 Part 2. Sections 8 and 9 of The Song of the Larg. 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 Shierping Ling. The Song of the Larg by Willa Cyberg-Cather. Part 2. Sections 8 and 9. Section 8. One Warm Damp June Night. The Denver Express was speeding westward across the earthy-smelling plains of Iowa. The lights in the daycoach were turned low and the ventilators were open, admitting showers of soot and dust upon the occupants of the narrow green plush chairs which were tilted at various angles of discomfort. In each of these chairs, some uncomfortable human being lay drawn up or stretch out or writhing from one position to another. There were tired men in rumpled shirts, their necks bare and their suspenders down. Old women were their heads tied up in black handkerchiefs. Bedraggled young women who went to sleep while they were nursing their babies and forgot to button up their dresses. Dirty boys who added to the general discomfort by taking off their boots. The breakman, when he came through at midnight, sniffed the heavy air disdainfully and looked up at the ventilators. As he glanced down the double rows of contorted figures, he saw one pair of eyes that were wide open and bright, a yellow head that was not overcome by the stupefying heat and smell in the car. There's a girl for you, he thought as he stopped by Thea's chair. Like to have the window up a little, he asked. Thea smiled up at him, not misunderstanding his friendliness. The girl behind me is sick, she can't stand a draft. What time is it, please? He took out his open-faced watch and held it before her eyes with a knowing look. In a hurry, he asked, I'll leave the end door open and air you out, catch a wink, the time will go faster. Thea nodded goodnight to him and settled her head back on her pillow, looking up at the oil lamps. She was going back to Moonstone for her summer vacation and she was sitting up all night in a day coach because that seemed such an easy way to save money. At her age discomfort was a small matter when one made five dollars a day by it. She had confidently expected to sleep after the car got quiet but in the two chairs behind her were a sick girl and her mother and the girl had been coughing steadily since ten o'clock. They had come from somewhere in Pennsylvania and this was their second night on the road. The mother said they were going to Colorado for her daughter's lungs. The daughter was a little older than Thea, perhaps 19, with patient dark eyes and curly brown hair. She was pretty in spite of being so sooty and travel-stained. She had put on an ugly-figured satin kimono over her loosened clothes. Thea, when she boarded the train in Chicago, happened to stop and plant her heavy telescope on this seat. She had not intended to remain there but the sick girl had looked up at her with an eager smile and said, Do sit there, miss. I'd so much rather not have a gentleman in front of me. After the girl began to cough there were no empty seats left and if there had been Thea could scarcely have changed without hurting her feelings. The mother turned on her side and went to sleep. She was used to the cough but the girl lay wide awake. Her eyes fixed on the roof of the car as Thea's were. The two girls must have seen very different things there. Thea fell to going over her winter in Chicago. It was only under unusual or uncomfortable conditions like these that she could keep her mind fixed upon herself or her own affairs for any length of time. The rapid motion and the vibration of the wheels under her seemed to give her thoughts rapidity and clearness. She had taken 20 very expensive lessons from Madison Bowers but she did not yet know what he thought of her or of her ability. He was different from any man with whom she had ever had to do. With her other teachers she had felt a personal relation but with him she did not. Bowers was a cold bitter, avaricious man but he knew a great deal about voices. He worked with a voice as if he were in a laboratory conducting a series of experiments. He was conscientious and industrious even capable of a certain cold fury when he was working with an interesting voice. Bahasani declared that he had the soul of a shrimp and could no more make an artist than a throat specialist could. Thea realized that he had taught her a great deal in 20 lessons. Although she cared so much less for Bowers than for Bahasani Thea was on the whole happier since she had been studying with him than she had been before. She had always told herself that she studied piano to fit herself to be a music teacher but she never asked herself why she was studying voice. Her voice more than any other part of her had to do with that confidence that sense of wholeness and inner wellbeing that she had felt at moments ever since she could remember. Of this feeling Thea had never spoken to any human being until that day when she told Bahasani that there had always been something. Later too she had felt about one obligation toward it secrecy to protect it even from herself. She had always believed that by doing all that was required of her by her family, her teachers, her pupils she kept that part of herself from being caught up in the mashes of common things. She took it for granted that someday when she was older she would know a great deal more about it. It was as if she had an appointment to meet the rest of herself sometime somewhere. It was moving to meet her and she was moving to meet it. That meeting awaited her just as surely us for the poor girl in the seat behind her. There awaited a hole in the earth already dark. For Thea so much had begun with a hole in the earth. Yes, she reflected. This new part of her life had all begun that morning when she sat on the clay bank beside Ray Kennedy under the flickering shade of the cottonwood tree. She remembered the way Ray had looked at her that morning. Why had he cared so much? And Vunch and Dr. Archie and Spanish Johnny why had they? It was something that had to do with her that made them care but it was not she. It was something they believed in but it was not she. Perhaps each of them concealed another person in himself just as she did. Why was it that they seemed to feel and to hunt for a second person in her and not in each other? Thea frowned up at the dull lamp in the roof of the car. What if one's second self could somehow speak to all these second selves? What if one could bring them out as whiskey did Spanish Johnny's? How deep they lay these second persons? And how little one knew about them except to guard them fiercely. It was to music more than to anything else that these hidden things in people responded. Her mother, even her mother, has something of that sort which replied to music. Thea found herself listening for the coughing behind her and not hearing it. She turned cautiously and looked back over the headrest of her chair. The poor girl had fallen asleep. Thea looked at her intently. Why was she so afraid of man? Why did she shrink into herself and avert her face whenever a man passed her chair? Thea thought she knew. Of course, she knew. How horrible to waste a weight like that in a time when one ought to be growing fuller and stronger and rounder every day. Suppose there was such a dark hole open for her between tonight and that place where she was to meet herself. Her eyes narrowed. She put her hand on her breasts and felt how warm it was. And within it there was a full powerful pulsation. She smiled, though she was ashamed of it. With the natural contempt of strength for weakness. With a sense of physical security which makes the savage merciless. Nobody could die while they felt like that inside. The springs there were wound so tight that it would be a long while before there was any slack in them. The life in there was rooted deep. She was going to have a few things before she died. She realized that there were a great many trains dashing east and west on the face of the continent that night. And that they all carried young people who meant to have things. But the difference was that she was going to get them. That was all. Let people try to stop her. She glowed at the rows of feckless bodies that lay sprawled in the chairs. Let them try once. Alone with the yearning that came from some deep part of her that was selfless and exalted. Thea had a hard kind of cockiness, a determination to get ahead. Well, there are passages in life when that fierce stubborn self-assertion will stand its ground after the noble feeling is overwhelmed and beaten under. Having told herself once more that she meant to grab a few things Thea went to sleep. She was wakened in the morning by the sunlight which beat fiercely through the glass of the car window upon her face. She made herself as clean as she could and while the people all about her were getting cold food out of their lunch baskets she escaped into the dining car. Her thrift did not go to the point of enabling her to carry a lunch basket. At that early hour there were few people in the dining car. The linen was white and fresh. The darkies were trim and smiling and the sunlight gleamed pleasantly upon the silver and the glass water bottles. On each table there was a slender vase with a single pink rose in it. When Thea sat down she looked into her rose and thought it the most beautiful thing in the world. It was white open recklessly offering its yellow heart and there were drops of water on the petals. All the future was in that rose, all that one would like to be. The flower put her in an absolutely regal mood. She had a whole pot of coffee and scrambled eggs with chopped ham utterly disregarding the astonishing price they cost. She had faith enough in what she could do. She told herself to have eggs if she wanted them. At the table opposite her said a man and his wife and little boy. Thea classified them as being from the east. They spoke in that quick sure staccato which Thea, like Ray Kennedy, pretended to scorn and secretly admired. People who could use words in that confident way and who spoke them elegantly had a great advantage in life. She reflected. There were so many words which she could not pronounce in speech as she had to do in singing. Language was like clothes. It could be a help to one or it could give one away. But the most important thing was that one should not pretend to be what one was not. When she paid her check she consulted the waiter. Waiter, do you suppose I could buy one of those roses? I'm out of the day coach and there's a sick girl in there. I'd like to take her a cup of coffee and one of those flowers. The waiter liked nothing better than advising travelers less sophisticated than himself. He told Thea there were a few roses left in the ice box and he would get one. He took the flower and a coffee into the day coach. Thea pointed out the girl but she did not accompany him. She hated thanks and never received them gracefully. She stood outside on the platform to get some fresh air into her lungs. The train was crossing the Platte River now and the sunlight was so intense that it seemed to quiver in little flames on the glittering sandbars, the scrub willows and the curling threaded shallows. Thea felt that she was coming back to her own land. She had often heard Mrs. Cromboard said that she believed in immigration and so did Thea believe in it. This earth seemed to her young and fresh and kindly, a place where refugees from old, sad countries were given another chance. The mere absence of rocks gave the soil a kind of immobility and generosity and the absence of natural boundaries gave the spirit a wider range. Wire fences might mark the end of a man's pasture but they could not shut in his thoughts as mountains and forests can. It was over flat lands like this stretching out to drink the sun that the logs sang and one's