Complete Works of Frank Norris

by Frank Norris

  The opera continued. The great soprano, the prima donna, appeared and delivered herself of a song for which she was famous with astonishing eclat. Then in a little while the stage grew dark, the orchestration lapsed to a murmur, and the tenor and the soprano reentered. He clasped her in his arms and sang a half-dozen bars, then holding her hand, one arm still about her waist, withdrew from her gradually, till she occupied the front-centre of the stage. He assumed an attitude of adoration and wonderment, his eyes uplifted as if entranced, and she, very softly, to the accompaniment of the sustained, dreamy chords of the orchestra, began her solo.

  Laura shut her eyes. Never had she felt so soothed, so cradled and lulled and languid. Ah, to love like that! To love and be loved. There was no such love as that to-day. She wished that she could loose her clasp upon the sordid, material modern life that, perforce, she must hold to, she knew not why, and drift, drift off into the past, far away, through rose-coloured mists and diaphanous veils, or resign herself, reclining in a silver skiff drawn by swans, to the gentle current of some smooth-flowing river that ran on forever and forever.

  But a discordant element developed. Close by — the lights were so low she could not tell where — a conversation, kept up in low whispers, began by degrees to intrude itself upon her attention. Try as she would, she could not shut it out, and now, as the music died away fainter and fainter, till voice and orchestra blended together in a single, barely audible murmur, vibrating with emotion, with romance, and with sentiment, she heard, in a hoarse, masculine whisper, the words:

  “The shortage is a million bushels at the very least. Two hundred carloads were to arrive from Milwaukee last night.”

  She made a little gesture of despair, turning her head for an instant, searching the gloom about her. But she could see no one not interested in the stage. Why could not men leave their business outside, why must the jar of commerce spoil all the harmony of this moment.

  However, all sounds were drowned suddenly in a long burst of applause. The tenor and soprano bowed and smiled across the footlights. The soprano vanished, only to reappear on the balcony of the pavilion, and while she declared that the stars and the night-bird together sang “He loves thee,” the voices close at hand continued:

  “ — one hundred and six carloads—”

  “ — paralysed the bulls—”

  “ — fifty thousand dollars—”

  Then all at once the lights went up. The act was over.

  Laura seemed only to come to herself some five minutes later. She and Corthell were out in the foyer behind the boxes. Everybody was promenading. The air was filled with the staccato chatter of a multitude of women. But she herself seemed far away — she and Sheldon Corthell. His face, dark, romantic, with the silky beard and eloquent eyes, appeared to be all she cared to see, while his low voice, that spoke close to her ear, was in a way a mere continuation of the melody of the duet just finished.

  Instinctively she knew what he was about to say, for what he was trying to prepare her. She felt, too, that he had not expected to talk thus to her to-night. She knew that he loved her, that inevitably, sooner or later, they must return to a subject that for long had been excluded from their conversations, but it was to have been when they were alone, remote, secluded, not in the midst of a crowd, brilliant electrics dazzling their eyes, the humming of the talk of hundreds assaulting their ears. But it seemed as if these important things came of themselves, independent of time and place, like birth and death. There was nothing to do but to accept the situation, and it was without surprise that at last, from out the murmur of Corthell’s talk, she was suddenly conscious of the words:

  “So that it is hardly necessary, is it, to tell you once more that I love you?”

  She drew a long breath.

  “I know. I know you love me.”

  They had sat down on a divan, at one end of the promenade; and Corthell, skilful enough in the little arts of the drawing-room, made it appear as though they talked of commonplaces; as for Laura, exalted, all but hypnotised with this marvellous evening, she hardly cared; she would not even stoop to maintain appearances.

  “Yes, yes,” she said; “I know you love me.”

  “And is that all you can say?” he urged. “Does it mean nothing to you that you are everything to me?”

  She was coming a little to herself again. Love was, after all, sweeter in the actual — even in this crowded foyer, in this atmosphere of silk and jewels, in this show-place of a great city’s society — than in a mystic garden of some romantic dreamland. She felt herself a woman again, modern, vital, and no longer a maiden of a legend of chivalry.

  “Nothing to me?” she answered. “I don’t know. I should rather have you love me than — not.”

