J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [124]
Jean’s third student offers salvation. A nun of the order of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Sister Irma teaches at a convent elementary school. Unlike the first two students, she neglects to provide her age and encloses a photograph of her convent in place of one of herself. She states that her favorite artist is Douglas Bunting, a painter completely unknown to Smith, and that her hobbies include “loving her Lord and the Word of her Lord.” Sister Irma submits an untitled and unsigned painting of the burial of Christ. The small painting displays such talent that Jean falls instantly in love with its beauty. Enraptured and elated by this student’s prospects, Smith immediately writes Sister Irma a long, excited letter.
Like Holden’s encounter with the nuns in The Catcher in the Rye, Smith discovers Sister Irma exactly midway through his tale. Also like the scene in Catcher, the event in “De Daumier–Smith” signals the point of transition. The letter that Jean pens to Sister Irma in response to her submission graphically explains the roots and depth of his spiritual void. This portion of the story addresses the connection between art and spirituality and touches upon the notion of balance by pointing out the clash between the spiritual and the intellectual.
By this point in the story it becomes plain to readers that the subject of spiritual faith cannot be ignored. There are simply too many references. Smith professes agnosticism in his letter to the nun while insincerely aligning himself with the name of Saint Francis of Assisi. Somehow, Smith determines that he has found a kindred spirit through art in Sister Irma. This is another of Smith’s delusions. The nun is clearly set in contrast to him, and his letter reveals just how wide the rift between them is.
Smith experiences two near-mystical incidents that together form the climax of the story. The first is muted and is a chilling insight into his own alienation that brings him to the point of collapse. After taking a walk one night, he is drawn to the lighted display window of the orthopedic-appliance shop on the ground floor of the school building. As he gazes at the contents on exhibit—enamel bedpans and urinals overseen by a wooden dummy wearing a rupture truss—he experiences an abrupt stripping of his ego that reveals his alienation. He suddenly comes to realize that no matter how technically perfect his art might become, it is tied to intellectual logic and he will always remain uninspired, adrift in a world he considers mundane and ugly. He now recognizes that he is spiritually unconscious, with no connection to the divine inspiration that true art requires or true living demands. His art is polluted by ego.
Smith attempts to deal with his experience and the resulting feelings of insignificance by retreating into his own fantasy world and dreaming of Sister Irma. Here is the “ribald” portion of the story that readers were warned of in its opening paragraph. In Smith’s fantasy, he rescues Sister Irma from her convent. In his imagination, she is young and beautiful and Smith chivalrously whisks her away in a romantic whirlwind.
The illusion is short-lived. The next day, Smith receives a letter from Sister Irma’s convent, informing the school that she can no longer continue her art studies. Smith is stunned and embittered, and his reaction is cruel: he cuts loose his remaining students, spitefully telling them to abandon any hope of ever being artists. He then pens another letter to Sister Irma. Smith’s ego having entrenched