 Part 6 of The Song of the Lark. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dionne Giants. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cybert Cather. Part 6, Section 7 and 8, 7. On Saturday night, Dr. Archie went with Fred Ottenberg to hear Tonhauser. He had a rehearsal on Sunday afternoon, but as she was not on the bill again until Wednesday, she promised to dine with Archie and Ottenberg on Monday, if they could make the dinner early. At a little after eight on Monday evening, the three friends returned to Thay's apartment and seated themselves for an hour of quiet talk. I'm sorry we couldn't have had landry with us tonight, he said, but he's on at Weber and Fields every night now. You ought to hear him, Dr. Archie. He often sings the old scotch errors you used to love. Why not go down this evening, Fred suggested hopefully, glancing at his watch. That is, if you'd like to go, I can telephone and find what time he comes on. He hesitated. No, I think not. I took a long walk this afternoon and I'm rather tired. I think I can get to sleep early and be so much ahead. I don't mean at once, however, seeing Dr. Archie's disappointed look. I always like to hear landry, she added. He never had much voice and it's worn, but there's a sweetness about it and he sings with such taste. Yes, doesn't he? May I? Fred took out his cigarette case. It really doesn't bother your throat. A little doesn't, but cigar smoke does. Poor Dr. Archie. Can you do with one of those? I'm learning to like them. The doctor declared taking one from the case Fred proffered him. Landry's the only fellow I know in this country who can do that sort of thing, Fred went on. Like the best English ballad singers. He can sing even popular stuff by higher lights, as it were. Fee nodded. Yes, sometimes I make him sing his most foolish things for me. It's restful as he does it. That's when I'm homesick, Dr. Archie. You knew him in Germany, Fee? Dr. Archie had quietly abandoned his cigarette as a comfortless article. When you first went over? Yes, he was a good friend to a green girl. He helped me with my German and my music and my general discouragement. Seemed to care more about my getting on than about himself. He had no money either. An old aunt had loaned him a little to study on. Will you answer that, Fred? Fred caught up the telephone and stopped the buzz while Fee went on talking to Dr. Archie about Landry. Telling someone to hold the wire, he presently put down the instrument and approached Fee with his startled expression on his face. It's the management, he said quietly. Glockler has broken down, fainting fits. Madame Rinecker is in Atlantic City, and Schramm is singing in Philadelphia tonight. They want to know whether you can come down and finish Seagland. What time is it? 8.55. The first act is just over. They can hold the curtain 25 minutes. Fee did not move. 25 and 35 makes 60, she muttered. Tell them I'll come if they hold the curtain until I am in the dressing room. Say I'll have to wear her costumes, and the dresser must have everything ready. Then call a taxi, please. Fee had not changed her position since he first interrupted her, but she had grown pale and was opening and shutting her hands rapidly. She looked, Fred thought, terrified. He had turned toward the telephone, but hung on one foot. Have you ever sung the part, he asked? No, but I rehearsed it. That's all right, get the cab. Still she made no move. She merely turned perfectly blank eyes to Dr. Archie and said absently. It's curious, but just at this minute I can't remember a bar of walk here after the first act. And I let my maid go out. She sprang up and back and Archie without so much. He felt sure, as knowing who he was. Come with me. She went quickly into her sleeping chamber and threw open a door into a trunk room. See that white trunk? It's not locked. It's full of wigs in boxes. Look until you find one marked ring two. Bring it quick. While she directed him, she threw open a square trunk and began tossing out shoes of every shape and color. Ottenberg appeared at the door. Can I help you? She threw him some white sandals with long laces and silk stockings pinned to them. Put those in something and then go to the piano and give me a few measures in there, you know. She was behaving somewhat like a cyclone now. And while she wrenched open doors and closet doors, Ottenberg got to the piano as quickly as possible and began to herald the reappearance of the Voltsang pair, trusting the memory. In a few moments, B came out enveloped in her long fur coat with a scarf over her head and knitted woolen gloves on her hands. Her glassy eye took in the fact that Fred was playing from memory and even in her distracted state, a faint smile flipped over her colorless lips. She stretched out a woolly hand. The score, please, behind you there. Dr. Archie followed with a canvas box and a satchel. As they went through the hall, the men caught up their hats and coats. They left the music room. Fred noticed just seven minutes after he got the telephone message. In the elevator, Thie said in that husky whisper, which had so perplexed Dr. Archie when he first heard it, tell the driver he must do it in 20 minutes, less if he can. He must leave the light on in the cab. I could do a good deal in 20 minutes. If only you hadn't made me eat. Damn that duck, she broke out bitterly. Why did you? Wish I had it back, but it won't bother you tonight. You need strength, he pleaded consolingly. But she only muttered angrily under her breath. Idiot, idiot. Tottenberg shot ahead and instructed the driver while the doctor put Thie into the cab and shut the door. She did not speak to either of them again. As the driver scrambled into his seat, she opened the score and fixed her eyes upon it. Her face, in the white light, looked as bleak as a stone quarry. As her cab slid away, Tottenberg shoved Archie into a second taxi that waited by the curb. We'd better trail her, he explained. There might be a hold-up of some kind. As the cab whizzed off, he broke into an eruption of profanity. What's the matter, Fred, the doctor asked? He was a good deal dazed by the rapid evolutions of the last 10 minutes. Matter enough, Fred growled, thought may his overcoat with a shiver. What a way to sing a part for the first time. That duck really is on my conscience. It will be a wonder if she can do anything to quack. Scrambling on in the middle of a performance like this, with no rehearsal, the stuff she has to sing in there is a fright, rhythm, hitch, and terribly difficult intervals. She looked frightened, Dr. Archie said thoughtfully. But I thought she looked determined. Fred sniffed. Oh, determined. That's the kind of rough deal that makes savages of singers. Here's a part she's worked on and got ready for for years, and now they give her a chance to go on and butcher it. Goodness knows when she's looked at the score last, or whether she can use the business she's studied with this cow. Necker singing Brunnhild. She may help her if it's not one of her sore nights. Is she sore at the? Dr. Archie asked wonderingly. My dear man, Necker's sore at everything. She's breaking up too early. Just when she ought to be at her best, there's one story that she is struggling under some serious malady, another that she learned a bad method at the Crog Conservatory, and has ruined her organ. She's the soreest thing in the world. If she weathers this winter, though, it'll be her last. She's paying for it with the last rags of her voice. And then Fred whistled softly. Well, but then, then our girl may come in for some of it. It's dog eat dog in this game, as in every other. The cab stopped and Fred and Dr. Archie hurried to the box office. The Monday night house was sold out. They bought standing room and entered the auditorium, just as the press representative of the house was thanking the audience for their patience and telling them that although Madame Glockler was too ill to sing, Miss Cronborg had kindly consented to finish her part. This announcement was met with vehement applause from the upper circles of the house. She has her constituents, Dr. Archie murmured. Yes, up there where they're young and hungry, these people down here have dined too well. They won't mind, however. They like fires and accidents and divertisements. Two siglums are more unusual than one, so they'll be satisfied. After the final disappearance of the mother of Siegfried, Ottenberg and the doctors slipped out through the crowd and left the house. Near the stage entrance, Fred found the driver who had brought thee down. He dismissed him and got a larger car. He and Archie waited on the sidewalk, and when Cronborg came out alone, they gathered her into the cab and spring in after her. These sent back into a corner of the back seat and yonned. Well, I got through, eh? Her tone was reassuring. On the whole, I think I've given you gentlemen a pretty lively evening, for one who has no social accomplishments. Rather, there was something like a popular uprising at the end of the second act. Archie and I couldn't keep it up as long as the rest of them did. A hell like that ought to show the management which way the wind is blowing. You probably know you were magnificent. I thought it went pretty well, she spoke impartially. I was rather smart to catch his tempo there at the beginning of the first recitative, and when he came in too soon, don't you think it's tricky in there without a rehearsal? Oh, I was all right. He took that syncopation too fast in the beginning. Some singers take it fast there. Think it sounds more impassioned. That's one way. She sniffed and Fred shot a mirthful glance at Archie. Her boastfulness would have been childish and schoolboy. In the light of what she had done of the strain they had lived through during the last two hours, it made one laugh, almost cry. She went on robustly, and I didn't feel my dinner really, Fred. I am hungry again. I'm ashamed to say, and I forgot to order anything at my hotel. Fred put his hand on the door. Where to? You must have food. Do you know any quiet place where I won't be stared at? I've still got makeup on. I do. Nice English chop house on 44th Street. Nobody there at night but theater people after the show and a few bachelors. He opened the door and spoke to the driver. As the car turned, thee reached across to the front seat and drew Dr. Archie's handkerchief out of his breast pocket. This