heart sang there too. Thea was glad that this was her country even if one did not learn to speak elegantly there. It was somehow an honest country and there was a new song in that blue air which had never been sung in the world before. It was hard to tell about it for it had nothing to do with words. It was like the light of the desert at noon or the smell of sagebrush after rain. Intangible but powerful. She had a sense of going back to a friendly soil whose friendship was somehow going to strengthen her. A naive generous country that gave one its joyous force, its large hearted childlike power to love just as it gave one its coarse brilliant flowers. As she drew in that glorious air, Thea's mind went back to Ray Kennedy. He too had that feeling of empire as if all the Southwest really belonged to him because he had knocked about over it so much and knew it as he said like the blisters on his own hands. That feeling she reflected was the real element of companionship between her and Ray. Now that she was going back to Colorado she realized this as she had never done before. Section 9 Thea reached Moonstone in the late afternoon and all the Chromeborgs were there to meet her except her two older brothers. Gus and Charlie were young men now and they had declared at noon that it would look silly if the whole bunch went down to the train. There's no use making a fuss over Thea just because she'd been to Chicago. Charlie warned his mother. She's inclined to think pretty well of herself anyhow. And if you go treating her like company there'll be no living in the house with her. Mrs. Chromeborg simply leveled her eyes at Charlie and he faded away muttering. She had, as Mr. Chromeborg always said, with an inclination of his head, good-controlled over her children. Anna, too, wished to absent herself from the party but in the end her curiosity got the better of her. So when Thea stepped down from the porter's stool a very credible Chromeborg representation was grouped on the platform to greet her. After they had all kissed her Gunner and Axel, Shiley Mr. Chromeborg hurried his flock into the hotel Omnibus in which they were to be driven ceremoniously home with the neighbors looking out of their windows to see them go by. All the family talked to her at once except Thor impressive in new trousers who was gravely silent and who refused to sit on Thea's lap. One of the first things Anna told her was that Maggie Evans, the girl who used to cough in prayer meeting died yesterday and had made a request that Thea sing at her funeral. Thea's smile froze. I'm not going to sing at all this summer except my exercises. Bowers says I taxed my voice last winter singing at funerals so much. If I begin the first day after I get home there'll be no end to it. You can tell them I caught cold on a train or something. Thea saw Anna glance at their mother. Thea remembered having seen that look on Anna's face often before but she had never thought anything about it because she was used to it. Now she realized that the look was distinctly spyful even vindictive. She suddenly realized that Anna had always disliked her. Mrs. Kronborg seemed to notice nothing and changed the trend of the conversation telling Thea that Dr. Archie and Mr. Apin, the juror were both coming in to see her that evening and that she had asked Spanish Johnny to come because he had behaved well all winter and ought to be encouraged. The next morning Thea awakened early in her own room up under the eaves and lay watching the sunlight shine on the roses of a wallpaper. She wondered whether she would ever like a plastered room as well as this one lined with scantlings. It was snug and tight like the cabin of a little boat. Her bed faced the window and stood against the wall under the slant of the ceiling. When she went away she could just touch the ceiling with the tips of her fingers. Now she could touch it with the palm of her hand. It was so little that it was like a sunny cave with roses running all over the roof. Through the low window as she lay there she could watch people going by on the farther side of the street. Men going downtown to open their stores. Thor was over there rattling his express wagon along the sidewalk. Tilly had put a bunch of French pinks in a tumbler of water on her dresser and they gave out a pleasant perfume. The Blue Jays were fighting and screeching in the Cottonwood tree outside her window as they always did and she could hear the old Baptist deacon across the street calling his chickens as she had heard him do every summer morning since she could remember. It was pleasant to waken up in that bed, in that room, and to feel the brightness of the morning while light quivered about the low-papered ceiling in golden spots refracted by the broken mirror and the glass of water that held the pinks. Im Loishtenden, Zoma Morgan Those lines and the face of her old teacher came back to Thea, floated to her out of sleep, perhaps. She had been dreaming something pleasant but she could not remember what. She would go to call upon Mrs. Kohler today and see the pigeons washing their pink feet in a drip under the water tank and flying about their house that was sure to have a fresh coat of white paint on it for summer. On the way home, she would stop to see Mrs. Telemontes. On Sunday she would coax Gunner to take her out to the Sandhills. She had missed them in Chicago, had been home sick for their brilliant morning gold and for their soft colors at evening. The lake somehow had never taken their place. While she lay planning, relaxed in warm drowsiness, she heard a knock at her door. She supposed it was Tilly who sometimes fluttered in on her before she was out of bed to offer some service which the family would have ridiculed. But instead, Mrs. Kronbork herself came in carrying a tray with Thea's breakfast set out on one of the best white napkins. Thea set up with some embarrassment and pulled her nightgown together across her chest. Mrs. Kronbork was always busy downstairs in the morning and Thea could not remember when her mother had come to her room before. I thought you'd be tired after traveling and might like to take it easy for once. Mrs. Kronbork put the tray on the edge of the bed. I took some thick cream for you before the boys got at it. They raised a howl. She chuckled and sat down in the big wooden rocking chair. Her visit made Thea feel grown up and somehow important. Mrs. Kronbork asked her about bowers and the Hassanis. She felt a great change in Thea, in her face and in her manner. Mr. Kronbork had noticed it too and had spoken of it to his wife with great satisfaction while they were undressing last night. Mrs. Kronbork said looking at her daughter who laid on her side supporting herself on her elbow and lazily drinking her coffee from a tray before her. Her short sleeved nightgown had come open at the throat again and Mrs. Kronbork noticed how white her arms and shoulders were as if they had been dipped in new milk. The chest was fuller than when she went away, her breasts rounder and firmer, and though she was so white where she was uncovered, they looked rosy through the thin muslin. Her body had the elasticity that comes of in highly charged with the desire to live. Her hair hanging in two loose braids, one by either cheek, was just enough disordered to catch the light in all its curly ends. Leah always woke with a pink flush on her cheeks and this morning her mother thought she had never seen her eyes so white open and bright like clear green springs in the wood when the early sunlight sparkles in them. She would make a very handsome woman, Mrs. Kronbork said to herself if she would only get rid of that fierce look she had sometimes. Mrs. Kronbork took great pleasure in good looks wherever she found them. She still remembered that as a baby Leah had been the best formed of any of her children. I'll have to get you a longer bed, she remarked, as she put the tray on the table. You're getting too long for that one. Leah looked up at her mother and laughed, dropping back on her pillow with a magnificent stretch of her whole body. Mrs. Kronbork sat down again. I don't like to press you, Leah, but I think you'd better sing at that funeral tomorrow. I'm afraid you'll always be sorry if you don't. Sometimes a little thing like that, that seems nothing at the time, comes back on one afterwards and troubles one a good deal. I don't mean the church shall run you to death this summer like they used to. I've spoken my mind to your father about that and he's very reasonable. But Maggie talked a good deal about you to people this winter, always asked what word we'd had and said how she missed your singing and all. I guess you ought to do that much for her. All right, mother, if you think so. The LA looking at her mother with intensely bright eyes. That's right, daughter. Mrs. Kronbork rose and went over to get the tray, stopping to put her hand on Thea's chest. You are feeling out nice, she said, feeling about. No, I wouldn't butter about the buttons. Leave and stay off. This is a good time to harden your chest. Thea lay still and heard her mother's firm step receding along the bare floor of the trunk loft. There was no shame about her mother, she reflected. Her mother knew a great many things of which she never talked and all the church people were forever chattering about things of which they knew nothing. She liked her mother. Now for Mexican town and the collars. She meant to run in on the old woman without warning and hug her. End of Part 2, Sections 8 and 9, Recording by Shierping Ling. Part 2, Section 10 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 Shierping Ling. The Song of the Lark by Willis Cyberkathar. Part 2, Section 10. Spanish Johnny had no shock of his own but he kept a table and an order book in one corner of the drugstore where paints and wallpaper were sold and he was sometimes to be found there for an hour or so about noon. Thea had gone into the drugstore to have a friendly chat with the proprietor who used to lend her books from his shelves. She found Johnny there, trimming rows of wallpaper for the parlor of Banker Smith's new house. She sat down on the top of his table and watched him. Johnny, she said suddenly, I want you to write down the words of that Mexican serenade you used to sing. You know, Rostate Noche. It's an unusual song. I'm going to study it. I know enough Spanish for that. Johnny looked up from his roller with his bright, affable smile. Si, but it is low for you, I think. Vos Contraldo. It's low for me. Nonsense. I can do more with my low voice than I used to. I'll show you. Sit down and write it out for me, please. Thea beckoned him with the short yellow pencil tied to his water book. Johnny ran his fingers through his curly black hair. If you wish, I do not know if that's serenade or right for young ladies. Down there, it is more for married ladies. They sing it for husbands or somebody else, maybe. Johnny's eyes twinkled and he apologized gracefully with his shoulders. He sat down at the table and while Thea looked over his arm, began to write the song down in a long slanting script with highly ornamental capitals. Presently, he looked up. This a song not exactly Mexican, he said thoughtfully. It come from Father Down, Brazil, Venezuela, maybe. I learned it from some fellow down there and he learned it from another fellow. It is a most like Mexican, but not quite. Thea did not release him but pointed to the paper. There were three verses of the song in all and when Johnny had written them down, he said looking at them meditatively, his head on one side. I don't think for a high voice senorita he objected with polite persistence. How you accompany with piano. Oh, that will be easy enough. For you maybe, Johnny smiled and drummed on the table with