neglected an important feature of your chef d’oeuvre.’ She opened the drawer of her desk and took out the sheet of paper with the drawing on it and smoothed it with a rasping noise on the blotter of the desk top. ‘It ,is lacking a signature. Works of art are notoriously more valuable when they are signed authentically by the artist It would be deplorable if there were any doubts as to the origin of a work of such richness.’ She pushed the drawing across the desk towards Rudolph. ‘I will be much indebted to you, Monsieur,’ she said, ‘if you would have the kindness to affix your name. Legibly.’
    Rudolph took out his pen and signed his name on the lower right-hand corner of the drawing. He did it slowly and deliberately and he made sure that Miss Lenaut saw that he was studying the drawing at the same time. He was not going to act like a frightened kid in front of her. Love has its own requirements. Man enough to draw her naked, he was man enough to stand up to her wrath. He underlined his signature with a little flourish.
    Miss Lenaut reached over and snatched the drawing to her side of the desk. She was breathing hard now. ‘Monsieur,’ she said shrilly. ‘You will go get one of your parents immediately after school is over today and you will bring it back for a
    conversation with me speedily.’ When she was excited, there were little, queer mistakes in Miss Lenaut’s English. ‘I have some important things to reveal to them about the son they have reared in their house. I will be waiting here. If you are not here with a representative of your family by four o’clock the consequences will be of the gravest. Is it understood?’
    ‘Yes, ma’am. Good afternoon, Miss Lenaut.’ The ‘good afternoon’ took courage. He went out of the room, neither more quickly nor more slowly than he usually did. He remembered his gliding motion. Miss Lenaut sounded as though she had just run up two more flights of stairs.
    When he reached home after school was over, he avoided going into the store where his mother was serving some customers and went up to the apartment, hoping to find his father. Whatever happened, he didn’t want his mother to see that drawing. His father might whack him, but that was to be