comes to me naturally, she said, rubbing her cheeks and eyebrows. When I was little, I always loved your handkerchiefs because they were silk and smelled of cologne water. I think they must have been the only really clean handkerchiefs in Moonstone. You were always wiping my face with them when you met me out in the dust, I remember. Did I never have any? I think you'd nearly always use yours out on your baby brother. The sighed, yes, Thor had such a way of getting messy. You say he's a good chauffeur. She closed her eyes for a moment as if they were tired. Suddenly she looked out. Isn't it funny how we travel in circles? Here you are still getting me clean and Fred is still feeding me. I would have died of starvation at that boarding house on Indiana Avenue if he hadn't taken me out to the Buckingham and filled me up once in a while. What a cavern I was to fill, too. The waiters used to look astonished and still singing on that food. Fred alighted and gave thee his arm as they crossed the icy sidewalk. They were taken upstairs in an antiquated lift and found a cheerful chop room, half full of supper parties. An English company playing at the empire had just come in. The waiters in red waistcoats were hurrying about. Fred got a table at the back of the room in a corner and urged his waiter to get the oysters on at once. Takes a few minutes to open them, sir, the man expostulated. Yes, but make it as few as possible and bring the ladies first, then grill chops with kidneys and salad. They began eating celery stalks at once from the base to the foliage. Necker said something nice to me tonight. You might have thought the management would say something, but not they. She looked at Fred from under her black and lashes. It was a stunt to jump in and sing that second act without rehearsal. It doesn't sing itself. Ottenberg was watching her brilliant eyes and her face. She was much handsomer than she had been early in the evening. Excitement of this sort enriched her. It was only under such excitement, he reflected that she was entirely illuminated or wholly present. At other times, there was something a little cold and empty like a big room with no people in it. Even in her most genial moods, there was a shadow of restlessness, as if she were waiting for something and were exercising the virtue of patience. During dinner, she had been as kind as she knew how to be to him and to Archie and had given them as much of herself as she could. But clearly, she knew only one way of being really kind from the core of her heart out. And there was but one way in which she could give herself to people largely and gladly, spontaneously. Even as a girl, she had been at her best in vigorous effort, he remembered, physical effort when there was no other kind at hand. She could be expansive only in explosions. Old Nathan Meyer had seen it and the very first song Fred had ever heard her sing, she had unconsciously declared it. The chromeboard turned suddenly from her top with Archie and peered suspiciously into the corner where Atenberg sat with folded arms observing her. What's the matter with you, Fred? I'm afraid of you when you're quiet. Fortunately, you almost never are. What are you thinking about? I was wondering how you got right with the orchestra so quickly there at first. I had a flash of terror, he replied easily. She bolted her last oyster and Dr. Had. So had I. I don't know how I did catch it. Desperation, I suppose. Same way the Indian babies swim when they're thrown into the river. I had to. Now it's over. I'm glad I had to. I learned a whole lot tonight. Archie, who usually felt that it behooved him to be silent during such discussions, was encouraged by her genealogy to venture. I don't see how you can learn anything in such a turmoil or how you can keep your mind on it for that matter. Be glanced about the room and suddenly put her hand up to her hair. Mercy, I've no hat on. Why didn't you tell me? And I seem to be wearing a rumpled dinner dress with all this paint on my face. I must look like something you picked up on Second Avenue. I hope there are no Colorado reformers about Dr. Archie. What a dreadful old pair these people must be thinking you. Well, I had to eat. She sniffed the saber of the grill as the waiter uncovered it. Yes, drop beer, please. No, thank you, Fred. No champagne. To go back to your question, Dr. Archie, you can believe I keep my mind on it. That's the whole trick, in so far as stage experience goes, keeping right there every second. If I think of anything else for a flash, I'm gone, done for. But at the same time, one can take things in with another part of your brain, maybe. It's different from what you get in study, more practical and conclusive. There are some things you learn best in calm and some in storm. You learn the delivery of a part only before an audience. Heaven help us, Gaspottenberg. Weren't you hungry, though? It's beautiful to see you eat. Glad you like it. Of course I'm hungry. Are you staying over for Reingold? Friday afternoon? My dear Thee, friend lit a cigarette. I'm a serious businessman now. I have to sell beer. I'm due in Chicago on Wednesday. I'd come back to hear you, but Fricka is not in a luring part. Then you've never heard it well done, she spoke up hotly. That German woman, scolding her husband, eh? That's not my idea. Wait till you hear my Fricka. It's a beautiful part. Thee leaned forward on the table and touched Archie's arm. You remember, Dr. Archie, how my mother always wore her hair, hearted in the middle and down low on her neck behind. So you got the shape of her head and such a calm white forehead. I wear mine like that for Fricka, a little more coronet effect, built up a little higher at the sides. But the idea is the same. I think you'll notice it. She turned to Ottenberg reproachfully. It's noble music, Fred, from the first measure. There's nothing lovelier than the Wanager Hasra. It's all such comprehensive sort of music, faithful. Of course, Fricka knows. Thee ended quietly. Fred sighed. There, you've spoiled my itinerary. Now I'll have to come back, of course. Archie, you better get busy about seats tomorrow. I could get you box seats somewhere. I know nobody here, and I never ask for any. Thee began hunting among her rats. Oh, how funny. I've only these short woolen gloves and no sleeves. Put on my coat first. Those English people can't make out where you got your lady. She's so made up of contradictions. She rose laughing and plunged her arms into the coat Dr. Archie held for her. As she settled herself into it and buttoned it under her chin, she gave him an old signal with her eyelid. I'd like to sing another part tonight. This is the sort of evening I fancy when there's something to do. Let me see. I have to sing in Trovatory Wednesday night and there are rehearsals for the ring every day this week. Consider me dead until Saturday, Dr. Archie. I invite you both to dine with me on Saturday night, the day after Reingold. And Fred must leave early, for I want to talk to you alone. You've been here nearly a week and I haven't had a serious word with you. Talk for my, Fred, as the Norwegians say. Eight. The ring of the Nibelungs was to be given at the Metropolitan on four successive Friday afternoons. After the first of these performances, Fred Ottenberg went home with Landry for tea. Landry was one of the few public entertainers who owned real estate in New York. He lived in a little three-story brick house on Jane Street in Greenwich Village, which had been left to him by the same aunt who paid for his musical education. Landry was born and spent the first 15 years of his life on a rocky Connecticut farm, not far from Cos Cobb. His father was an ignorant, violent man, a bungling farmer and a brutal husband. The farmhouse, dilapidated and damped, stood in a hollow beside a marshy pond. Oliver had worked hard while he lived at home, although he was never clean or warm in winter, and had wretched food all the year round. His spare dry figure, his prominent larynx, and the particular red of his face and hands belonged to the chore boy he had never outgrown. It was as if the farm, knowing he would escape from it as early as he could, had ground its mark on him deep. When he was 15, Oliver ran away and went to live with his Catholic aunt on Jane Street, whom his mother was never allowed to visit. The priest of St. Joseph's Parish discovered that he had a voice. Landry had an affection for the house on Jane Street, where he had first learned what cleanliness and order and courtesy were. When his aunt died, he had the place done over, got an Irish housekeeper, and lived there with a great many beautiful things he had collected. His living expenses were never large, but he could not restrain himself from buying graceful and useless objects. He was a collector for much the same reason that he was a Catholic, and he was a Catholic chiefly because his father used to sit in the kitchen and read aloud to his hired men, disgusting exposures of the Roman Church, enjoying equally the hideous stories and the outrage to his wife's feelings. At first Landry bought books, then rugs, drawings, China. He had a beautiful collection of old French and Spanish fans. He kept them in an Escortoir he had brought from Spain, but there were always a few of them lying about in his sitting room. While Landry and his guests were waiting for the tea to be brought, Atenberg took up one of these fans from the low marble mantel shelf and opened it in the firelight. One side was painted with a pearly sky and floating clouds. On the other was a formal garden where an elegant shepherdess with a mask and crook was fleeing on high heels from a satin-coated shepherd. You ought not to keep these things about like this, Oliver. The dust from your grape might get at them. It does, but I get them to enjoy them, not to have them. They're pleasant to glance at and to play with at odd times like this when one is waiting for tea or something. Fred smiled. The idea of Landry stretched out before his fire, playing with his fans, amused him. Mrs. McGinnis brought the tea and put it before the hearth. Old tea cups that were velvety to the touch and the pot-bellied silver cream pitcher of an early Georgian pattern, which was always brought. Though Landry took rum, Fred drank his tea walking about, examining Landry's sumptuous writing table in the alcove and the booker drying in red chalk over the