the tips of his agile brown fingers. You know something? Listen, I tell you. He rose and sat down on the table beside her, putting his foot on the chair. He loved to talk at the hour of noon. When you was a little girl, no bigger than that. You come to my house one day about noon like this and I was in the door playing guitar. You was bare head, bare foot. You run away from home. You stand there and make a frown at me and listen. Bye-bye, you say for me to sing. I sing some little thing and then I say for you to sing with me. You don't know no words, of course, but you take the air and you sing it just a beautiful. I never see a child do that outside Mexico. You was, oh, I don't know, seven year maybe. Bye-bye, the preacher come look for you and begin for scold. I said, don't scold Master Kronborg. She come for hear guitar. She got some music in her, that child. Where she get? Then he tell me about your grandpa play oboe in the old country. I never forget that time. Johnny chuckled softly. Theon nodded. I remember that day too. I liked your music better than the church music. When are you going to have a dance over there, Johnny? Johnny tilted his head. Well, Saturday night the Spanish boys have a little party, some danza. You know Miguel Ramos? He have some young cousins. Two boys, very nice come from Torreón. They going to Salt Lake for some jaba and stay off with him two, three days and he must have a party. You like to come? That was how Thea came to go to the Mexican ball. Mexican town had been increased by half a dozen new families during the last few years and the Mexicans had put up an adobe dance hall that looked exactly like one of their own dwellings except that it was a little longer and was so unpretentious that nobody in Moonstone knew of its existence. The Spanish boys are reticent about their own affairs. Ray Kennedy used to know about all their little doings but since his death there was no one whom the Mexicans considered sympathical. On Saturday evening after supper Thea told her mother that she was going over to Mrs. Telemontes' to watch the Mexicans dance for a while and that Johnny would bring her home. Mrs. Crombroke smiled. She noticed that Thea had put on a white dress and had done her hair up with unusual care and that she carried her best blue scarf. Maybe you'll take a turn yourself, huh? I wouldn't mind watching them Mexicans. They're lovely dancers. Thea made a feeble suggestion that her mother might go with her but Mrs. Crombroke was too wise for that. She knew that Thea would have a better time if she went alone and she watched her daughter go out of the gate and down the sidewalk that led to the depot. Thea walked slowly. It was a soft rosy evening. The sandhills were lavender. The sun had gone down a glowing copper disc and the fleecy clouds in the east were a burning rose color, blacked with gold. Thea passed the Cottonwood Grove and then the depot where she left the sidewalk and took the sandy path toward Mexican town. She could hear the scraping of violins being tuned, the tinkle of mandolins and the growl of a double bass. Where had they got a double bass? She did not know there was one in Moonstone. She found later that it was the property of one of Roma's young cousins who was taking it to Utah with him to cheer him at his Jabba. The Mexicans never wait until it is dark to begin to dance and Thea had no difficulty in finding the new hall because every other house in the town was deserted. Even the babies had gone to the ball. A neighbor was always willing to hold the baby while the mother danced. Mrs. Telemantes came out to meet Thea and let her in. Johnny bowed to her from the platform at the end of the room where he was playing the mandolin along with two fiddles and the bass. The hall was a long, low room with white-washed walls, a fairly tight plank floor, wooden benches along the sides and a few bracket lamps screwed to the frame timbers. There must have been 50 people there counting the children. The Mexican dancers were very much family affairs. The fathers always danced again and again with their little daughters as well as with their wives. One of the girls came up to greet Thea, her dark cheeks glowing with pleasure and cordiality and introduced her brother with whom she had just been dancing. You better take him every time he asked you, she whispered. He's the best dancer here, except Johnny. Thea soon decided that the poorest dancer was herself. Even Mrs. Delamondes, who always held her shoulders so stiffly, danced better than she did. The musicians did not remain long at their post. When one of them felt like dancing, he called some other boy to take his instrument, put on his coat and went down on the floor. Johnny, who wore a blousy white silk shirt, did not even put on his coat. The dances the railroad man gave in Fireman's Hall were the only dances Thea had ever been allowed to go to and they were very different from this. The boys played rough jokes and thought it smart to be clumsy and to run into each other on the floor. For the square dances, there was always the bawling voice of the caller who was also the county auctioneer. This Mexican dance was soft and quiet. There was no calling. The conversation was very low. The rhythm of the music was smooth and engaging. The men were graceful and courteous. Some of them Thea had never before seen out of their working clothes, smeared with grease from the roundhouse or clay from the brickyard. Sometimes, when the music happened to be a popular Mexican waltz song, the dancers sang it softly as they moved. There were three little girls under 12 in their first communion dresses and one of them had an orange marigold in her black hair just over her ear. They danced with the men and with each other. There was an atmosphere of ease and friendly pleasure in the low dimly lit room. And Thea could not help wondering whether the Mexicans had no jealousies or neighborly grudges as the people in Moonstone had. There was no constraint of any kind there tonight but a kind of natural harmony about their movements, their greetings, their low conversation, their smiles. Ramos brought up his two young cousins, Silvo and Felipe, and presented them. They were handsome, smiling youths of 18 and 20 with pale gold schemes, smooth cheeks, aquiline features and wavy black hair like Johnny's. They were dressed alike in black velvet jackets and soft silk shirts with opal shirt buttons and flowing black ties looped through gold rings. They had charming manners and low guitar-like voices. They knew almost no English but a Mexican boy can pay a great many compliments with a very limited vocabulary. The Ramos boys thought Thea dazzlingly beautiful. They had never seen a Scandinavian girl before and her hair and fair skin bewitched them. Blanco y yolo, semejante la pascua, white and gold like Easter, they exclaimed to each other. Silvo, the younger, declared that he could never go on to Utah, that he and his double base had to reach their ultimate destination. The elder was more crafty. He asked Miguel Ramos whether there would be plenty more girls like that or solid leg, maybe. Silvo, overhearing, gave his brother a contemptuous glance. Plenty more apalesco, maybe, he retorted. When they were not dancing with her, their eyes followed her over the coiffures of their other partners. That was not difficult. One blond head moving among so many dark ones. Thea had not meant to dance much, but the Ramos boys danced so well and were so handsome and adoring that she yielded to their entreaties. When she sat out a dance with them, they talked to her about their family at home and told her how their mother had once punged upon their name. Rama, in Spanish, meant a branch. They explained. Once when there were little lads, their mother took them along when she went to help the women decorate the church for Issa. Someone asked her whether she had brought any flowers and she replied that she had brought her Ramos. This was evidently a cherished family story. When it was nearly midnight, Johnny announced that everyone was going to his house to have some little ice creams and some little music. He began to put out the lights and Mrs. Telemontes led the way across the square to her casa. The Rama's brothers escorted Thea and as they stepped out of the door, Suvo exclaimed, a se frio and threw his velvet coat about her shoulders. Most of the company followed Mrs. Telemontes and they sat about on the gravel in her little yard while she and Johnny and Mrs. Miguel Ramos served the ice cream. Thea sat on Felipe's coat since Suvo's was already about her shoulders. The youths lay down on the shining gravel beside her, one on her right and one on her left. Johnny already called them los acolitos, the outer boys. The talk all about them was low and indolent. One of the girls was playing on Johnny's guitar, another was picking lightly at the mandolin. The moonlight was so bright that one could see every glance and smile and the flash of their teeth. The moon flowers over Mrs. Telemontes' door were white open and often unearthly white. The moon itself looked like a great pale flower in the sky. After all the ice cream was gone, Johnny approached Thea, his guitar under his arm and the elder Ramos boy politely gave up his place. Johnny sat down, took a long breath, struck a fierce chord and then hushed it with his other hand. Now we have some little serenade, eh? You want to try? When Thea began to sing, instant silence fell upon the company. She felt all those dark eyes fix themselves upon her intently. She could see them shine. The faces came out of the shadow like the white flowers over the door. Felipe leaned his head upon his hand. Silver dropped on his back and lay looking at the moon under the impression that he was still looking at Thea. When she finished the first verse, Thea whispered to Johnny, Again, I can do it better than that. She had sung for churches and funerals and teachers, but she had never before sung for a really musical people. And this was the first time she had ever felt the response that such a people can give. They turned themselves and all they had over to her. For the moment they cared about nothing in the world but what she was doing. Their faces confronted her, open, eager, unprotected. She felt as if all these warm-blooded people debouched into her. Mrs. Telemontes' fateful resignation, Johnny's madness, the adoration of the boy who laid still in the sand. In an instant, these things seemed to be within her instead of without, as if they had come from her in the first place. When she finished, her listeners broke into excited murmur. The man began hunting feverishly for cigarettes. Famous Serranos, the baritone bricklayer, touched Johnny's arm, gave him a questioning look, then heaved a deep sigh. Johnny dropped on his elbow, wiping his face and neck and hands with his handkerchief. Senorita, he painted, If you sing like that once in the city of Mexico, they just go crazy. In the city of Mexico, they end up sit like stumps when they hear that. Not that much. When they like, they just give you the town. Thea laughed. She too was excited. Think so, Johnny? Come, sing something with me. El Paleno, I haven't sung that for a long time. Johnny laughed and hugged his guitar. You not to forget him? He began teasing his strings. Come, he threw back his head. Anoche, Anoche me confesse con un padre carmelite y me dio pendencia que pesaras tu poquita. Last night I made confession with a calm unlike father, and he gave me absolution for the kisses you imprinted. Johnny had almost every fault that a tenor can have. His voice was thin, unsteady, husky in the middle tones, but it was distinctly a voice, and sometimes he managed to get something very sweet out of it. Certainly it made him happy to sing. Thea