XI
DR. ARCHIE saw nothing of Thea during the follow-
ing week. After several fruitless efforts, he succeeded
in getting a word with her over the telephone, but she
sounded so distracted and driven that he was glad to say
good-night and hang up the instrument. There were, she
told him, rehearsals not only for "Walkure," but also for
"Gotterdammerung," in which she was to sing WALTRAUTE
two weeks later.
On Thursday afternoon Thea got home late, after an
exhausting rehearsal. She was in no happy frame of mind.
Madame Necker, who had been very gracious to her
that night when she went on to complete Gloeckler's
performance of SIEGLINDE, had, since Thea was cast to sing
the part instead of Gloeckler in the production of the
"Ring," been chilly and disapproving, distinctly hostile.
Thea had always felt that she and Necker stood for the
same sort of endeavor, and that Necker recognized it and
had a cordial feeling for her. In Germany she had several
times sung BRANGAENA to Necker's ISOLDE, and the older
artist had let her know that she thought she sang it beau-
tifully. It was a bitter disappointment to find that the
approval of so honest an artist as Necker could not stand
the test of any significant recognition by the management.
Madame Necker was forty, and her voice was failing just
when her powers were at their height. Every fresh young
voice was an enemy, and this one was accompanied by
gifts which she could not fail to recognize.
Thea had her dinner sent up to her apartment, and it
was a very poor one. She tasted the soup and then indig-
nantly put on her wraps to go out and hunt a dinner. As
she was going to the elevator, she had to admit that she
was behaving foolishly. She took off her hat and coat
and ordered another dinner. When it arrived, it was no
better than the first. There was even a burnt match under
the milk toast. She had a sore throat, which made swal-
lowing painful and boded ill for the morrow. Although she
had been speaking in whispers all day to save her throat,
she now perversely summoned the housekeeper and de-
manded an account of some laundry that had been lost.
The housekeeper was indifferent and impertinent, and
Thea got angry and scolded violently. She knew it was
very bad for her to get into a rage just before bedtime, and
after the housekeeper left she realized that for ten dollars'
worth of underclothing she had been unfitting herself for
a performance which might eventually mean many thous-
ands. The best thing now was to stop reproaching herself
for her lack of sense, but she was too tired to control her
thoughts.
While she was undressing--Therese was brushing out
her SIEGLINDE wig in the trunk-room--she went on chid-
ing herself bitterly. "And how am I ever going to get to
sleep in this state?" she kept asking herself. "If I don't
sleep, I'll be perfectly worthless to-morrow. I'll go down
there to-morrow and make a fool of myself. If I'd let that
laundry alone with whatever nigger has stolen it-- WHY
did I undertake to reform the management of this hotel
to-night? After to-morrow I could pack up and leave the
place. There's the Phillamon--I liked the rooms there
better, anyhow--and the Umberto--" She began going
over the advantages and disadvantages of different apart-
ment hotels. Suddenly she checked herself. "What AM
I doing this for? I can't move into another hotel to-night.
I'll keep this up till morning. I shan't sleep a wink."
Should she take a hot bath, or shouldn't she? Some-
times it relaxed her, and sometimes it roused her and fairly
put her beside herself. Between the conviction that she
must sleep and the fear that she couldn't, she hung para-
lyzed. When she looked at her bed, she shrank from it in
every nerve. She was much more afraid of it than she had
ever been of the stage of any opera house. It yawned be-
fore her like the sunken road at Waterloo.
She rushed into her bathroom and locked the door. She
would risk the bath, and defer the encounter with the bed a
little longer. She lay in the bath half an hour. The warmth
of the water penetrated to her bones, induced pleasant
reflections and a feeling of well-being. It was very nice to
have Dr. Archie in New York, after all, and to see him get
so much satisfaction out of the little companionship she
was able to give him. She liked people who got on, and
who became more interesting as they grew older. There
was Fred; he was much more interesting now than he had
been at thirty. He was intelligent about music, and he
must be very intelligent in his business, or he would not
be at the head of the Brewers' Trust. She respected that
kind of intelligence and success. Any success was good.