mantle. I don't see how you can stand this place without a heroine. It would give me a raging thirst for gallantries. Landry was helping himself to a second cup of tea. Works quite the other way with me. It consoles me for the lack of her. It's just feminine enough to be pleasant to return to. Not any more tea, then sit down and play for me. I'm always playing for other people, and I never have a chance to sit here quietly and listen. Unberg opened the piano and began softly to boom forth the shadowy introduction to the opera they had just heard. Will that do? He asked jokingly. I can't seem to get it out of my head. Oh, excellently. They told me it was quite wonderful the way you can do Wagner scores on the piano. So few people can give one any idea of the music. Go ahead, as long as you like. I can smoke, too. Landry flattened himself out on his cushions and abandoned himself to ease with the circumstance of one who has never grown quite accustomed to ease. Unberg played on, as he happened to remember. He understood now why he wished him to hear her enrangle. It had been clear to him as soon as Fricka rose from sleep and looked out over the young world, stretching one white arm toward the new Goderberg, shining on the heights. Wotan, Jamal, Hervak. She was pure Scandinavian, this Fricka. Swedish summer. He remembered old Mr. Nathan Myers' phrase. She had wished him to see her because she had a distinct kind of loveliness for this part, a shining beauty like the light of sunset on distant sails. She seemed to take on the look of immortal loveliness, the youth of the golden apples, the shining body, and the shining mind. Fricka had then a jealous spouse to him for so long that he had forgotten she meant wisdom before she meant domestic order, and that in any event she was always a goddess. The Fricka of that afternoon was so clear and sunny, so nobly conceived, that she made a whole atmosphere about herself and quite redeemed from shabbiness, the helplessness, and unscrupulousness of the gods. Her approaches to Wotan were the pleadings of a tempered mind, a consistent sense of beauty. In the long silences of her part, her shining presence was a visible complement to the discussion of the orchestra. As the themes which were to help in weaving the drama to its end, first came vaguely upon the ear, one saw their import and tendency in the face of this clearest vision of the gods. In the scene between Fricka and Wotan, Ottenberg stopped, I can't seem to get the voices in there, Landry chuckled, don't try, I know it well enough. I expect I've been over that with her a thousand times. I was playing for her almost every day when she was first working on it. When she begins with the part she's hard to work with, so slow you'd think she was stupid if you didn't know her. Of course, she blames it all on her accompaniness. It goes on like that for weeks sometimes. This did. She kept shaking her head and staring and looking gloomy. All at once she got her line. It usually comes suddenly, after stretches of not getting anywhere at all. And after that it kept changing and clearing. As she worked her voice into it, it got more and more of that gold quality that makes her Fricka so different. Fred began Fricka's first aria again. It's certainly different. Curious how she does it. Such a beautiful idea out of a part that's always been so ungrateful. She's a lovely thing, but she was never so beautiful as that really. Nobody is. He repeated the loveliest phrase. How does she manage it, Landry? You've worked with her. Landry drew cherishingly on the last cigarette. He meant to commit himself before singing. Oh, it's a question of a big personality. And all that goes with it. Brains, of course. Imagination, of course. But the important thing is that she was born full of color with a rich personality. That's a gift of the gods, like a fine nose. You have it or you haven't. Against it, intelligence and musicianship and habits of industry don't count at all. Singers are a conventional race. When Thie was studying in Berlin, the other girls were mortally afraid of her. She has a pretty hard hand with women, dull ones, and she could be rude, too. The girls used to call her Die Wolfen. Fred thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the piano. Of course, even a stupid woman could get effects with such machinery, such a voice and body and face, but they couldn't possibly belong to a stupid woman, could they? Landry shook his head. It's personality. That's as near as you can come to it. That's what constitutes real equipment. What she does is interesting because she does it. Even the things she discards are suggestive. I regret some of them. Her conceptions are colored in so many different ways. You've heard her, Elizabeth. Wonderful, isn't it? She was working on that part years ago when her mother was ill. I could see her anxiety and grief getting more and more into the part. The last act is heartbreaking. It's as homely as a country prayer meeting. Might be any lonely woman getting ready to die. It's full of the thing every plain creature finds out for himself. That never gets written down. It's unconscious memory, maybe. Inherited memory, like folk music. I call it personality. Fred laughed and, turning to the piano, began coaching the Fricka music again. Call it anything you like, my boy. I have a name for it myself, but I shan't tell you. He looked over his shoulder at Landry, stretched out by the fire. You have a great time watching her, don't you? Oh yes, replied Landry simply. I'm not interested in much. That goes on in New York. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll have to dress. He rose with a reluctant sigh. Can I get you anything? Some whiskey? Thank you, no. I'll amuse myself here. I don't often get a chance at a good piano when I'm away from home. You haven't had this one long, have you? Actions of it stiff. I say, he stopped Landry in the doorway. Has thee ever been down here? Landry turned back. Yes, she came several times when I had Erysipolis. I was a nice mess with two nurses. She brought down some inside window boxes, planted with crocuses and things, very cheering. Only I couldn't see them or her. Didn't she like her place? She thought she did, but I fancy it was a good deal cluttered up for her taste. I could hear her pacing about like something in a cage. She pushed the piano back against the wall, and the chairs in the corners, and she broke my amber elephant. Landry took a yellow object some four inches high from one of his low bookcases. You can see where his leg is glued on. A souvenir. Yes, his lemon amber, very fine. Landry disappeared behind the curtains, and in a moment Fred heard the wheeze of an atomizer. He put the amber elephant on the piano beside him, and seemed to get a great deal of amusement out of the beast. End of part six, section seven and eight, recording by Dion Giants, Salt Lake City, Utah. Chapter nine of part six, The Song of the Lark. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kate Stirner. The Song of the Lark by Willa Siebert-Cather. Chapter nine of part six. When Archie and Ottenberg dined with Thea on Saturday evening, they were served downstairs in the hotel dining room, but they were to have their coffee in her own apartment. As they were going up in the elevator after dinner, Fred turned suddenly to Thea. And why, please, did you break Landry's amber elephant? She looked guilty and began to laugh. Hasn't he gotten over that yet? I really didn't mean to break it. I was perhaps careless. His things are so over-petted that I was tempted to be careless with a lot of them. How can you be so heartless when they're all he has in the world? He has me. I'm a great deal of diversion for him. All he needs. There, she said, as she opened the door to her own hall. I shouldn't have said that before the elevator boy. Even an elevator boy couldn't make a scandal about Oliver. He's such a catnip man. Dr. Archie laughed, but Thea, who seemed suddenly to have thought of something annoying, repeated blankly. Catnip man? Yes, he lives on catnip and rum tea, but he's not the only one. You are like an eccentric old woman I know in Boston, who goes about in the spring feeding catnip to street cats. You dispense it to a lot of fellows. Your pole seems to be more with men than with women, you know. With seasoned men, about my age or older. Even on Friday afternoon I kept running into them, old boys I hadn't seen for years, thinned at the part and thick at the girth, until I stood still in the draft and held my hair on. They're always there. I hear them talking about you in the smoking-room. Probably we don't get to the point of apprehending anything good until we're about forty. Then, in the light of what's going, and of what God help us is coming, we arrive at something. I don't see why people go to the opera anyway, serious people, she spoke discontentedly. I suppose they get something, or think they do. Here's the coffee. There, please, she directed the waiter. Going to the table she began to pour the coffee, standing. She wore a white dress trimmed with crystals which had rattled a good deal during dinner, as all her movements had been impatient and nervous. And she had twisted the dark velvet rose at her girdle until it looked rumpled and weary. She poured the coffee, as if it were a ceremony in which she did not believe. Can you make anything of Fred's nonsense, Dr. Archie? She asked, as he came to take his cup. Fred approached her. My nonsense is all right. The same brand has gone with you before. It's you who won't be jollied. What's the matter? Have you something on your mind? Have a good deal. Too much to be an agreeable hostess. She turned quickly away from the coffee and sat down on the piano bench, facing the two men. For one thing, there's a change in the cast for Friday afternoon. They're going to let me sing Sieglinde. Her frown did not conceal the pleasure with which she made this announcement. Are you going to keep us dangling about there forever, Thea? Archie and I are supposed to have other things to do. Fred looked at her with an excitement quite as apparent as her own. Here I've been ready to sing Sieglinde for two years, kept in torment, and now it comes off within two weeks, just when I want to be seeing something of dark to Archie. I don't know what their plans are down there. After Friday they may let me cool for several weeks, and they may rush