kept glancing down at him as he laid there on his elbow. His eyes seemed twice as large as usual and had lights in them like those the moonlight makes on black running water. Thea remembered the old stories about his spells. She had never seen him when his madness was on him, but she felt something tonight at her elbow that gave her an idea of what it might be like. For the first time she fully understood the cryptic explanation that Mrs. Telemantes had made to Dr. Archie long ago. There were the same shells along the walk. She believed she could pick out the very one. There was the same moon up yonder, and panting at her elbow was the same Johnny, fooled by the same old things. When they had finished, Famos, the baritone, murmured something to Johnny, who replied, Sure, we can sing Trava Dole. We have no alto, but all the girls can sing alto and make some noise. The women laughed. Mexican women of the poor class do not sing like the men. Perhaps they are too indolent. In the evening, when the men are singing their throes dry on the doorstep or around the campfire beside the work train, the women usually sit and calm their hair. While Johnny was gesticulating and telling everybody what to sing and how to sing it, Thea put out her foot and touched the corpse of Silva with the toe of her slipper. Aren't you going to sing, Silva? She asked, teasingly. The boy turned on his side and raised himself on his elbow for a moment. Not this night, Sr. Lita. He pleaded softly. Not this night. He dropped back again and lay with his cheek on his right arm, the hand lying passive on the sand above his head. How does he flatten himself into the ground like that? Thea asked herself, I wish I knew. It's very effective somehow. Across the gulch, the cola's little house slapped among its trees, a dark spot on the white face of the desert. The windows of their upstairs bedroom were open and Polina had listened to the dance music for a long while before she drowsed off. She was a light sleeper and when she woke again after midnight, Johnny's concert was at its height. She lay still until she could bear it no longer. Then she wakened Fritz and they went over to the window and leaned out. They could hear clearly there. Di Thea, whispered Mrs. Cola, it must be. Ah, Wunderschon. Fritz was not so wide awake as his wife. He grunted and scratched on the floor with his bare foot. They were listening to a Mexican part song, the tenor, then the soprano, then both together. The baritone joins them, rages, is extinguished, the tenor expires in solace and the soprano finishes alone. When the soprano's last note died away, Fritz nodded to his wife. Ya, he said, shon. There was silence for a few moments. Then the guitar sounded fiercely and several male voices began the sextet from Lucia. Johnny's 3D tenor, they knew well and the bricklayer's big opaque baritone. The others might be anybody over there, just Mexican voices. Then, at the appointed, at the acute moment, the soprano voice, like a fountain jet, shot up into the light. Oh, oh, the old people whispered both at once. How it leaped from among those dusky male voices, how it played in and about and around and over them, like a goldfish darting among creek minnows, like a yellow butterfly, soaring above a swarm of dark ones. Ah, said Mrs. Kohler softly, the dear man, if he could hear her now. End of Part 2, Section 10, recording by Shierping Lin. Part 2, Section 11, 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 Shierping Lin. The Song of the Lark by Willis Cybert Cather. Part 2, Section 11, Mrs. Cromborg had said that Thea was not to be disturbed on Sunday morning and she slept until noon. When she came downstairs, the family were just sitting down to dinner. Mr. Cromborg at one end of the long table, Mrs. Cromborg at the other. Anna, stiff and ceremonious, in her summer silk, sat at her father's right and the boys were strung alone on either side of the table. There was a place left for Thea between her mother and Thor. During the silence which preceded the blessing, Thea felt something uncomfortable in the air. Anna and her older brothers had lowered their eyes when she came in. Mrs. Cromborg nodded cheerfully and after the blessing, as she began to pour the coffee, turned to her. I expect you had a good time at that dance, Thea. I hope you got your sleep out. High society that, remarked Charlie, giving the mashed potatoes a vicious swat. Anna's mouth and eyebrows became half moons. Thea looked across the table at the uncompromising countenances of her older brothers. Why? What's the matter with the Mexicans? She asked, flushing. They don't trouble anybody and they are kind to their families and have good manners. Nice clean people got some style about them. Do you really like that kind, Thea? Or do you just pretend to? That's what I like to know. Gus looked at her with pained inquiry, but he at least looked at her. They're just as clean as white people and they have a perfect right to their own ways. Of course I like them. I don't pretend things. Everybody according to their own taste remarked Charlie bitterly, quit crumming your bread up Thor and you learned how to eat yet? Children, children, said Mr. Kronborg nervously, looking up from the chicken he was dismembering. He glanced at his wife, whom he expected to maintain harmony in the family. That's alright Charlie, drop it there, said Mrs. Kronborg. No use spoiling your Sunday dinner with race prejudices. The Mexicans suit me and Thea very well. They are useful people. Now you can just talk about something else. Conversation, however, did not flourish at that dinner. Everybody ate as fast as possible. Charlie and Gus said they had engagements and left the table as soon as they finished their apple pie. Anna said primely and ate with great elegance. When she spoke at all she spoke to her father about church matters and always in a commiserating tone as if he had met with some misfortune. Mr. Kronborg, quite innocent of her intentions, replied kindly and absent-mindedly. After the dessert he went to take his usual Sunday afternoon nap and Mrs. Kronborg carried some dinner to a sick neighbor. Thea and Anna began to clear the table. I should think you will show more consideration for father's position, Thea. Anna began as soon as she and her sister were alone. Thea gave her a sight-long glance. Why? What have I done to father? Everybody at Sunday school was talking about you going over there and singing with the Mexicans all night when you won't sing for the church. Somebody hurt you and told it all over town. Of course we all get the blame for it. Anything disgraceful about singing? Thea asked with a provoking yawn. I must say you choose your company. You always had that streak in you, Thea. We all hoped that going away would improve you. Of course it reflects on father when you are scarcely polite to the nice people here and make up to the rowdies. Oh, it's my singing where the Mexicans you object to. Thea put down a tray full of dishes. Well, I like to sing over there and I don't like to over here. I'll sing for them any time they ask me to. They know something about what I'm doing. They are talented people. Talented! Anna made the word sound like escaping steam. I suppose you think it's smart to come home and throw that at your family. Thea picked up the tray. By this time she was as white as the Sunday tablecloth. Well, she replied in a cold, even tone. I'll have to throw it at them sooner or later. It's just a question of when and it might as well be now as any time. She carried the tray blindly into the kitchen. Tilly, who was always listening and looking out for her, took the dishes from her with a furtive frightened glance at her stony face. Thea went slowly up the back stairs to her loft. Her legs seemed as heavy as lead as she climbed the stairs and she felt as if everything inside her had solidified and grown hard. After shutting her door and locking it, she sat down on the edge of her bed. This place had always been her refuge, but there was a hostility in the house now which this door could not shut out. This would be her last summer in that room. Its services were over. Its time was done. She rose and put her hand on the low ceiling. Two tears ran down her cheeks as if they came from ice that melded slowly. She was not ready to leave her little shell. She was being pulled out too soon. She would never be able to think anywhere else as well as here. She would never sleep so well or have such dreams in any other bed. Even last night, such sweet, breathless dreams. Thea hit her face in the pillow. Wherever she went, she would like to take that little bed with her. When she went away from it for good, she would leave something that she could never recover. Memories of pleasant excitement, of happy adventures in her mind, of warm sleep on howling winter nights, and joyous awakenings on summer mornings. There were certain dreams that might refuse to come to her at all except in a little morning cave facing the sun where they came to her so powerfully where they beat a triumph in her. The room was hot as an oven. The sun was beating fiercely on the shingles behind the board ceiling. She undressed and before she threw herself upon her bed in her chemise, she frowned at herself for a long while in her looking glass. Yes, she and it must fight it out together. The thing that looked at her out of her own eyes was the only friend she could count on. Oh, she would make these people sorry enough. There would come a time when they would want to make it up with her. But never again. She had no little fantasies, only one big one, and she would never forgive. Her mother was all right, but her mother was a part of the family, and she was not. In the nature of things, her mother had to be on both sides. Thea felt that she had been betrayed. A truce had been broken behind her back. She had never had much individual affection for any of her brothers except Thor, but she had never been disloyal, never felt scorn or held grudges. As a little girl, she had always been good friends with Gunnar and Axel whenever she had time to play. Even before she got her own room, when they were all sleeping and dressing together like little cups and breakfasting in the kitchen, she had led an absorbing personal life of her own, but she had a cup loyalty to the other cups. She thought them nice boys and tried to make them get their lessons. She once fought a bully who picked on Axel at school. She never made fun of Anna's crimpings and curling and beauty rights. Thea had always taken it for granted that her sister and brothers recognized that she had special abilities and that they were proud of it. She had done them the honor. She told herself bitterly to believe that though they had no particular endowments, they were of her kind and not of the Moonstone kind. Now they had all grown up and become persons. They faced each other as individuals and she saw that Anna and Gus and Charlie were among the people whom she had always recognized as her natural enemies. Their ambitions and sacred proprieties were meaningless to her. She had neglected to congratulate Charlie upon having been promoted from the grocery department of Cummings store to the dry goods department. Her mother had reproved her for this omission. And how was she to know? Thea asked herself that Anna expected to be teased because bird rice now came and sat in a hammock with her every night. No, it was all clear enough. Nothing that she would ever do in the world would seem important to them and nothing they would ever do would seem important to her. Thea laid thinking intently all through the stifling afternoon till he whispered something outside her door once but she did not answer. She lay on her bed until the second church bell rang and she