My Ántonia

by Willa Cather

  III

  IN Lincoln the best part of the theatrical season came late, when the goodcompanies stopped off there for one-night stands, after their long runs inNew York and Chicago. That spring Lena went with me to see JosephJefferson in "Rip Van Winkle," and to a war play called "Shenandoah." Shewas inflexible about paying for her own seat; said she was in businessnow, and she would n't have a schoolboy spending his money on her. I likedto watch a play with Lena; everything was wonderful to her, and everythingwas true. It was like going to revival meetings with some one who wasalways being converted. She handed her feelings over to the actors with akind of fatalistic resignation. Accessories of costume and scene meantmuch more to her than to me. She sat entranced through "Robin Hood" andhung upon the lips of the contralto who sang, "Oh, Promise Me!"

  Toward the end of April, the billboards, which I watched anxiously inthose days, bloomed out one morning with gleaming white posters on whichtwo names were impressively printed in blue Gothic letters: the name of anactress of whom I had often heard, and the name "Camille."

  I called at the Raleigh Block for Lena on Saturday evening, and we walkeddown to the theater. The weather was warm and sultry and put us both in aholiday humor. We arrived early, because Lena liked to watch the peoplecome in. There was a note on the programme, saying that the "incidentalmusic" would be from the opera "Traviata," which was made from the samestory as the play. We had neither of us read the play, and we did not knowwhat it was about--though I seemed to remember having heard it was a piecein which great actresses shone. "The Count of Monte Cristo," which I hadseen James O'Neill play that winter, was by the only Alexandre Dumas Iknew. This play, I saw, was by his son, and I expected a familyresemblance. A couple of jack-rabbits, run in off the prairie, could nothave been more innocent of what awaited them than were Lena and I.

  Our excitement began with the rise of the curtain, when the moodyVarville, seated before the fire, interrogated Nanine. Decidedly, therewas a new tang about this dialogue. I had never heard in the theater linesthat were alive, that presupposed and took for granted, like those whichpassed between Varville and Marguerite in the brief encounter before herfriends entered. This introduced the most brilliant, worldly, the mostenchantingly gay scene I had ever looked upon. I had never seen champagnebottles opened on the stage before--indeed, I had never seen them openedanywhere. The memory of that supper makes me hungry now; the sight of itthen, when I had only a students' boarding-house dinner behind me, wasdelicate torment. I seem to remember gilded chairs and tables (arrangedhurriedly by footmen in white gloves and stockings), linen of dazzlingwhiteness, glittering glass, silver dishes, a great bowl of fruit, and thereddest of roses. The room was invaded by beautiful women and dashingyoung men, laughing and talking together. The men were dressed more orless after the period in which the play was written; the women were not. Isaw no inconsistency. Their talk seemed to open to one the brilliant worldin which they lived; every sentence made one older and wiser, everypleasantry enlarged one's horizon. One could experience excess and satietywithout the inconvenience of learning what to do with one's hands in adrawing-room! When the characters all spoke at once and I missed some ofthe phrases they flashed at each other, I was in misery. I strained myears and eyes to catch every exclamation.

  The actress who played Marguerite was even then old-fashioned, thoughhistoric. She had been a member of Daly's famous New York company, andafterward a "star" under his direction. She was a woman who could not betaught, it is said, though she had a crude natural force which carriedwith people whose feelings were accessible and whose taste was notsqueamish. She was already old, with a ravaged countenance and a physiquecuriously hard and stiff. She moved with difficulty--I think she was lame--Iseem to remember some story about a malady of the spine. Her Armand wasdisproportionately young and slight, a handsome youth, perplexed in theextreme. But what did it matter? I believed devoutly in her power tofascinate him, in her dazzling loveliness. I believed her young, ardent,reckless, disillusioned, under sentence, feverish, avid of pleasure. Iwanted to cross the footlights and help the slim-waisted Armand in thefrilled shirt to convince her that there was still loyalty and devotion inthe world. Her sudden illness, when the gayety was at its height, herpallor, the handkerchief she crushed against her lips, the cough shesmothered under the laughter while Gaston kept playing the pianolightly--it all wrung my heart. But not so much as her cynicism in the longdialogue with her lover which followed. How far was I from questioning herunbelief! While the charmingly sincere young man pleaded withher--accompanied by the orchestra in the old "Traviata" duet, "misterioso,misterioso!"--she maintained her bitter skepticism, and the curtain fell onher dancing recklessly with the others, after Armand had been sent awaywith his flower.

  Between the acts we had no time to forget. The orchestra kept sawing awayat the "Traviata" music, so joyous and sad, so thin and far-away, soclap-trap and yet so heart-breaking. After the second act I left Lena intearful contemplation of the ceiling, and went out into the lobby tosmoke. As I walked about there I congratulated myself that I had notbrought some Lincoln girl who would talk during the waits about the Juniordances, or whether the cadets would camp at Plattsmouth. Lena was at leasta woman, and I was a man.

  Through the scene between Marguerite and the elder Duval, Lena weptunceasingly, and I sat helpless to prevent the closing of that chapter ofidyllic love, dreading the return of the young man whose ineffablehappiness was only to be the measure of his fall.

  I suppose no woman could have been further in person, voice, andtemperament from Dumas' appealing heroine than the veteran actress whofirst acquainted me with her. Her conception of the character was as heavyand uncompromising as her diction; she bore hard on the idea and on theconsonants. At all times she was highly tragic, devoured by remorse.Lightness of stress or behavior was far from her. Her voice was heavy anddeep: "Ar-r-r-mond!" she would begin, as if she were summoning him to thebar of Judgment. But the lines were enough. She had only to utter them.They created the character in spite of her.

  The heartless world which Marguerite re-entered with Varville had neverbeen so glittering and reckless as on the night when it gathered inOlympe's salon for the fourth act. There were chandeliers hung from theceiling, I remember, many servants in livery, gaming-tables where the menplayed with piles of gold, and a staircase down which the guests madetheir entrance. After all the others had gathered round the card tables,and young Duval had been warned by Prudence, Marguerite descended thestaircase with Varville; such a cloak, such a fan, such jewels--and herface! One knew at a glance how it was with her. When Armand, with theterrible words, "Look, all of you, I owe this woman nothing!" flung thegold and bank-notes at the half-swooning Marguerite, Lena cowered besideme and covered her face with her hands.

  The curtain rose on the bedroom scene. By this time there was n't a nervein me that had n't been twisted. Nanine alone could have made me cry. Iloved Nanine tenderly; and Gaston, how one clung to that good fellow! TheNew Year's presents were not too much; nothing could be too much now. Iwept unrestrainedly. Even the handkerchief in my breast-pocket, worn forelegance and not at all for use, was wet through by the time that moribundwoman sank for the last time into the arms of her lover.

  When we reached the door of the theater, the streets were shining withrain. I had prudently brought along Mrs. Harling's useful Commencementpresent, and I took Lena home under its shelter. After leaving her, Iwalked slowly out into the country part of the town where I lived. Thelilacs were all blooming in the yards, and the smell of them after therain, of the new leaves and the blossoms together, blew into my face witha sort of bitter sweetness. I tramped through the puddles and under theshowery trees, mourning for Marguerite Gauthier as if she had died onlyyesterday, sighing with the spirit of 1840, which had sighed so much, andwhich had reached me only that night, across long years and severallanguages, through the person of an infirm old actress. The idea is onethat no circumstances can frustrate. Wherever and whenever that piece isput
on, it is April.