me. I suppose it depends on how things go Friday afternoon. Oh, they'll go fast enough. It's better suited to your voice than anything you've sung here. That gives you every opportunity I've waited for. Ottenberg crossed the room, and standing beside her, began to play Dubist de Lens. With a violent movement, Thea caught his wrists and pushed his hands away from the keys. Fred, can't you be serious? A thousand things may happen between this and Friday to put me out. Something will happen. If that part were sung well as it ought to be, it would be one of the most beautiful things in the world. That's why it is never sung right, and never will be. She clenched her hands and opened them despairingly, looking out of the open window. It's inexcessibly beautiful, she brought out sharply. Fred and Dr. Archie watched her. In a moment she turned back to them. It's impossible to sing a part like that well for the first time, except for the sort who will never sing it any better. Everything hangs on that first night, and that's bound to be bad. There you are, she shrugged impatiently. For one thing, they changed the cast at the eleventh hour, and then rehearsed the life out of me. Ottenberg put down his cup with exaggerated care. Still, you really want to do it, you know. Want to, she repeated indignantly. Of course I want to. If this were only next Thursday night, but between now and Friday I'll do nothing but fret my strength away. I'm not saying I don't need the rehearsals, but I don't need them strung out through a week. That system's well enough for phlegmatic singers. It only drains me. Every single feature of operatic routine is detrimental to me. I usually go on like a horse that's been fixed to lose a race. I have to work hard to do my worst, let alone my best. I wish you could hear me sing well once, she turned to Fred defiantly. I have a few times in my life when there was nothing to gain by it. Fred approached her again and held out his hand. I recall my instructions, and now I leave you to fight it out with Archie. He can't possibly represent managerial stupidity to you as I seem to have a gift for doing. As he smiled down at her, his good humour, his good wishes, his understanding embarrassed her and recalled her to herself. She kept her seat, still holding his hand. All the same, Fred. Isn't it too bad that there are so many things? She broke off with a shake of the head. My dear girl, if I could bridge over the agony between now and Friday for you, but you know the rules of the game, why torment yourself? You saw the other night that you had the part under your thumb. Now walk, sleep, play with Archie, keep your tiger hungry, and she'll spring all right on Friday. I'll be there to see her, and there'll be more than I, I expect. Har Sanyi's on the Wilhelm de Grossa gets in on Thursday. Har Sanyi? Thea's eye lighted. I haven't seen him for years. We always miss each other. She paused, hesitating. Yes, I should like that. But he'll be busy, maybe. He gives his first concert at Carnegie Hall week after next. Better send him a box if you can. Yes, I'll manage it. Thea took his hand again. Oh, I should like that, Fred. She said impulsively. Even if I were put out, he'd get the idea. She threw back her head, for there is an idea. Which won't penetrate here, he tapped his brow and began to laugh. You are an ungrateful hussy, comme les autres. Thea detained him as he turned away. She pulled a flower out of a bouquet on the piano and absently drew the stem through the lapel of his coat. I shall be walking in the park tomorrow afternoon on the reservoir path, between four and five, if you care to join me. You know that after Har Sanyi, I'd rather please you than anyone else. You know a lot, but he knows even more than you. Thank you. Don't try to analyze it. He kissed her fingers and waved from the door, closing it behind him. He's the right sort, Thea. Dr. Archie looked warmly after his disappearing friend. I've always hoped you'd make it up with Fred. Well, haven't I? Oh, marry him, you mean. Perhaps it may come about some day. Just at present he's not in the marriage market any more than I am, is he? No, I suppose not. It's a damn shame that a man like Ottenberg should be tied up as he is, wasting all the best years of his life. A woman with general paresis ought to be legally dead. Don't let's talk about Fred's wife, please. He had no business to get into such a mess, and he has no business to stay in it. He's always been a softie where women are concerned. Most of us are, I'm afraid, Dr. Archie admitted weakly. Too much light in here, isn't there? Tires one's eyes. The stage lights are hard on mine. Thea began turning them out. We'll leave the little one over the piano. She sank down by Archie on the deep sofa. We two have so much to talk about that we keep away from it all together, haven't you noticed? We don't even nimble the edges. I wish we had Landry here to-night to play for us. He's very comforting. I'm afraid you don't have enough personal life outside your work, Thea. The doctor looked at her anxiously. She smiled at him with her eyes half closed. My dear doctor, I don't have any. Your work becomes your personal life. You are not much good until it does. It's like being woven into a big web. You can't pull away, because all your little tendrils are woven into the picture. It takes you up and uses you and spins you out, and that is your life. Not much else can happen to you. Didn't you think of marrying several years ago? You mean Norquist? Yes, but I changed my mind. We had been singing a good deal together. He's a splendid creature. Were you much in love with him, Thea? The doctor asked, hopefully. She smiled again. I don't think I know just what that expression means. I've never been able to find out. I think I was in love with you when I was little, but not with anyone since then. There are a great many ways of caring for people. It's not, after all, a simple state, like measles or tonsillitis. Norquist is a taking sort of man. He's a very good man. Taking sort of man. He and I were out in a rowboat once in a terrible storm. The lake was fed by glaciers, ice water, and we couldn't have swum a stroke if the boat had filled. If we hadn't both been strong and kept our heads, we'd have gone down. We pulled for every ounce there was in us, and we just got off with our lives. We were always being thrown together like that, under some kind of pressure. Yes, for a while I thought he would make everything all right. She paused and sank back, resting her head on a cushion, pressing her eyelids down with her fingers. You see, she went unabruptly. He had a wife and two children. He hadn't lived with her for several years, but when she heard that he wanted to marry again, she began to make trouble. He earned a good deal of money, but he was careless and always wretchedly in debt. He came to me one day and told me he thought his wife would settle for a hundred thousand marks and consent to a divorce. I got very angry and sent him away. Next day he came back and said he thought she'd take fifty thousand. Dr. Archie drew away from her to the end of the sofa. Good God, Thea! he ran his handkerchief over his forehead. What sort of people? he stopped and shook his head. Thea rose and stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder. That's exactly how it struck me, she said quietly. Oh, we have things in common, things that go way back under everything. You understand, of course. Nordquist didn't. He thought I wasn't willing to part with the money. I couldn't let myself buy him from Frue Nordquist, and he couldn't see why. He had always thought I was close about money, so he attributed it to that. I am careful. She ran her arm through Archie's, and when he rose began to walk about the room with him. I can't be careless with money. I began the world on six hundred dollars, and it was the price of a man's life. Ray Kennedy had worked hard and been sober and denied himself, and when he died he had six hundred dollars to show for it. I always measure things by that six hundred dollars. Just as I measure high buildings by the moonstone standpipe, there are standards we can't get away from. Dr. Archie took her hand. I don't believe we should be any happier if we did get away from them. I think it gives you some of your poise, having that anchor. You look, glancing down at her head and shoulders, sometimes so like your mother. Thank you. You couldn't say anything nicer to me than that. On Friday afternoon, didn't you think? Yes, but at other times too. I love to see it. Do you know what I thought about that first night when I heard you sing? I kept remembering the night I took care of you when you had pneumonia, when you were ten years old. You were a terribly sick child, and I was a country doctor without much experience. There were no oxygen tanks about then. You pretty nearly slipped away from me, if you had. Thea dropped her head on his shoulder. I'd have saved myself and you a lot of trouble, wouldn't I? Dear Dr. Archie, she murmured. As for me, life would have been a pretty bleak stretch with you left out. The doctor took one of the crystal pendants that hung from her shoulder and looked into it thoughtfully. I guess I'm a romantic old fellow underneath, and you've always been my romance. Those years when you were growing up were my happiest. When I dream about you, I always see you as a little girl. They paused by the open window. Do you? Nearly all my dreams, except those about breaking down on the stage or missing trains, are about Moonstone. You tell me the old house has been pulled down, but it stands in my mind every stick and timber. In my sleep I go all about it, and look in the right drawers and cupboards for everything. I often dream that I'm hunting for my rubbers in that pile of overshoes that was always under the hat-rack in the hall. I pick up every overshoe and know whose it is, but I can't find my own. Then the school bell begins to ring and I begin to cry. That's the house I rest in when I'm tired. All the old furniture and the worn spots in the carpet. It rests my mind to go over them. They were looking out of the window. Thea kept his arm. Down on the river four battleships were anchored in line, brilliantly lighted, and launches were coming and going, bringing the men ashore. A searchlight from one of the ironclads was playing on the great headland up the river, where it makes its first