She herself had made a good start, at any rate, and now,
if she could get to sleep-- Yes, they were all more inter-
esting than they used to be. Look at Harsanyi, who had
been so long retarded; what a place he had made for him-
self in Vienna. If she could get to sleep, she would show
him something to-morrow that he would understand.
She got quickly into bed and moved about freely be-
tween the sheets. Yes, she was warm all over. A cold,
dry breeze was coming in from the river, thank goodness!
She tried to think about her little rock house and the Ari-
zona sun and the blue sky. But that led to memories which
were still too disturbing. She turned on her side, closed
her eyes, and tried an old device.
She entered her father's front door, hung her hat and
coat on the rack, and stopped in the parlor to warm her
hands at the stove. Then she went out through the dining-
room, where the boys were getting their lessons at the long
table; through the sitting-room, where Thor was asleep in
his cot bed, his dress and stocking hanging on a chair. In
the kitchen she stopped for her lantern and her hot brick.
She hurried up the back stairs and through the windy loft
to her own glacial room. The illusion was marred only by
the consciousness that she ought to brush her teeth before
she went to bed, and that she never used to do it. Why--?
The water was frozen solid in the pitcher, so she got over
that. Once between the red blankets there was a short,
fierce battle with the cold; then, warmer--warmer. She
could hear her father shaking down the hard-coal burner
for the night, and the wind rushing and banging down the
village street. The boughs of the cottonwood, hard as
bone, rattled against her gable. The bed grew softer and
warmer. Everybody was warm and well downstairs. The
sprawling old house had gathered them all in, like a hen,
and had settled down over its brood. They were all warm
in her father's house. Softer and softer. She was asleep.
She slept ten hours without turning over. From sleep like
that, one awakes in shining armor.
On Friday afternoon there was an inspiring audience;
there was not an empty chair in the house. Ottenburg
and Dr. Archie had seats in the orchestra circle, got from
a ticket broker. Landry had not been able to get a seat,
so he roamed about in the back of the house, where he
usually stood when he dropped in after his own turn in
vaudeville was over. He was there so often and at such
irregular hours that the ushers thought he was a singer's
husband, or had something to do with the electrical
plant.
Harsanyi and his wife were in a box, near the stage,
in the second circle. Mrs. Harsanyi's hair was noticeably
gray, but her face was fuller and handsomer than in those
early years of struggle, and she was beautifully dressed.
Harsanyi himself had changed very little. He had put on
his best afternoon coat in honor of his pupil, and wore a
pearl in his black ascot. His hair was longer and more
bushy than he used to wear it, and there was now one
gray lock on the right side. He had always been an elegant
figure, even when he went about in shabby clothes and
was crushed with work. Before the curtain rose he was
restless and nervous, and kept looking at his watch and
wishing he had got a few more letters off before he left his
hotel. He had not been in New York since the advent of
the taxicab, and had allowed himself too much time. His
wife knew that he was afraid of being disappointed this
afternoon. He did not often go to the opera because the
stupid things that singers did vexed him so, and it always
put him in a rage if the conductor held the tempo or in
any way accommodated the score to the singer.
When the lights went out and the violins began to
quaver their long D against the rude figure of the basses,
Mrs. Harsanyi saw her husband's fingers fluttering on his
knee in a rapid tattoo. At the moment when SIEGLINDE
entered from the side door, she leaned toward him and
whispered in his ear, "Oh, the lovely creature!" But he
made no response, either by voice or gesture. Throughout
the first scene he sat sunk in his chair, his head forward
and his one yellow eye rolling restlessly and shining like a
tiger's in the dark. His eye followed SIEGLINDE about the
stage like a satellite, and as she sat at the table listening to
SIEGMUND'S long narrative, it never left her. When she
prepared the sleeping draught and disappeared after
HUNDING, Harsanyi bowed his head still lower and put
his hand over his eye to rest it. The tenor,--a young
man who sang with great vigor, went on:--
"WALSE! WALSE!
WO IST DEIN SCHWERT?"
Harsanyi smiled, but he did not look forth again until
SIEGLINDE reappeared. She went through the story of her
shameful bridal feast and into the Walhall' music, which
she always sang so nobly, and the entrance of the one-
eyed stranger:--
"MIR ALLEIN
WECKTE DAS AUGE."