saw the family go trooping up the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Anna and her father in the lead. Anna seems to have taken on a very storybook attitude toward her father patronizing and condescending. It seemed to Thea. The older boys were not in the family band. They now took their girls to church. Tilly had stayed at home to get supper. Thea got up, washed her hot face and arms and put on the white organ D dress she had worn last night. It was getting too small for her and she might as well wear it out. After she was dressed, she unlocked her door and went cautiously downstairs. She felt as if chilling hostilities might be awaiting her in a trunk loft on the stairway almost anywhere. In the dining room she found Tilly sitting by the open window reading the dramatic news in a Denver Sunday paper. Tilly kept a scrapbook in which she paced clippings about actors and actresses. Come look at this picture of Pauline Hall in tights. Thea, she called. And she cued. It's too bad you didn't go to the theater more when you was in Chicago. Such a good chance. Didn't you even get to see Clara Morris or Matjeska? No, I didn't have time. Besides, it cost money, Tilly. Thea replied warily, glancing at the paper Tilly held out to her. Tilly looked up at her knees. Don't you go and be upset about any of Anna's notions. She is one of these narrow kind. Your father and mother don't pay any attention to what she says. Anna's fussy. She is with me, but I don't mind her. Oh, I don't mind her. That's all right, Tilly. I guess I'll take a walk. Thea knew that Tilly hoped she would stay and talk to her for a while and she would have liked to please her. But in a house as small as that one, everything was too intimate and mixed up together. The family was the family. An inter-growth thing. One couldn't discuss Anna there. She felt differently toward the house and everything in it, as if the battered old furniture that seemed so kindly and the old carpets on which she had played had been nourishing a secret grudge against her and were not to be trusted any more. She went aimlessly out of the front gate, not knowing what to do with herself. Mexican town somehow was spoiled for her just then and she felt that she would hide if she saw a sylvo or Felipe coming toward her. She walked down through the empty main street. All the stores were closed. They are blinds down. On the steps of the bank some idol boys were sitting, telling disgusting stories because there was nothing else to do. Several of them had gone to school with Thea, but when she nodded to them they hung their heads and did not speak. Thea's body was often curiously expressive of what was going on in her mind. And tonight there was something in her walk and carriage that made these boys feel that she was stuck up. If she had stopped and talked to them, they would have thawed out on the instant and would have been friendly and grateful. But Thea was hurt afresh and walked on, holding her chin higher than ever. As she passed the Duke block, she saw a light in Dr. Archie's office and she went up the stairs and opened the door into his study. She found him with a pile of papers and account books before him. He pointed her to her old chair at the end of his desk and leaned back in his own, looking at her with satisfaction. How handsome she was growing. I'm still chasing the elusive metal, Thea. He pointed to the papers before him. I'm up to my neck in mines and I'm going to be a rich man someday. I hope you're well, awfully rich. That's the only thing that counts. She looked restlessly about the consulting room. To do any of the things one wants to do, one has to have lots and lots of money. Dr. Archie was direct. What's the matter? Do you need some? Thea shrugged. Oh, I can get alone in a little way. She looked intently out of the window at the Ark street lamp that was just beginning to sputter. But it's silly to live at all for little things. She added quietly. Living's too much trouble unless one can get something big out of it. Dr. Archie rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, dropped his chin on his clasped hands and looked at her. Living is no trouble for little people, believe me, he exclaimed. What do you want to get out of it? Oh, so many things. Thea sugared. But what? Money? You mentioned that. Well, you can make money if you care about that more than anything else. He nodded prophetically above his interlacing fingers. But I don't. That's only one thing. Anyhow, I couldn't if I did. She pulled her dress lower at the neck as if she were suffocating. I only want impossible things, she said roughly. The others don't interest me. Dr. Archie watched her contemplatively as if she were a beaker full of chemicals working. A few years ago, when she used to sit there, the light from under his green lampshade used to fall full upon her broad face and yellow pigtails. Now her face was in the shadow and the line of light fell below her bare throat, directly across her bosom. The shrunken white organee rose and fell as if she were struggling to be free and to break out of it altogether. She felt that her heart must be laboring heavily in there, but he was afraid to touch her. He was indeed. He had never seen her like this before. Her hair piled high on her head, gave her a commanding look and her eyes that used to be so inquisitive or stormy. Thea, he said slowly, I won't say that you can have everything you want. That means having nothing in reality. If you decide what it is you want most, you can get it. His eyes caught hers for a moment. Not everybody can, but you can. Only if you want a big thing, you've got to have nerve enough to cut out all that's easy, everything that's to be had cheap. Dr. Archie paused. He picked up a paper cutter and, filling the edge of it softly with his fingers, he added slowly as if to himself. He either fears his fate too much or his desserts are small. Who dares not put it to the touch, to wing or lose it all? Thea's lips parted. She looked at him from under a frown, searching his face. Do you mean to break loose too and do something? She asked in a low voice. I mean to get rich if you call that doing anything. I found what I can do without. You make such bargains in your mind first. Thea sprang up and took the paper cutter he had put down, twisting it in her hands. A long while first sometimes she said with a short laugh. But suppose one can never get out what they've got in them. Suppose they make a mess of it in the end, then what? She threw the paper cutter on the desk and took a step toward the doctor until her dress touched him. She stood looking down at him. Oh, it's easy to fail. She was breathing through her mouth and her throat was throbbing with excitement. As he looked up at her, Dr. Archie's hands tightened on the arms of his chair. He had thought he knew Thea Cromborg pretty well, but he did not know the girl who was standing there. She was beautiful, as his little sweet had never been, as she frightened him. Her pale cheeks, her parted lips, her flashing eyes seemed suddenly to mean one thing. He did not know what. A light seemed to break upon her from far away, or perhaps from far within. She seemed to grow taller, like a scarf drawn out long. Looked as if she were pursued and fleeing, and yes, she looked tormented. It's easy to fail, he heard her say again. And if I fail, you'd better forget about me, for I'll be one of the worst women that ever lived. I'll be an awful woman. In a shadowy light above the lame shade, he caught her glance again and held it for a moment. Wild as her eyes were, that yellow gleam at the back of them was as hard as a diamond drill point. He rose with a nervous laugh and dropped his hand lightly on her shoulder. No, you won't. You'll be a splendid one. She shook him off before he could say anything more and went out of his door with a kind of bound. She left so quickly and so lightly that he could not even hear her footsteps in the hallway outside. Archie dropped back into his chair and sat motionless for a long while. So it went. One loved, a quaint little girl, cheerful, industrious, always on the run and hustling through her tasks and suddenly one lost her. He had thought he knew that child like the glove on his hand, but about this tall girl who threw up her head and glittered like that all over, he knew nothing. She was scolded by desires, ambitions, revolutions that were dark to him. One thing he knew, a road of life, worn safe and easy, hugging the sunny slopes, but scarcely hold her again. After that night, Thea could have asked pretty much anything of him. He could have refused her nothing. Years ago, a crafty little bunch of hair and smiles had shown him what she wanted and he had promptly married her. Tonight, a very different sort of girl, driven by doubts and youth, by poverty and riches, had let him see the fierceness of her nature. She went out still distraught, not knowing or caring what she had shown him, but to Archie, knowledge of that sort was obligation. Oh, he was the same old Howard Archie. That Sunday in July was the turning point. Thea's peace of mind did not come back. She found it hard even to practice at home. There was something in the air there that froze her throat. In the morning, she walked as far as she could walk. In the hot afternoons, she laid on her bed in her nightgown, planning fiercely. She hounded the post office. She must have worn the path in the sidewalk that led to the post office that summer. She was there the moment the male sacks came up from the depot morning and evening. And while the letters were being sorted and distributed, she paced up and down outside, under the cottonwood trees, listening to the thump, thump, thump of Mr. Thompson's stamp. She hung upon any sort of word from Chicago, a card from Bowers, a letter from Mrs. Hasani, from Mr. Lawson, from her landlady, anything to reassure her that Chicago was still there. She began to feel the same restlessness that had tortured her the last spring when she was teaching in Moonstone. Suppose she never got away again after all. Suppose one broke a leg and had to lay in bed at home for weeks, or had pneumonia and died there. The desert was so big and thirsty. If one's foot slipped, it could drink one up like a drop of water. This time, when Thea left Moonstone to go back to Chicago, she went along. As the train pulled out she looked back at her mother and father and Thor. They were calm and cheerful. They did not know. They did not understand. Something pulled in her and broke. She cried all the way to Denver and that night in her birth but when the sun rose in the morning she was far away. It was all behind her and she knew that she would never cry like that again. People live through such pain only once. Pain comes again, but it finds a tougher surface. Thea remembered how she had gone away the first time with what confidence in everything and what pitiful ignorance. That's just silly. She felt resentful toward the stupid, good-natured child how much older she was now and how much harder. She was going away to fight and she was going away forever. End of Part 2 Section 11 Recording by Sierpingne Part 3, Chapter 1 of 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 Denise Nordell The Song of the Lark by Willis Siebert Cather Part 3, Stupid Faces Chapter 1 So many grinning, stupid faces. Thea was sitting by the window in Bowser's studio waiting for him to come back from lunch. On her knee was the latest number of an illustrated musical journal in which musicians great and little people readily advertised their wares. Every afternoon she played accompaniments for people who looked and smiled like these. She was getting tired of the human countenance. Thea had been in Chicago for two months. She had a small church