resolute turn. Overhead the night blue sky was intense and clear. There's so much I want to tell you, she said at last. It's hard to explain. My life is full of jealousies and disappointments, you know. You get to hating people who do contemptible work and who get on just as well as you do. There are many disappointments in my profession, and bitter, bitter contempt. Her face hardened and looked much older. If you love the good thing vitally, enough to give up for it all that one must give up for it, then you must hate the cheap thing just as hard. I tell you there is such a thing as creative hate, a contempt that drives you through fire, makes you risk everything and lose everything, makes you a long sight better than you ever knew you could be. As she glanced at Dr. Archie's face, Thea stopped short and turned her own face away. Her eyes followed the path of the searchlight up the river and rested upon the illuminated headland. You see, she went on more calmly. Voices are accidental things. You find plenty of good voices in common women, with common minds and common hearts. Look at that woman who sang orchard with me last week. She's new here, and people are wild about her. Such a beautiful volume of tone, they say. I give you my word she's as stupid as an owl and as coarse as a pig, and anyone who knows anything about singing would see that in an instant. Yet she's quite as popular as Necker, who is a great artist. How can I get much satisfaction out of the enthusiasm of a house that likes her atrociously bad performance at the same time that it pretends to like mine? If they like her then they ought to hiss me off the stage. We stand for things that are irreconcilable, absolutely. You can't try to do things right and not despise the people who do them wrong. How can I be indifferent? If that doesn't matter then nothing matters. Well, sometimes I've come home as I did the other night when you first saw me, so full of bitterness that it was as if my mind were full of daggers. And I've gone to sleep and wakened up in the Kohler's garden with the pigeons and the white rabbits. So happy. And that saves me. She sat down on the piano bench. Archie thought she had forgotten all about him until she called his name. Her voice was soft now and wonderfully sweet. It seemed to come from somewhere deep within her. There was such strong vibrations in it. You see, Dr. Archie, what one really strives for in art is not the sort of thing you are likely to find when you drop in for a performance at the opera. What one strives for is so far away, so deep, so beautiful. She lifted her shoulders with a long breath, folded her hands in her lap, and sat looking at him with resignation that made her face noble. That there's nothing one can say about it, Dr. Archie. Without knowing very well what it was all about, Archie was passionately stirred for her. I've always believed in you, Thea, always believed, he muttered. She smiled and closed her eyes. They save me, the old things, things like the Kohler's garden. They are in everything I do. In what you sing you mean. Yes, not in any direct way, she spoke hurriedly. The light, the color, the feeling, most of all the feeling. It comes in when I'm working on a part, like the smell of a garden coming in at the window. I try all the new things and then go back to the old. Perhaps my feelings were stronger then. A child's attitude towards everything is an artist's attitude. I am more or less of an artist now, but then I was nothing else. When I went with you to Chicago that first time, I carried with me the essentials, the foundation of all I do now. The point to which I could go was scratched in me then. I haven't reached it yet, by a long way. Archie had a swift flash of memory. Pictures passed before him. You mean, he asked wonderingly, that you knew then you were so gifted? Thea looked up at him and smiled. Oh, I didn't know anything. Not enough to ask you for my drunk when I needed it. But, you see, when I set out from Moonstone with you, I had had a rich, romantic past. I had lived a long eventful life and an artist's life, every hour of it. Wagner says, in his most beautiful opera, that art is only a way of remembering youth. And the older we grow, the more precious it seems to us. And the more richly we can present that memory. When we've got it all out, the last, the finest thrill of it, the brightest hope of it, she lifted her hand above her head and dropped it. Then we stop. We do nothing but repeat after that. The stream has reached the level of its source. That's our measure. There was a long, warm silence. Thea was looking hard at the floor, as if she were seeing down through years and years, and her old friend, stood watching her bent head. His look was one with which he had used to watch her long ago, and which, even in thinking about her, had become a habit of his face. It was full of solicitude and a kind of secret gratitude, as if to thank her for some inexpressible pleasure of the heart. Thea turned presently toward the piano and began softly to waken an old air. Caught the yos to the nose. Caught them where the heather grows. Caught them where the bernie rose, my bonny dearie. Archie sat down and shaded his eyes with his hand. She turned her head and spoke to him over her shoulder. Come on, you know the words better than I. That's right. We'll gay down by Clodon's side, through the hazel spreading wide, or the waves that sweetly glide, to the moon so clearly. Geist nor boggle shalt thou fear, thou art to love and heaven said ear, Nocht of ill may come thee near, my bonny dearie. I can't get on without landry. Let's try it again. I have all the words now. Then we'll have sweet afton. Come. Caught the yos to the nose. End of chapter 9 of part 6. Recorded by Kate Stirner in Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2013. Chapter 10 of part 6. The Song of the Lark. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kate Stirner. The Song of the Lark. By Willa Siebert Cather. Chapter 10 of part 6. Ottenberg dismissed his taxi cab at the 91st street entrance of the park, and floundered across the drive through a wild spring snowstorm. When he reached the reservoir path, he saw Thea ahead of him, walking rapidly against the wind. Except for that one figure the path was deserted. A flock of gulls were hovering over the reservoir, seeming bewildered by the driving currents of snow that swirled above the black water and then disappeared within it. When he had almost overtaken Thea, Fred called to her, and she turned and waited for him, with her back to the wind. Her hair and furs were powdered with snowflakes, and she looked like some rich pelted animal with warm blood that had run in out of the woods. Fred laughed as he took her hand. No use asking how you do, you surely needn't feel much anxiety about Friday when you can look like this. She moved close to the iron fence to make room for him beside her, and faced the wind again. Oh, I'm well enough, insofar as that goes. But I'm not lucky about stage appearances. I'm easily upset, and the most perverse things happen. What's the matter? Do you still get nervous? Of course I do. I don't mind nerves so much as getting numbed, Thea muttered, sheltering her face for a moment with her muff. I'm under a spell, you know. Who, dude? It's the thing I want to do that I can never do. Any other effects I can get easily enough. Yes, you get effects, and not only with your voice. That's where you have it over all the rest of them. You're as much at home on the stage as you were down in Panther Canyon, as if you'd just been lad out of a cage. Didn't you get some of your ideas down there? Thea nodded. Oh yes, for heroic parts, at least. Out of the rocks, out of dead people. You mean the idea of standing up under things, don't you, meeting catastrophe? No fussiness. Seems to me they must have been a reserved, somber people, with only a muscular language, all their movements for a purpose. Simple, strong, as if they were dealing with fate bare-handed. She put her gloved fingers on Fred's arm. I don't know how I can ever thank you enough. I don't know if I'd ever have got anywhere without Panther Canyon. How did you know that was the one thing to do for me? It's the sort of thing nobody ever helps one to, in this world. One can learn how to sing, but no singing teacher can give anybody what I got down there. How did you know? I didn't know. Anything else would have done as well. It was your creative hour. I knew you were getting a lot, but I didn't realize how much. Thea walked on in silence. She seemed to be thinking. Do you know what they really taught me, she came out suddenly? They taught me the inevitable hardness of human life. No artist gets far who doesn't know that. And you can't know it with your mind. You have to realize it in your body somehow, deep. It's an animal sort of feeling. Sometimes I think it's the strongest of all. Do you know what I'm driving at? I think so. Even your audiences feel it vaguely, that you've sometimes more or other faced things that make you different. Thea turned her back to the wind, wiping away the snow that clung to her brows and lashes. Ah, she exclaimed, no matter how long a breath you have, the storm has a longer. I haven't signed up for next season yet, Fred. I'm holding out for a big contract. Forty performances. Necker won't be able to do much next winter. It's going to be one of those between seasons. The old singers are too old. The new ones are too new. They might as well risk me as anybody. So I want good terms. The next five or six years are going to be my best. You'll get what you demand if you are uncompromising. I'm safe in congratulating you now. Thea laughed. It's a little early. I may not get it at all. They don't seem to be breaking their necks to meet me. I can go back to Dresden. As they turned the curve and walked westward, they got the wind from the side and talking was easier. Fred lowered his collar and shook the snow from his shoulders. Oh, I don't mean on the contract particularly. I congratulate you on what you can do, Thea, and on what lies behind what you do. On the life that's led up to it, and on being able to care so much, that, after all, is the unusual thing. She looked at him sharply, with a certain apprehension. Care. Why shouldn't I care? If I didn't, I'd be in a bad way. What else have I got? She stopped with a challenging interrogation. But Ardenberg didn't