Mrs. Harsanyi glanced at her husband, wondering whether
the singer on the stage could not feel his commanding
glance. On came the CRESCENDO:--
"WAS JE ICH VERLOR,
WAS JE ICH BEWEINT
WAR' MIR GEWONNEN."
(All that I have lost,
All that I have mourned,
Would I then have won.)
Harsanyi touched his wife's arm softly.
Seated in the moonlight, the VOLSUNG pair began their
loving inspection of each other's beauties, and the music
born of murmuring sound passed into her face, as the old
poet said,--and into her body as well. Into one lovely
attitude after another the music swept her, love impelled
her. And the voice gave out all that was best in it. Like
the spring, indeed, it blossomed into memories and prophe-
cies, it recounted and it foretold, as she sang the story of
her friendless life, and of how the thing which was truly
herself, "bright as the day, rose to the surface" when in
the hostile world she for the first time beheld her Friend.
Fervently she rose into the hardier feeling of action and
daring, the pride in hero-strength and hero-blood, until in
a splendid burst, tall and shining like a Victory, she chris-
tened him:--
"SIEGMUND--
SO NENN ICH DICH!"
Her impatience for the sword swelled with her antici-
pation of his act, and throwing her arms above her head,
she fairly tore a sword out of the empty air for him, before
NOTHUNG had left the tree. IN HOCHSTER TRUNKENHEIT, in-
deed, she burst out with the flaming cry of their kinship:
"If you are SIEGMUND, I am SIEGLINDE!" Laughing, sing-
ing, bounding, exulting,--with their passion and their
sword,--the VOLSUNGS ran out into the spring night.
As the curtain fell, Harsanyi turned to his wife. "At
last," he sighed, "somebody with ENOUGH! Enough voice
and talent and beauty, enough physical power. And such
a noble, noble style!"
"I can scarcely believe it, Andor. I can see her now, that
clumsy girl, hunched up over your piano. I can see her shoul-
ders. She always seemed to labor so with her back. And I
shall never forget that night when you found her voice."
The audience kept up its clamor until, after many re-
appearances with the tenor, Kronborg came before the cur-
tain alone. The house met her with a roar, a greeting that
was almost savage in its fierceness. The singer's eyes,
sweeping the house, rested for a moment on Harsanyi, and
she waved her long sleeve toward his box.
"She OUGHT to be pleased that you are here," said Mrs.
Harsanyi. "I wonder if she knows how much she owes to
you."
"She owes me nothing," replied her husband quickly.
"She paid her way. She always gave something back,
even then."
"I remember you said once that she would do nothing
common," said Mrs. Harsanyi thoughtfully.
"Just so. She might fail, die, get lost in the pack. But
if she achieved, it would be nothing common. There are
people whom one can trust for that. There is one way in
which they will never fail." Harsanyi retired into his own
reflections.
After the second act Fred Ottenburg brought Archie
to the Harsanyis' box and introduced him as an old friend
of Miss Kronborg. The head of a musical publishing house
joined them, bringing with him a journalist and the presi-
dent of a German singing society. The conversation was
chiefly about the new SIEGLINDE. Mrs. Harsanyi was gra-
cious and enthusiastic, her husband nervous and uncom-
municative. He smiled mechanically, and politely an-
swered questions addressed to him. "Yes, quite so." "Oh,
certainly." Every one, of course, said very usual things
with great conviction. Mrs. Harsanyi was used to hearing
and uttering the commonplaces which such occasions de-
manded. When her husband withdrew into the shadow,
she covered his retreat by her sympathy and cordiality.
In reply to a direct question from Ottenburg, Harsanyi
said, flinching, "ISOLDE? Yes, why not? She will sing all
the great roles, I should think."
The chorus director said something about "dramatic
temperament." The journalist insisted that it was "ex-
plosive force," "projecting power."
Ottenburg turned to Harsanyi. "What is it, Mr. Har-
sanyi? Miss Kronborg says if there is anything in her,
you are the man who can say what it is."
The journalist scented copy and was eager. "Yes, Har-
sanyi. You know all about her. What's her secret?"