position which partly paid her living expenses and she paid for her singing lessons by playing Bowser's accompaniments every afternoon from two until six. She had been compelled to leave her old friends Mrs. Larch and Mrs. Anderson because of the long ride from Chicago to Bowser's studio on Michigan Avenue took too much time an hour in the morning and at night when the cars were crowded, an hour and a half. For the first month she had clung to her old room but the bad air in the cars at the end of the long day's work fatigued her greatly and was bad for her voice. Since she left Mrs. Larch she had been staying at a students club to which she was introduced by Miss Adler Bowser's morning accompanist an intelligent Jewish girl from Evanston. Thea took her lesson from Bowers every day from eleven thirty until twelve then she went out to lunch with an Italian grammar under her arm and came back to the studio to begin her work at two. In the afternoon Bowers coached professionals and taught his advanced pupils. It was his theory that Thea ought to be able to learn a great deal by keeping her ears open while she played for him. The concert going public of Chicago still remembers the long sallow discontented face of Madison Bowers. He seldom missed an evening concert and was usually to be seen lounging somewhere at the back of the concert hall reading a newspaper or review and conspicuously ignoring the efforts of the performers. At the end of a number he looked up from his paper long enough to sweep the applauding audience with a contemptuous eye. His face was intelligent with a narrow lower jaw, a thin nose faded gray eyes and a close cut brown moustache. His hair was iron gray, thin and dead looking. He went to concerts chiefly to satisfy himself as to how badly things were done and how gullible the public was. He hated the whole race of artists the work they did, the wages they got and the way they spent their money. His father, old Hyrum Bowers was still alive and at work a genial old choir master in Boston full of enthusiasm at 70. But Madison was of the colder stuff of his grandfathers a long line of New Hampshire farmers hard workers, close traders with good minds, mean natures and flinty eyes. As a boy Madison had a fine baritone voice and his father made great sacrifices for him, sending him to Germany at an early age and keeping him abroad at his studies for years. Madison worked under the best teachers and afterwards sang in England in oratorio. His cold nature and academic methods were against him. His audiences were always aware of the contempt for them. A dozen poor singers succeeded but Bowers did not. Bowers had all the qualities which go to make a good teacher except generosity and warmth. His intelligence was of a high order his taste never at fault. He seldom worked with a voice without improving it and in teaching the delivery of oratorio he was without arrival. Singers came from far and near to study Bach and handle with him. Even the fashionable sopranos and traltos of Chicago, St. Paul and St. Louis, they were usually ladies with very rich husbands and Bowers called them the pampered jades of Asia. Humbly endured his sardonic humor for the sake of what he could do for them. He was not at all above helping a very lame singer across if her husband's checkbook warranted it. He had a whole bag of tricks for stupid people, life preservers he called them. Cheap repairs for a cheap one he used to say Those were the days when Lumberman's daughters and Brewer's wives contended in song, studying in Germany and then floated from Sangerfest to Sangerfest. Coral societies flourished in all the rich lake cities and river cities. The soloists came to Chicago to coach with Bowers and he often took long journeys to hear and instruct a chorus. He was intensely avaricious and from these semi-professionals he reaped a golden harvest. They fed his pockets and they fed his contempt, his scorn of himself and his accomplices. The more money he made, the more parsimonious he became. His wife was so shabby that she never went anywhere with him, which suited him exactly. Because his clients were luxurious and extravagant, he took a revengeful pleasure in having his shoes half sold a second time and in getting the last wear out of a broken collar. He had first been interested in Thea Cronberg because of her kindness about money. The mention of Harrison's name always made him pull a rye face. For the first time Thea had a friend who, in his own cool and guarded way, liked her for whatever was least admirable in her. Thea was still looking at the musical paper, her grammar unopened on the windowsill when Bowers sauntered in a little before two o'clock. He was smoking a cheap cigarette and wore the same soft-felt hat he had worn all last winter. Thea followed him from the reception room into the studio. I may cut my lesson out tomorrow, Mr. Bowers. I have to hunt a new boarding-place." Bowers looked up languidly from his desk where he had begun to go over a pile of papers. What's the matter with the studio club? Been fighting with them again? The club's all right for people who'd like to live that way. I don't. Bowers lifted his eyebrows. Why so temporary, he asked as he drew a check from an envelope in Minneapolis. I can't work with a lot of girls around. They're too familiar. I never could get along with girls of my own age. It's all too chummy. Gets on my nerves. I didn't come here to play kindergarten games. Thea began energetically to arrange the scattered music on the piano. Bowers grimaced good-naturedly at her over the three checks he was pinning together. He liked to play a rough game of banter with her. He came to him that he had got off a little of the sugar-coating he always put on his pupils. The art of making yourself agreeable never comes amiss, Miss Cronberg. I should say you rather need a little practice along that line. When you come to marketing your wares in the world a little smoothness goes farther than a great deal of talent sometimes. If you happen to be cursed with a real talent then you've got to be very smooth indeed or you'll never get your money back. Bowers snapped at him. Thea gave him a sharp recognizing glance. Well, that's the money I'll have to go without," she replied. Just what do you mean? I mean the money people have to grin for. I used to know a railman who said there was money in every profession that you couldn't take. He tried a good many jobs, Thea added musingly. Perhaps he was too particular about the kind he could take, for he never picked up much. He was proud, but I liked him for that. Bowers rose and closed late again. By the way, Miss Cronberg, remember not to frown when you were playing for Mrs. Priest. You did not remember yesterday. You mean when she hits a tone with her breath like that? Why do you let her? You wouldn't let me. I certainly would not, but that is a mannerism of Mrs. Priests. The public like it and they pay a great deal of money for the pleasure of hearing her do it. There she is. Remember. Bowers opened the door of the reception room and a tall imposing chair of animation which pervaded the room as if half a dozen persons all talking gaily had come in instead of one. She was large, handsome, expansive, uncontrolled. One felt this the moment she crossed the threshold. She shone with care and cleanliness, mature vigor, unchallenged authority, gracious good humor, and absolute confidence in her person, her powers, her position, and her way of life. A glowing, overwhelming self-satisfaction, only to be found where human society is young and strong and without yesterdays. Her face had a kind of heavy thoughtless beauty, like a pink peony just at the point of beginning to fade. Her brown hair was waved in front and done up behind in a great twist, held by a tortoise-shell comb and gold filigree. She wore a beautiful little green hat with three long green feathers sticking straight up in front, a little cape made of velvet and fur with a yellow set and rose on it. Her bluffs, her shoes, her veil somehow made themselves felt. She gave the impression of wearing a cargo of splendid merchandise. Mrs. Priest nodded graciously to Thea, coquettishly to Bowers, and asked him to untie her veil for her. She threw her splendid wrap on a chair, the yellow lining out. Thea was already at the piano. Mrs. Priest stood behind her. Rejoice greatly first, please, and please don't hurry it in as she dedicated the passage by a sweep of her white glove. She threw out her chest, clasped her hands over her abdomen, lifted her chin, worked the muscles of her cheeks back and forth for a moment, and then began with conviction. Rejoice! Rejoice! Bowers paced the room with his cat-like tread. When he checked Mrs. Priest's vehemence all at once, he handled her roughly, poked and hammered her massive person with cold satisfaction, almost as taking out a grudge on this splendid creation. Such treatment the imposing lady did not at all resent. She tried harder and harder, her eyes growing all the while more lustrous, and her lips redder. Thea played on as she was told, ignoring the singer's struggles. When she first heard Mrs. Priest sing in church, Thea admired her. Since she had found out how dull the good-natured soprano really was, she felt a deep contempt for her. She felt that Priest ought to be reproved and even punished for her shortcomings, that she ought to be exposed at least to herself and not be permitted to live and shine in happy ignorance of what a poor thing it was she brought across so radiantly. Thea's cold looks of reproof were lost upon Mrs. Priest, although the lady did murmur one day, when she took Bowers home in her carriage, how handsome your afternoon girl would be if she did not have that unfortunate squint. It gives her that vacant sweet-look like an animal. That is the beauty of Bowers. He liked to watch the germination and growth of antipathies. One of the first disappointments Thea had to face when she returned to Chicago that fall was the news that the Harsanis were not coming back. They had spent the summer in a camp in the Adirondacks and were moving to New York. An old teacher and friend of Harsanis, one of the best-known piano teachers in New York, was about to retire because of failing health and had arranged a concert tour. Thea was to give two recitals in New York in November to devote himself to his new students until spring, and then go on to a short concert tour. The Harsanis had taken a furnished apartment in New York, and they would not attempt to settle a place of their own until Anders' recitals were over. The first of December, however, Thea received a note from Mrs. Harsanis, asking her to call at the old studio where she was in. Thea climbed the stairs and knocked at the familiar door. Mrs. Harsanis opened it and embraced her visitor warmly. Taking Thea into the studio, which was littered with excelsior and packing cases, she stood holding her hand and looking at her in the strong light from the big window before she allowed her to sit down. Her quick eye saw many changes. The girl was taller, her figure had become definite, her carriage positive. She had got used to ignore it and behave as if she were a little girl. With that increased independence of body there had come a change in her face, and in difference, something hard and skeptical. Her clothes, too, were different, like the attire of a shop girl who tries to follow the fashions, a purple suit, a piece of cheap fur, a three-cornered purple hat with a pom-pom sticking up in front. The queer country clothes she used to wear suited her much better, Mrs. Harsanis thought, but such withdrawal were accidental and remediable. She put her hand on the girl's strong shoulder. How much the summer has done for you! Yes, you are a young lady at last, and