reply. You mean, she persisted, that you don't care as much as you used to? I care about your success, of course, Fred fell into a slower pace. Thea felt at once that he was talking seriously, and had dropped the tone of half-ironical exaggeration he had used with her of late years. And I'm grateful to you for what you demand of yourself, when you might get off so easily. You demand more and more all the time, and you'll do more and more. One is grateful to anybody for that. It makes life, in general, a little less sorted. But as a matter of fact, I'm not much interested in how anybody sings anything. That's too bad of you, when I'm just beginning to see what is worth doing, and how I want to do it. Thea spoke in an injured tone. That's what I congratulate you on. That's the great difference between your kind and the rest of us. It's how long you're able to keep it up, that tells the story. When you needed enthusiasm from the outside, I was able to give it to you. Now you must let me withdraw. I'm not tying you, am I? She flashed out. But withdraw to what? What do you want? Fred shrugged. I might ask you what have I got? I want things that wouldn't interest you, that you probably wouldn't understand. For one thing, I want a son to bring up. I can understand that. It seems to me reasonable. Have you also found somebody you want to marry? Not particularly. They turned another curve which brought the wind to their backs, and they walked on in comparative calm, with the snow blowing past them. It's not your fault, Thea, but I've had you too much in my mind. I've not given myself a fair chance in other directions. I was in Rome when you and Nortquist were there. If that had kept up, it might have cured me. It might have cured a good many things, remarked Thea grimly. Fred nodded sympathetically and went on. In my library in St. Louis, over the fireplace, I have a property, spear, that I copied from one in Venice—oh, years ago, after you first went abroad—while you were studying. You'll probably be singing Brunhilda pretty soon now, and I'll send it on to you, if I may. You can take it, and it's history, for what they're worth. But I'm nearly forty years old, and I've served my turn. You've done what I hoped for you, what I was honestly willing to lose for—then. I'm older now, and I think I was an ass. I wouldn't do it again if I had the chance, not much. But I'm not sorry. It takes a great many people to make one, Brunhilda. Thea stopped by the fence and looked over into the black choppiness on which the snowflakes fell and disappeared with magical rapidity. Her face was both angry and troubled. So you feel I've been ungrateful. I thought you sent me out to get something. I didn't know you wanted me to bring in something easy. I thought you wanted something. She took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders. But there, nobody on God's earth wants it, really. If one other person wanted it, she thrust her hand out before him and clenched it. My God, what I could do! Fred laughed dismally. Even in my ashes I feel myself pushing you. How can anybody help it? My dear girl, can't you see that anyone else who wanted it as you do would be your rival, your deadliest danger? Can't you see that it's your great good fortune that other people can't care about it so much? But Thea seemed not to take in his protest at all. She went on vindicating herself. It's taken me a long while to do anything, of course, and I've only begun to see daylight. But anything good is expensive. It hasn't seemed long. I've always felt responsible to you. Fred looked at her face intently, through the veil of snowflakes, and shook his head. To me. You are a truthful woman, and you don't mean to lie to me. But after the one responsibility you do feel, I doubt if you've enough left to feel responsible to God. Still, if you've ever in an idle hour fooled yourself with thinking that I had anything to do with it, Heaven knows I'm grateful. Even if I'd married Norquist, Thea went on, turning down the path again. There would have been something left out. There always is. In a way, I've always been married to you. I'm not very flexible. Never was and never shall be. You caught me young. I could never have that over again. One can't after one begins to know anything. But I look back on it. My life hasn't been a gay one any more than yours. If I shut things out from you, you shut them out from me. We've been a help and a hindrance to each other. I guess it's always that way. The good and the bad all mixed up. There's only one thing that's all beautiful, and always beautiful. That's why my interest keeps up. Yes, I know, Fred looked sideways at the outline of her head against the thickening atmosphere. And you give one the impression that that is enough. I've gradually, gradually given you up. See, the lights are coming out, Thea pointed, where they flickered, flashes of violet through the grey treetops. Lower down the globes along the drive were becoming a pale lemon colour. Yes, I don't see why anybody wants to marry an artist anyhow. I remember Ray Kennedy used to say he didn't see how any woman could marry a gambler, for she would only be marrying what the game left. She shook her shoulders impatiently. Who marries who is a small matter after all? But I hope I can bring back your interest in my work. You've cared longer and more than anybody else, and I'd like to have somebody human to make a report to once in a while. You can send me your spear. I'll do my best. If you're not interested, I'll do my best anyhow. I've only a few friends, but I can lose every one of them, if it has to be. I learned how to lose when my mother died. We must hurry now, my taxi must be waiting. The blue light about them was growing deeper and darker, and the falling snow and the faint trees had become violet. To the south, over Broadway, there was an orange reflection in the clouds. Motors and carriage lights flashed by on the drive below the reservoir path, and the air was strident with horns and shrieks from the whistles of the mounted policemen. Fred gave Thea his arm as they descended from the embankment. I guess you'll never manage to lose me or Archie Thea. You do pick up queer ones. But loving you is a heroic discipline. It wears a man out. Tell me one thing. Could I have kept you once, if I'd put on every screw? Thea hurried him along, talking rapidly, as if to get it over. You might have kept me in misery for a while, perhaps, I don't know. I have to think well of myself to work. You could have made it hard. I'm not ungrateful. I was a difficult proposition to begin with. I understand now, of course. Since you didn't tell me the truth in the beginning, you couldn't very well turn back after I'd set my head. At least, if you'd been the sort who could, you wouldn't have had to, for I'd not have cared a button for that sort even then. She stopped beside a car that waited at the curb and gave him her hand. There we part, friends. Fred looked at her. You know. Ten years. I'm not ungrateful, Thea repeated, as she got into her cab. Yes, she reflected, as the taxi cut into the park carriage road. We don't get fairy tales in this world. And he has, after all, cared more and longer than anybody else. It was dark outside now, and the light from the lamps along the drive flashed into the cab. The snowflakes hovered like swarms of white bees about the globes. Thea sat motionless in one corner, staring out of the window at the cab lights that wove in and out among the trees, all seeming to be bent on joyous courses. Taxicabs were still new in New York, and the theme of popular minstrelry. Landry had sung her a ditty he heard in some theatre on Third Avenue about, but there passed him a bright-eyed taxi with the girl of his heart inside. Almost inaudibly Thea began to hum the air, though she was thinking of something serious, something that had touched her deeply. At the beginning of the season, when she was not singing often, she had gone one afternoon to hear Petarovsky's recital. In front of her sat an old German couple, evidently poor, who had made sacrifices to pay for their excellent seats. Their intelligent enjoyment of the music and their friendliness with each other had interested her more than anything on the programme. When the pianist began a lovely melody in the first movement of the Beethoven D. Minor sonata, the old lady put out her plump hand and touched her husband's sleeve, and they looked at each other in recognition. They both wore glasses, but such a look, like forget-me-nots, and so full of happy recollections. Thea wanted to put her arms around them and ask them how they had been able to keep a feeling like that, like a nose-gay in a glass of water. End of Chapter 10 of Part 6. Recorded by Kate Stirner in Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2013. Chapter 11 of Part 6. The Song of the Lark. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kate Stirner. The Song of the Lark by Willa Sebert Cather. Chapter 11, Part 6. Dr. Archie saw nothing of Thea during the following week. After several fruitless efforts, he succeeded in getting a word to 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 Valkyrie, but also for Gotterdammerung, in which she was to sing Valtraude two weeks later. On Thursday afternoon Thea got home late after an exhausting rehearsal. She was in no frame of mind. Madam Necker, who had been very gracious to her, that night when she went on to complete Glicker's performance of Siglinde, had, since Thea was cast to sing the part instead of Glicker in the production of the ring, had been chilly and disapproving, distinctly hostile. Thea had always felt that she and Necker stood for the same sort of endeavour, and that Necker recognised it and had a cordial feeling for her. In Germany she had several times sung Brangina to Necker's Isolde, and the older artist had let her know that she thought she sang it beautifully. 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. Madam 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 recognise. Thea had her dinner sent up to her apartment and it was a very poor one. She tasted the soup and then indignantly put on her raps 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 swallowing painful and boated ill for the morrow. Although she had been speaking in whispers all day to save her throat, she now perversely summoned the housekeeper and demanded 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 realised that for ten dollars worth of under-clothing she had been unfitting herself for a performance which might eventually mean many thousands. 