The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (best reads .TXT) 📕

“In it?” Fred started up. “My God, haven’t you seen her this blessed night?⁠—when she’d have kicked any other man down the elevator shaft, if I know her. Leave me something; at least what I can pay my five bucks for.”

“Seems to me you get a good deal for your five bucks,” said Archie ruefully. “And that, after all, is what she cares about⁠—what people get.”

Fred lit a cigarette, took a puff or two, and then threw it away. He was lounging back in his chair, and his face was pale and drawn hard by that mood of intense concentration which lurks under the sunny shallows of the vineyard. In his voice there was a longer perspective than usual, a slight remoteness. “You see, Archie, it’s all very simple, a natural development. It’s exactly what Mahler said back there in the beginning, when she sang ‘Woglinde.’ It’s the idea, the basic idea, pulsing behind every bar she sings. She simplifies a character down to the musical idea it’s built on, and makes everything conform to that. The people who chatter about her being a great actress don’t seem to get the notion of where she gets the notion. It all goes back to her original endowment, her tremendous musical talent. Instead of inventing a lot of business and expedients to suggest character, she knows the thing at the root, and lets the musical pattern take care of her. The score pours her into all those lovely postures, makes the light and shadow go over her face, lifts her and drops her. She lies on it, the way she used to lie on the Rhine music. Talk about rhythm!”

The doctor frowned dubiously as a third bottle made its appearance above the cloth. “Aren’t you going in rather strong?”

Fred laughed. “No, I’m becoming too sober. You see this is breakfast now; kind of wedding breakfast. I feel rather weddingish. I don’t mind. You know,” he went on as the wine gurgled out, “I was thinking tonight when they sprung the wedding music, how any fool can have that stuff played over him when he walks up the aisle with some dough-faced little hussy who’s hooked him. But it isn’t every fellow who can see⁠—well, what we saw tonight. There are compensations in life, Dr. Howard Archie, though they come in disguise. Did you notice her when she came down the stairs? Wonder where she gets that bright-and-morning star look? Carries to the last row of the family circle. I moved about all over the house. I’ll tell you a secret, Archie: that carrying power was one of the first things that put me wise. Noticed it down there in Arizona, in the open. That, I said, belongs only to the big ones.” Fred got up and began to move rhythmically about the room, his hands in his pockets. The doctor was astonished at his ease and steadiness, for there were slight lapses in his speech. “You see, Archie, Elsa isn’t a part that’s particularly suited to Thea’s voice at all, as I see her voice. It’s over-lyrical for her. She makes it, but there’s nothing in it that fits her like a glove, except, maybe, that long duet in the third act. There, of course,”⁠—he held out his hands as if he were measuring something⁠—“we know exactly where we are. But wait until they give her a chance at something that lies properly in her voice, and you’ll see me rosier than I am tonight.”

Archie smoothed the tablecloth with his hand. “I am sure I don’t want to see you any rosier, Fred.”

Ottenburg threw back his head and laughed. “It’s enthusiasm, doctor. It’s not the wine. I’ve got as much inflated as this for a dozen trashy things: brewers’ dinners and political orgies. You, too, have your extravagances, Archie. And what I like best in you is this particular enthusiasm, which is not at all practical or sensible, which is downright quixotic. You are not altogether what you seem, and you have your reservations. Living among the wolves, you have not become one. Lupibus vivendi non lupus sum.”

The doctor seemed embarrassed. “I was just thinking how tired she looked, plucked of all her fine feathers, while we get all the fun. Instead of sitting here carousing, we ought to go solemnly to bed.”

“I get your idea.” Ottenburg crossed to the window and threw it open. “Fine night outside; a hag of a moon just setting. It begins to smell like morning. After all, Archie, think of the lonely and rather solemn hours we’ve spent waiting for all this, while she’s been⁠—reveling.”

Archie lifted his brows. “I somehow didn’t get the idea tonight that she revels much.”

“I don’t mean this sort of thing.” Fred turned toward the light and stood with his back to the window. “That,” with a nod toward the wine-cooler, “is only a cheap imitation, that any poor stiff-fingered fool can buy and feel his shell grow thinner. But take it from me, no matter what she pays, or how much she may see fit to lie about it, the real, the master revel is hers.” He leaned back against the window sill and crossed his arms. “Anybody with all that voice and all that talent and all that beauty, has her hour. Her hour,” he went on deliberately, “when she can say, ‘there it is, at last, wie im Traum ich⁠—

As in my dream I dreamed it,
as in my will it was.’

He stood silent a moment, twisting the flower from his coat by the stem and staring at the blank wall with haggard abstraction. “Even I can say tonight, Archie,” he brought out slowly,

As in my dream I dreamed it,
as in my will it was.’

Now, doctor, you may leave me. I’m beautifully drunk, but not with anything that ever grew in France.”

The doctor rose. Fred tossed his flower out of the window behind him and came toward the door.