are will be so glad to hear about you. Thea looked about at the disorder of the familiar room. The pictures were piled in a corner, the piano and the chaslong were gone. I suppose I ought to be glad you have gone away, she said, but I'm not. It's a fine thing, I suppose. Mrs. Harzanya gave her a quick glance that said more than words. If you knew how long I have wanted to get away from here, Miss Cronburg, he is never tired, never discouraged now. Thea sighed, I'm glad for that, then. Her eyes traveled over the faint discolorations on the wall where the pictures had hung. I may run away myself. I don't know whether I can stand it here without you. We hope that you can come to New York to study before very long. Tell me how you were getting on with Bowers, and her will want to know all about it. I guess I get on more or less, but I don't like my work very well. It never seems serious as my work with Mr. Harzanya did. I play Bowers' accompaniments in the afternoon, you know. I thought I would learn a good deal from the people who work with him, but I don't think I get much. Mrs. Harzanya looked at her inquiringly. Thea took out a carefully folded handkerchief from Mr. Harzanya's heart. Singing doesn't seem to be a very brainy profession, Mrs. Harzanya, she said, slowly. The people I see now are not a bit like the ones I used to meet here. Mr. Harzanya's pupils, even the dumb ones, had more. Well, more of everything, it seems to me. The people I have to play accompaniments for are discouraging. The professionals, like Catherine Priest and Miles Merston, are worst of all. If I have to play the Messiah right, Thea brought her foot down sharply on the bare floor. Mrs. Harzanya looked down at the floor in perplexity. You mustn't wear such high heels, my dear, they will spoil your walk and make you mince along. Can't you at least learn to avoid what you dislike in these singers? I was never able to care for Mrs. Priest's singing. Thea was sitting with her chin lowered. Without moving her head she looked up at Mrs. Harzanya and smiled, a smile much too long face Mrs. Harzanya felt. Mrs. Harzanya, it seems to me, that what I learn is just to dislike. I dislike so much and so hard that it tires me out. I've got no heart for anything. She threw up her head suddenly and sat in defiance, her hand clenched on the arm of the chair. Mr. Harzanya couldn't stand these people an hour. I know he couldn't. He'd put them right out of the window there, frizzes and feathers and all. Now take that while making such a fuss about. Jesse Darcy. She's going on tour with the symphony orchestra and she's working up her repertory with Bowers. She's singing some Schumann songs Mr. Harzanya used to go over with me. Well, I don't know what he would do if he heard her. But if your own work goes well and you know these people are wrong, why do you let them discourage you? Thea shook her head. That's just what I don't understand myself. Only after I've heard them all afternoon I come out frozen up. Somehow it takes the shine off of everything. People want Jesse Darcy and the kind of thing she does, so what's the use? Mrs. Harzanya smiled. That style you simply must vault over. You must not begin to fret about the successes of cheap people. After all, what have they to do with you? Well, if I had somebody like Mr. Harzanya, perhaps I wouldn't fret about them. He was the teacher for me. Please tell him so. Thea rose and Mrs. Harzanya took his hand again. I am sorry you have to go through this time of discouragement. I wish Andor could talk to you. He would understand it so well. But I feel like urging you to keep clear of Mrs. Priest and Jesse Darcy and all their works. Thea laughed discordantly. No use urging me. I don't get on with them at all. My spine gets like a steel rail when they come near me. I liked them at first, you know. Their clothes and their manners were so handsome. But now I keep wanting to tell them how stupid they are. Seems like they ought to be informed. Don't you think so? There was a flash of the shrewd grin that Mrs. Harzanya remembered. Thea pressed her hand. I must go now. I had to give my lesson hour this morning to a Duluth woman who has come on to coach, and I must go play on mighty pens for her. Please tell Mr. Harzanya that I think Oratorio is a great chance for bluffers. Mrs. Harzanya detained her. But much more than that about you. You are free at seven? Come back this evening then, and we will go to dinner somewhere, to some cheerful place. I think you need a party. Thea brightened. Oh, I do. I'll love to come. That will be like old times. You see, she lingered a moment softening. I wouldn't mind if there were only one of them I could really admire. How about Bowers? Mrs. Harzanya asked as they were approaching the stairway. Well, there's nothing he loves like a good artist. I always remember something Mr. Harzanya said about him. He said Bowers was the cold muffin that had been left on the plate. Mrs. Harzanya stopped short at the head of the stairs and said decidedly, I think Andor made a mistake. I can't believe that is the right atmosphere for you. It would hurt you more than most people. It's all wrong. Something's wrong, Thea called back as she clattered down the stairs in her high heels. End of Part 3, Chapter 1. Part 3, Chapter 2 of 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 Denise Noradel. The Song of the Lark by Willis Sebert Cather. Chapter 2. During that winter, Thea lived in so many places that sometimes at night when she left Bowers and emerged into the street, she had to stop and think for a moment to remember where she was living now and what was the best way to get there. When she moved into a new place, her eyes challenged the beds, the carpets, the food, the mistress of the house. The boarding houses were wretchedly conducted and Thea's complaints sometimes took an insulting form. She quarreled with one landlady after another and moved on. When she moved into a new room she was almost sure to hate it when she moved into a new place before she unpacked her trunk. She was moody and contemptuous toward her fellow-borders except toward the young men whom she treated with a careless familiarity which they usually misunderstood. They liked her, however, and when she left the house after a storm they helped her to move her things and came to see her after she got settled in a new place. But she moved so often that they soon ceased to follow her. Unimpressionable. They soon felt that she did not admire them. Thea used to waken up in the night and wonder why she was so unhappy. She would have been amazed if she had known how much the people whom she met in Bower's studio had to do with her low spirits. She had never been conscious of those instinctive standards which are called ideals and she did not know that she was suffering for them. She often found herself sneering when she was on a street-car or when she was brushing out her hair with a sane remark or too familiar mannerism flitted across her mind. She felt no creature kindness, no tolerant goodwill for Mrs. Priest or Jessie Darcy. After one of Jessie Darcy's concerts the glowing press notices and the admiring comments that floated about Bower's studio caused the bitter unhappiness. It was not the torment of personal jealousy. She had never thought of herself as even a possible rival of Miss Darcy. She was a poor music student and popular and petted professional. Mrs. Priest, whatever one held against her had a big, fine, showy voice and an impressive presence. She read indifferently, was inaccurate and was always putting other people wrong but she at least had the material out of which singers can be made. But people seemed to like Jessie Darcy exactly because she could not sing because, as they put it, she was so natural and unprofessional. Her singing was pronounced artless, her voice bird-like. Mrs. Darcy was thin and awkward in person with a sharp, sallow face. Thea noticed that her plainness was accounted to her credit and that people spoke of it affectionately. Miss Darcy was singing everywhere just then. One could not help hearing about her. She was backed by some of the packing-house people and by the Chicago Northwestern Railroad. Only one critic raised his voice against her. Thea went to several of Jessie Darcy's concerts. It was the first time she had had an opportunity to hear the whims of the public which singers live by interesting. She saw that people liked in Miss Darcy every quality a singer ought not to have and especially the nervous complacency that stamped her as a commonplace young woman. They seemed to have a warmer feeling for Jessie than for Mrs. Priest an affectionate and cherishing regard. Chicago was not so very different from Moonstone after all and Jessie Darcy was only Lily Fisher under another name. Thea particularly hated to accompany Mrs. Darcy because she sang off pitch and didn't mind it in the least. It was excruciating to sit there day after day and hear her. There was something shameless and indecent about not singing true. One morning Miss Darcy came by appointment to go over the program for her Peoria concert. She was such a frail looking girl that Thea ought to have felt sorry for her. True she had an arch, a sprightly little manner and a flash of salmon pink on either brown cheek. But a narrow upper jaw gave her face and her eyelids were heavy and relaxed. By the morning light the purplish-brown circles under her eyes were pathetic enough and foretold no long or brilliant future. A singer with a poor digestion and low vitality she needed no seer to cast her horoscope. If Thea had ever taken the pains to study her she would have seen that under all her smiles and arch-ness poor Miss Darcy was really frightened to death. She could not understand her success any more than Thea could. Miss Darcy took her breath and lifting her eyebrows and trying to believe that it was true. Her locustity was not natural she forced herself to it and when she confided to you how many defects she could overcome by her unusual command of head resonance she was not so much trying to persuade you as to persuade herself. When she took a note that was high for her Miss Darcy always put her right hand out into the air as if she were indicating height she would place a tone more surely by the help of such a gesture and she firmly believed that it was of a great assistance to her even when she was singing in public she kept her right hand down with difficulty nervously clasping her white kid fingers together when she took a high note Thea could always see her elbows stiffen she unvaryingly executed this gesture with a smile of gracious confidence as if she were actually putting her finger on the tone. There it is friends. Miss Darcy approached her B natural Don's nose alarm ace out went the hand with the sure airy gesture though it was little above A she got with her voice whatever she touched with her finger often Bowers let such things pass with the right people but this morning he snapped his jaws together and muttered God! Miss Darcy tried again and with the same gesture as of putting the crowning touch tilting her head and smiling radiantly as if to say it is for you I do all this Don's nose alarm ace this time she made B flat and went on in the happy belief that she had done well enough when she suddenly found that her accompanist was not going on with her and this put her out completely she turned to Thea whose hands had fallen in her lap oh why did you stop just there it is too trying now we'd better go back to that other crescendo and try it from there I thought you wanted to get that be natural she began again as Miss Darcy indicated after the singer was gone Bowers walked up to Thea and asked languidly why do you hate Jesse so her little variations from picture between