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 siglinda-wig in the trunk-room, she went on chiding 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 tomorrow. I'll go down there tomorrow and make a fool of myself. If I'd let that laundry alone with whatever person has stolen it, why did I undertake to reform the management of this hotel to-night? After tomorrow I could pack up and leave the place. There's the Philharmon, I liked the rooms there better anyhow, and the Humberto. She began going over the advantages and disadvantages of different apartment-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? Sometimes 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 shouldn't, she hung paralyzed. 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 before 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. He must be very intelligent in his business, or he would not be at the head of the Brewer's 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 interesting than they used to be—look at her sonny, who had been so long retarded, what a place he had made for himself 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 between 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 Arizona 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 on 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 threw 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 cotton wood, 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 Vodable 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. Hassanyi and his wife were in a box, near the stage, in the second circle. Mrs. Hassanyi's hair was noticeably gray, but her face was fuller and handsomer than in those early years of struggle, and she was beautifully dressed. Hassanyi 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 out 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 had 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 Siglinda 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 Siglinda about the stage like a satellite, and as she sat at the table listening to Sigmund's long narrative it never left her. When she prepared the sleeping draft, and appeared after hounding, 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. Harsanyi smiled, but he did not look forth again until Siglinda reappeared. She went through the story of her shameful bridal feast, and into the Valhall music, which she always sang so nobly, and at the entrance of the one-eyed stranger. Mir allein wächte 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 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 blossoms into memories and prophecies. 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 heartier 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 christened him. Sigmund, so nenn ich dich. Her impatience for the sword swelled with her anticipation of his act, and throwing her arms above her head, she fairly tore a sword out of the empty air for him, before nothing had left the tree. In hochter Tonkheit, indeed, she burst out with the flaming cry of their kinship. If you are, Sigmund, I am Sigmund, laughing, singing, bounding, exalting, with their passion and their swords, the Volsungs rang 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 at Andor, I can see her now that clumsy girl, hunched up over your piano, I can see her shoulders, she always seemed to labour so with her back, and I shall never forget that night when you found her voice. The audience kept up its clamour until, after many reappearances with the tenor, Kronborg came before the curtain 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 only one way in which they will ever fail. Harsanyi retired into his own reflections. After the second act, Fred Autenberg brought Archie to the Harsanyi's box and introduced him as an old friend of Miss Kronborg. The head of the musical publishing house joined them, bringing with him a journalist and the president of a German singing society. The conversation was chiefly about the new Sieglinde. Mrs. Harsanyi was gracious and enthusiastic, her husband nervous and uncommunicative. He smiled mechanically and politely answered the questions addressed to him. Yes, quite so. Oh, certainly! Everyone, of course, said very usual things with great conviction. Mrs. Harsanyi was used to hearing and uttering the common places which such occasions demanded. When her husband withdrew into the shadow, she covered his retreat by her sympathy and cordiality. In reply to a direct question from Autenberg, Harsanyi said flinching, It's older. 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 explosive force projecting power. Autenberg turned to Harsanyi. What is it, Mr. Harsanyi? 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, Harsanyi, 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 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 the 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 distinction 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 fingertips. She felt like a tree bursting into bloom, and her voice was as flexible as her body, equal to any command 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. Three Cronborg'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 Harcayna himself. Up in the top gallery, a gray-haired little Mexican, withered and bright as a string of peppers beside adobe 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 Circus that year. One of the managers of the show had traveled about in 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. Telemantes died, Johnny had 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 Cronborg came out of the stage entrance on 40th Street, the sky was still flaming with its 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 ecstasy, 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 the akronborg. 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 simple and concrete beginnings which color and accent an artist's work, and to give some account of how a moonstone girl found her way out of a vague, easygoing 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. End of Chapter 11 of Part 6, recorded by Kate Stirner in Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2013. Epilogue. The Song of the Lark. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org, recording by Kate Stirner. The Song of the Lark by Willa Siebert Cather. Epilogue. Moonstone again in the year 1909. The Methodists are giving an ice-cream sociable in the grove about the new courthouse. It is a warm summer night of full moon. The paper lanterns which hang among the trees are foolish toys, only dimming in little lurid circles the great softness of the lunar light that floods the blue heavens and the high plateau. To the east the sand-hills shine white as of old, but the empire of the sand is gradually diminishing, the grass grows thicker over the dunes than it used to, and the streets of the town are harder and firmer than they were twenty-five years ago. The old inhabitants will tell you that the sandstorms are infrequent now, that the wind blows less persistently in the spring, and plays a middler tune. Cultivation has modified the soil and the climate as it modifies human life. The people seated about under the cotton woods are much smarter than the Methodists we used to know. The interior of the new Methodist church looks like a theatre, with a sloping floor, and as the congregation proudly say, opera chairs. The matrons who attend to serving their refreshments tonight look younger for their years than did the women of Mrs. Kronberg's time, and the children all look like city-children. The little boys wear buster browns, and the little girls Russian blouses. The country-child, in madeovers and cut-downs, seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. At one of the tables, with her Dutch-cut twin boys, sits a fair-haired, dimpled matron who was once Lily Fisher. Her husband is president of the new bank, and she goes east for her summers, a practice which causes envy and discontent among her neighbours. The twins are well-behaved children, bitable, meek, neat about their clothes, and always mindful of the proprieties they have learned at summer hotels. While they are eating their ice cream and trying not to twist the spoon in their mouths, a little shriek of laughter breaks out from an adjacent table. The twins look up. There sits a spry little old spinster whom they know well. She has a long chin, a long nose, and is dressed like a young girl, with a pink sash and a lace-garden hat with pink rose-bloods. She is surrounded by a crowd of boys, loose and lanky, short and thick, who are joking with her roughly, but not unkindly. Mama, one of the twins, comes out with a shrill trouble. Why is Tilly Cronberg always talking about a thousand dollars? The boys, hearing this question, break into a roar of laughter. The women titter behind their paper napkins, and even from Tilly there is a little shriek of appreciation. The observing child's remarks had made everyone suddenly realize that Tilly never stopped talking about that particular sum of money. In the spring, when she went to buy early strawberries, and was told that they were thirty cents a box, she was sure to remind the grocer that though her name was Cronborg, she didn't get a thousand dollars a night. In the autumn, when she went to buy her coal for the winter, she expressed amazement that the price quoted her and told the dealer he must have got her mixed up with her niece to think she could pay such a sum. When she was making her Christmas presents, she never failed to ask the women who came into her shop what you could make for anybody who got a thousand dollars a night. When the Denver papers announced that Thea Cronberg had married Frederick Ottenberg, the head of the Brewer's Trust, moonstone people expected that Tilly's vain gloriousness would take another form. But Tilly had hoped that Thea would marry a title, and she did not boast much about Ottenberg, at least not until after her memorable trip to Kansas City to hear Thea sing. Tilly is the last Cronborg left in Moonstone. She lives alone in a little house with a green yard, and keeps a fancy work and millinery store. Her business methods are informal, and