Harsanyi rumpled his hair irritably and shrugged his
shoulders. "Her secret? It is every artist's secret,"--he
waved his hand,--"passion. That is all. It is an open
secret, and perfectly safe. Like heroism, it is inimitable
in cheap materials."
The lights went out. Fred and Archie left the box as
the second act came on.
Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining
of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to
be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows
how difficult it is. That afternoon nothing new came to
Thea Kronborg, no enlightenment, no inspiration. She
merely came into full possession of things she had been
refining and perfecting for so long. Her inhibitions chanced
to be fewer than usual, and, within herself, she entered
into the inheritance that she herself had laid up, into the
fullness of the faith she had kept before she knew its name
or its meaning.
Often when she sang, the best she had was unavailable;
she could not break through to it, and every sort of dis-
traction and mischance came between it and her. But
this afternoon the closed roads opened, the gates dropped.
What she had so often tried to reach, lay under her hand.
She had only to touch an idea to make it live.
While she was on the stage she was conscious that every
movement was the right movement, that her body was
absolutely the instrument of her idea. Not for nothing
had she kept it so severely, kept it filled with such energy
and fire. All that deep-rooted vitality flowered in her
voice, her face, in her very finger-tips. She felt like a tree
bursting into bloom. And her voice was as flexible as her
body; equal to any demand, capable of every NUANCE.
With the sense of its perfect companionship, its entire
trustworthiness, she had been able to throw herself into
the dramatic exigencies of the part, everything in her at
its best and everything working together.
The third act came on, and the afternoon slipped by.
Thea Kronborg's friends, old and new, seated about the
house on different floors and levels, enjoyed her triumph
according to their natures. There was one there, whom
nobody knew, who perhaps got greater pleasure out of
that afternoon than Harsanyi himself. Up in the top gal-
lery a gray-haired little Mexican, withered and bright as
a string of peppers beside a'dobe door, kept praying and
cursing under his breath, beating on the brass railing
and shouting "Bravo! Bravo!" until he was repressed by
his neighbors.
He happened to be there because a Mexican band was
to be a feature of Barnum and Bailey's circus that year.
One of the managers of the show had traveled about the
Southwest, signing up a lot of Mexican musicians at low
wages, and had brought them to New York. Among them
was Spanish Johnny. After Mrs. Tellamantez died, Johnny
abandoned his trade and went out with his mandolin to
pick up a living for one. His irregularities had become
his regular mode of life.
When Thea Kronborg came out of the stage entrance
on Fortieth Street, the sky was still flaming with the last
rays of the sun that was sinking off behind the North
River. A little crowd of people was lingering about the
door--musicians from the orchestra who were waiting
for their comrades, curious young men, and some poorly
dressed girls who were hoping to get a glimpse of the
singer. She bowed graciously to the group, through her
veil, but she did not look to the right or left as she crossed
the sidewalk to her cab. Had she lifted her eyes an instant
and glanced out through her white scarf, she must have
seen the only man in the crowd who had removed his hat
when she emerged, and who stood with it crushed up in
his hand. And she would have known him, changed as he
was. His lustrous black hair was full of gray, and his face
was a good deal worn by the EXTASI, so that it seemed to
have shrunk away from his shining eyes and teeth and left
them too prominent. But she would have known him.
She passed so near that he could have touched her, and he
did not put on his hat until her taxi had snorted away.
Then he walked down Broadway with his hands in his
overcoat pockets, wearing a smile which embraced all the
stream of life that passed him and the lighted towers that
rose into the limpid blue of the evening sky. If the singer,
going home exhausted in her cab, was wondering what
was the good of it all, that smile, could she have seen it,
would have answered her. It is the only commensurate
answer.
Here we must leave Thea Kronborg. From this time
on the story of her life is the story of her achievement.
The growth of an artist is an intellectual and spiritual
development which can scarcely be followed in a personal
narrative. This story attempts to deal only with the sim-
ple and concrete beginnings which color and accent an
artist's work, and to give some account of how a Moon-
stone girl found her way out of a vague, easy-going world
into a life of disciplined endeavor. Any account of the
loyalty of young hearts to some exalted ideal, and the
passion with which they strive, will always, in some of
us, rekindle generous emotions.