her and the public they don't hurt you has she ever done anything to you except be very agreeable yes she has done things to me Thea retorted hotly Bowers looked interested what for example I can't explain but I've got it in for her Bowers laughed no doubt about that I'll have to suggest that you conceal it a little more effectually that is necessary Miss Cronberg he added looking back over the shoulder of the overcoat he was putting on he went out to lunch and Thea thought the subject closed but late in the afternoon when he was taking his dyspepsia tablet and a glass of water between lessons he looked up and said in a voice ironically coaxing Miss Cronberg I wish you would tell me why you hate Jesse taken by surprise Thea put down the score and answered before she knew what she was saying I hate her for the sake of what I used to think a singer might be Bowers balanced the tablet on the end of his long forefinger and whistled softly and how did you form your conception of what a singer ought to be he asked I don't know Thea flashed and spoke under her breath but I suppose I got most of it from Harsanye Bowers made no comment upon her reply but opened the door for the next pupil who was waiting in the reception room it was dark when Thea left the studio that night she knew she had offended Bowers somehow she had hurt herself too she felt unequal to the boarding house table the sneaking divinity student who sat next to her and tried to kiss her on the stairs last night she went over to the water side of Michigan Avenue and walked along beside the lake it was a clear frosty winter night the great empty space over the water was restful and spoke of freedom if she had any money at all she would go away the stars glittered over the wide black water she looked up at them weirdly and shook her head she believed that what she felt was despair but it was only one of the forms of hope she felt indeed as if she were bidding the stars goodbye but she was renewing a promise though their challenge is universal and eternal the stars get no answer but that the brief light flashed back to them from the eyes of the young who unaccountably aspire to see city, fat with food and drink is a spent thing its chief concern is its digestion and its little game of hide and seek with the undertaker money and office and success are the consolations of impotence fortune turns kind to such solid people and lets them suck their bone in peace she flecks her whip upon flesh that is more alive upon that stream of hungry boys and girls who tramp the streets of every city recognizable by their pride and discontent possess the treasure of creative power Part 3 of Song of the Lark While her living arrangements were so casual and fortuitous, Bauer's studio was the one fixed thing in Thea's life she went out from it to uncertainties and hastened to it from nebulous confusion she was more influenced by Bauer's than she knew unconsciously she began to take on something of his dry contempt and to share his grudge without understanding exactly what it was about his cynicism seemed to her honest and the amiability of his pupils artificial she admired his drastic treatment of his dull pupils the stupid deserved all they got and more Bauer's knew that she thought him a very clever man one afternoon when Bauer's came in from lunch Thea handed him a card on which he read the name Mr. Philip Frederick Ottenberg he said he would be in again tomorrow and that he wanted some time who is he I like him better than the others Bauer's nodded so do I he's not a singer he's a beer prince son of the big brewer in St. Louis he's been in Germany with his mother I didn't know he was back does he take lessons now and again he sings rather well he's at the head of the Chicago branch of the Ottenberg business but he can't stick to work and is always running away he has great ideas in beer people tell me he's what they call an imaginative businessman Bauer's made a sound between a cough and a laugh oh he's a lady killer all right the girls in here are always making eyes at him you won't be the first he threw some sheets of music on the piano better look that over a cup of beer he's not a singer he's not a singer he's not a singer he's not a singer he's not a singer he's not a singer he's a lady killer he's not a singer he's not a singer he's not a singer e motives the legal Praise and his frustrated the piece in a copy once he becomes a seamstress theres something bad your lips have decided to tear when they're next to each other one on one just look at me time for bowers to arrive. He had not said he would, but yesterday, when he opened the door to go, he had glanced about the room and at her, and something in his eye had conveyed that suggestion. Sure enough, at twenty minutes past one the door of the reception room opened and a tall, robust young man with a cane and an English hat and Ulster looked in expectantly. Ah-ha! he exclaimed, I thought if I came early I might have good luck. And how are you today, Miss Cronberg?" Cronberg was sitting in the window-chair. At her left elbow there was a table, and upon this table the young man sat down, holding his hat and came in his hand, loosening his long coat so that it fell back from his shoulders. He was a gleaming, floored young man. His hair, thick and yellow, was cut very short, and he wore a closely trimmed beard, long enough on the chin to curl a little. Even his eyebrows were thick and yellow, like fleece. He had lively blue eyes. Fia looked up at them with great interest as he sat chatting and swinging his foot rhythmically. He was easily familiar, and frankly so. Wherever people met young Ottenberg, in his office, on ship-board, in a foreign hotel or railroad compartment, they always felt, and usually liked, that artless presumption which seemed to say, In this case we may waive formalities, we really haven't time. This is today, but it will soon be tomorrow, and then we may be very different people and in some other country. He had a way of floating people out of dull or awkward situations, out of their own torpor or constraint or discouragement. It was a marked personal talent of almost incalculable value in the representative of a great business founded on social amenities. Fia had liked him yesterday for the way in which he had picked her up out of herself and her German grammar for a few exciting moments. By the way, will you tell me your first name, please? Fia? Oh, then you are a sweet, sure enough. I thought so. Let me call you Miss Fia after the German fashion. You won't mind? Of course not. He usually made his assumption of a special understanding seem a tribute to the other person and not to himself. How long have you been with Bowers here? Do you like the old grouch? So do I. I've come to tell him about a new soprano I heard at Bay Ruth. He'll pretend not to care, but he does. Do you warble with him? Have you anything of a voice? Honest? You look at, you know. What are you going in for? Something big? Opera? Fia blushed crimson. Oh, I'm not going in for anything. I'm trying to learn to sing it funerals. Ottenberg leaned forward, his eyes twinkled. I'll engage you to sing it mine. You can't fool me, Miss Fia. May I hear you take your lesson this afternoon? No, you may not. I took it this morning. He picked up a roll of music that lay behind him on the table. Is this yours? Let me see what you are doing. He snapped back at the clasp and began turning over the songs. All very fine, but tame. What's he got you at this Mozart stuff for? I shouldn't think it would suit your voice. Oh, I can make a pretty good guess at what will suit you. This from Giaconda is more your line. What's this greek? It looks interesting. Talk for, dear Rod. What does that mean? Thanks for your advice. Don't you know it? No, not at all. Let's try it. He rose, pushed open the door into the music room, and motioned Fia to enter before him. She hung back. I couldn't give you much of an idea of it. It's a big song. Ottenberg took her gently by the elbow and pushed her into the other room. He sat down carelessly at the piano and looked over the music for a moment. I think I can get you through it, but how stupid not to have the German words. Can you really sing the Norwegian? What an infernal language to sing. Translate the text for me. He handed her the music. Fia looked at it, then at him, and shook her head. I can't. The truth is, I don't know either English or Swedish very well, and Norwegians still worse, she said confidentially. She not infrequently refused to do what she was asked to do, but it was not like her to explain her refusal even when she had a good reason. I understand. We immigrants never speak any language well, but you know what it means, don't you? Of course I do. Then don't frown at me like that, but tell me. Fia continued to frown, but she also smiled. She was confused, but not embarrassed. She was not afraid of Ottenberg. He was not one of those people who made her spine like a steel rail. On the contrary, he made one venturesome. Well, it goes something like this. Thanks for your advice. But I prefer to steer my boat into the din of roaring breakers. Even if the journey is my last, I may find what I have never found before. Onward I must go, for I yearn for the wild sea. I long to fight my way through the angry waves, and to see how far and how long I can make them carry me. Ottenberg took the music and began, Wait a moment, is that too fast? How do you take it? That right? He pulled up his cuffs and began the accompaniment again. He had become entirely serious, and he played with fine enthusiasm and with understanding. Fred's talent was worth almost as much to old Otto Ottenberg as the steady industry of his older sons. When Fred sang Pry's song at an interstate meet of the Turnviring, ten thousand turners went forth pledged to Ottenberg beer. As Thea finished the song, Fred turned back to the first page without looking up from the music. Now, once more, he called, they began again and did not hear bowers when he came in and stood in the doorway. He stood still, blinking like an owl at their two heads shining in the sun. He could not see their faces, but there was something about his girl's back that he had not noticed before. A very slight and yet very free motion from the toes up. Her whole back seemed plastic, seemed to be molding itself to the galloping rhythm of the song. Bowers perceived such things sometimes, unwillingly. He had known today that there was something afoot. The river of sound which had its source in his pupil had caught him two flights down. He had stopped and listened with the kind of sneering admiration. From the door he watched her with a half-incredulous, half-malicious smile. When he had struck the keys for the last time, Ottenberg dropped his hands on his knees and looked up with a quick breath. I got you through, what a stunning song! Did I play it right? Thea studied his excited face. There was a good deal of meaning in it and there was a good deal in her own as she answered him. You suited me, she said ungrudgingly. After Ottenberg was gone Thea noticed that Bowers was more agreeable than usual. She had heard the young brewer ask Bowers to dine with him at his club that evening, and she saw that he looked forward to the dinner with pleasure. He dropped a remark to the effect that Fred knew as much about food and wines as any man in Chicago. He said this boastfully. If he's such a grand businessman, how does he have time to run around listening to singing lessons? Thea asked suspiciously. As she went home to her boarding-house through the February slush, she wished she were going to dine with them. At nine o'clock she looked up from her grammar to wonder what Bowers and Ottenberg were having to eat. At that moment they were talking of her.