she would never come out even at the end of the year, if she did not receive a draft for a good round sum from her niece at Christmas time. The arrival of this draft always renews the discussion as to what Thea would do for her aunt if she really did the right thing. Most of the Moonstone people think Thea ought to take Tilly to New York and keep her as a companion. While they are not feeling sorry for Tilly because she does not live at the plaza, Tilly is trying not to hurt their feelings by showing too plainly how much she realizes the superiority of her position. She tries to be modest when she complains to the Postmaster that her New York paper is more than three days late. It means enough, surely, on the face of it, that she is the only person in Moonstone who takes a New York paper or who has any reason for taking one. A foolish young girl, Tilly lived in the splendid sorrows of Wanda and Strathmore. A foolish old girl, she lives in her niece's triumphs. As she often says, she just missed going on the stage herself. That night after the sociable, as Tilly tripped home with a crowd of noisy boys and girls, she was perhaps a shade troubled. The twins' question rather lingered in her ears. Did she, perhaps, insist too much on that thousand dollars? Surely people didn't for a minute think it was the money she cared about. As for that, Tilly tossed her head. She didn't care a rap. They must understand that this money was different. When the laughing little group that brought her home had gone weaving down the sidewalk through the leafy shadows and had disappeared, Tilly brought out a rocking chair and sat down on her porch. On glorious, soft summer nights like this, when the moon is opulent and full, the day submerged and forgotten, she loves to sit there behind her rosevine and let her fancy wander where it will. If you chanced to be passing down that Moonstone Street and saw that alert white figure rocking there behind the screen of roses and lingering late into the night, you might feel sorry for her, but how mistaken you would be. Tilly lives in a little magic world, full of secret satisfactions. Thea Cronborg has given much noble pleasure to a world that needs all it can get, but to no individual has she given more than to her queer old aunt in Moonstone. The legend of Cronborg, the artist, fills Tilly's life. She feels rich and exalted in it. What delightful things happen in her mind as she sits there rocking. She goes back to those days of sand and sun, when Thea was a child and Tilly was herself so it seems to her young. When she used to hurry to church to hear Mr. Cronborg's wonderful sermons, and when Thea used to stand up by the organ of a bright Sunday morning and sing, come ye disconsolate. Or she thinks about that wonderful time when the metropolitan opera company sang a week's engagement in Kansas City, and Thea had sent for her and had her stay with her at the Coates House and go to every performance at Convention Hall. Thea let Tilly go through her costume trunks and try on her wigs and jewels, and the kindness of Mr. Ottenberg. When Thea dined in her own room, he went down to dinner with Tilly and never looked bored or absent-minded when she chattered. He took her to the hall the first time Thea sang there, and sat in the box with her and helped her through Lowengren. After the first act, when Tilly turned tearful eyes to him and burst out, I don't care, she always seemed grand like that, even when she was a girl. I expect I'm crazy, but she just seems to me full of all them old times. Ottenberg was so sympathetic and patted her hand and said, but that's just what she is, full of the old times, and you are a wise woman to see it. Yes, he had said that to her. Tilly often wondered how she had been able to bear it when Thea came down the stairs in the wedding robe embroidered in silver with a train so long it took six women to carry it. Tilly had lived fifty odd years for that week, but she got it, and no miracle was ever more miraculous than that. When she used to be working in the fields on her father's Minnesota farm, she couldn't help believing that she would someday have to do with the wonderful, though her chances for it had then looked so slender. The morning after the sociable, Tilly curled up in bed was roused by the rattle of the milk cart down the street. Then a neighbour boy came down the sidewalk outside her window singing Casey Jones as if he hadn't a care in the world. By this time Tilly was wide awake. The twins' question and the subsequent laughter came back with a faint twinge. Tilly knew she was short-sighted about facts, but this time why there were her scrapbooks full of newspaper and magazine articles about Thea, and half-tone cuts, snapshots of her on land and sea, and photographs of her in all her parts. There in her parlor was the phonograph that had come from Mr. Atenberg last June on Thea's birthday. She had only to go in there and turn it on and let Thea speak for herself. Tilly finished brushing her white hair and laughed as she gave it a smart turn and brought it into her usual French twist. If Moonstone doubted she had evidence enough, in black and white, in figures and photographs, evidence in hairlines on metal discs, for one who had so often seen two and two as making six, who had so often stretched a point, added a touch, in the good game of trying to make the world brighter than it is, there was positive bliss in having such deep foundations of support. She need never tremble in secret lest she might sometimes stretch a point in Thea's favor. Oh, the comfort to her soul too zealous of having at last arose so red it could not be further painted, a lily so truly oriferous that no amount of gilding could exceed the fact. Tilly hurried from her bedroom, threw open the doors and windows, and let the morning breeze blow through her little house. In two minutes a cobfire was roaring in her kitchen stove. In five she had set the table. At her household work Tilly was always bursting out with shrill snatches of song, and as suddenly, stopping, right in the middle of a phrase, as if she had been struck dumb, she emerged upon the back porch with one of these bursts, and bent down to get her butter and cream out of the ice-box. The cat was purring on the bench, and the morning glories were thrusting their purple trumpets through the lattice work in a friendly way. They reminded Tilly that while she was waiting for the coffee to boil, she could get some flowers for her breakfast table. She looked out uncertainly at a bush of sweetbriar that grew at the edge of her yard, off across the long grass and the tomato vines. The front porch, to be sure, was dripping with crimson ramblers that ought to be cut for the good of the vines, but never the rose in the hand for Tilly. She caught up the kitchen shears, and off she dashed through the grass and drenching dew. Snip snip! the short-stemmed sweetbriars, salmon, pink, and golden-hearted, with their unique and inimitable woody perfume, fell into her apron. After she put the eggs and toast on the table, Tilly took last Sunday's New York paper from the rack beside the cupboard, and sat down with it for company. In the Sunday paper there was always a page about singers, even in summer, and that week the musical page began with a sympathetic account of Madame Kronberg's first performance of Esolde in London. At the end of the notice there was a short paragraph about her having sung for the King at Buckingham Palace and having been presented with a jewel by His Majesty. Singing for the King! But goodness! She was always doing things like that. Tilly tossed her head. All through breakfast she kept sticking her sharp nose down into the glass of sweetbriar, with the old incredible lightness of heart, like a child's balloon tugging at its string. She had always insisted, against all evidence, that life was full of fairy tales, and it was. She had been feeling a little down perhaps, and Thea had answered her from so far, from a common person now, if you were troubled you might get a letter. But Thea almost never wrote letters. She answered every one, friends and foes alike, in one way, her own way, her only way. Once more Tilly has to remind herself that it is all true, and is not something she has made up. Like all romances she is a little terrified at seeing one of her wildest conceits admitted by the hard-headed world. If our dream comes true we are almost afraid to believe it, for that is the best of all good fortune, and nothing better can happen to any of us. When the people on Sylvester Street tire of Tilly's stories she goes over to the east part of town, where her legends are always welcome. The humbler people of Moonstone still live there. The same little houses sit under the cotton woods. The men smoke their pipes in the front doorways, and the women do their washing in the backyard. The older women remember Thea, and how she used to come kicking her express wagon along the sidewalk, steering by the tongue and holding the thour in her lap. Not much happens in that part of town, and the people have long memories. A boy grew up on one of those streets who went to Omaha and built up a great business, and is now very rich. Moonstone people always speak of him and Thea together, as examples of Moonstone enterprise. They do, however, talk oftener of Thea. A voice has even wider appeal than a fortune. It is the one gift that all creatures would possess if they could. Dreary Maggie Evans, dead nearly twenty years, is still remembered because Thea sang at her funeral after she had studied in Chicago. However much they may smile at her the old inhabitants would miss Tilly. Her stories give them something to talk about and to conjecture about, cut off as they are from the restless currents of the world. The many naked little sandbars which lie between Venice and the mainland, in the seemingly stagnant water of the lagoons, are made habitable and wholesome only because, every night, a foot and a half of tide creeps in from the sea and winds its fresh brine up through all that network of shiny waterways. So into all the little settlements of quiet people, tidings of what their boys and girls are doing in the world, bring real refreshment, bring to the old memories and to the young dreams. End of Epilogue, recorded by Kate Stirner in Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2013. End of The Song of the Lark by Willa Siebert Cather.