  “Let me love you then for always,” he went on. “You know what I mean. We have understood each other from the very first. Plainly, and very simply, I love you with all my heart. You know now that I speak the truth, you know that you can trust me. I shall not ask you to share your life with mine. I ask you for the great happiness” — he raised his head sharply, suddenly proud— “the great honour of the opportunity of giving you all that I have of good. God give me humility, but that is much since I have known you. If I were a better man because of myself, I would not presume to speak of it, but if I am in anything less selfish, if I am more loyal, if I am stronger, or braver, it is only something of you that has become a part of me, and made me to be born again. So when I offer myself to you, I am only bringing back to you the gift you gave me for a little while. I have tried to keep it for you, to keep it bright and sacred and un-spotted. It is yours again now if you will have it.”

  There was a long pause; a group of men in opera hats and white gloves came up the stairway close at hand. The tide of promenaders set towards the entrances of the theatre. A little electric bell shrilled a note of warning.

  Laura looked up at length, and as their glances met, he saw that there were tears in her eyes. This declaration of his love for her was the last touch to the greatest exhilaration of happiness she had ever known. Ah yes, she was loved, just as that young girl of the opera had been loved. For this one evening, at least, the beauty of life was unmarred, and no cruel word of hers should spoil it. The world was beautiful. All people were good and noble and true. To-morrow, with the material round of duties and petty responsibilities and cold, calm reason, was far, far away.

  Suddenly she turned to him, surrendering to the impulse, forgetful of consequences.

  “Oh, I am glad, glad,” she cried, “glad that you love me!”

  But before Corthell could say anything more Landry Court and Page came up.

  “We’ve been looking for you,” said the young girl quietly. Page was displeased. She took herself and her sister — in fact, the whole scheme of existence — with extraordinary seriousness. She had no sense of humour. She was not tolerant; her ideas of propriety and the amenities were as immutable as the fixed stars. A fine way for Laura to act, getting off into corners with Sheldon Corthell. It would take less than that to make talk. If she had no sense of her obligations to Mrs. Cressler, at least she ought to think of the looks of things.

  “They’re beginning again,” she said solemnly. “I should think you’d feel as though you had missed about enough of this opera.”

  They returned to the box. The rest of the party were reassembling.

  “Well, Laura,” said Mrs. Cressler, when they had sat down, “do you like it?”

  “I don’t want to leave it — ever,” she answered. “I could stay here always.”

  “I like the young man best,” observed Aunt Wess’. “The one who seems to be the friend of the tall fellow with a cloak. But why does he seem so sorry? Why don’t he marry the young lady? Let’s see, I don’t remember his name.”

  “Beastly voice,” declared Landry Court. “He almost broke there once. Too bad. He’s not what he used to be. It seems he’s terribly dissipated — drinks. Yes, sir, like a fish. He had deliri
um tremens once behind the scenes in Philadelphia, and stabbed a scene shifter with his stage dagger. A bad lot, to say the least.”

  “Now, Landry,” protested Mrs. Cressler, “you’re making it up as you go along.” And in the laugh that followed Landry himself joined.

  “After all,” said Corthell, “this music seems to be just the right medium between the naive melody of the Italian school and the elaborate complexity of Wagner. I can’t help but be carried away with it at times — in spite of my better judgment.”

  Jadwin, who had been smoking a cigar in the vestibule during the entr’acte, rubbed his chin reflectively.

  “Well,” he said, “it’s all very fine. I’ve no doubt of that, but I give you my word I would rather hear my old governor take his guitar and sing ‘Father, oh father, come home with me now,’ than all the fiddle-faddle, tweedle-deedle opera business in the whole world.”

  But the orchestra was returning, the musicians crawling out one by one from a little door beneath the stage hardly bigger than the entrance of a rabbit hutch. They settled themselves in front of their racks, adjusting their coat-tails, fingering their sheet music. Soon they began to tune up, and a vague bourdon of many sounds — the subdued snarl of the cornets, the dull mutter of the bass viols, the liquid gurgling of the flageolets and wood-wind instruments, now and then pierced by the strident chirps and cries of the violins, rose into the air dominating the incessant clamour of conversation that came from all parts of the theatre.

  Then suddenly the house lights sank and the footlights rose. From all over the theatre came energetic whispers of “Sh! Sh!” Three strokes, as of a great mallet, sepulchral, grave, came from behind the wings; the leader of the orchestra raised his baton, then brought it slowly down, and while from all the instruments at once issued a prolonged minor chord, emphasised by a muffled roll of the kettle-drum, the curtain rose upon a mediaeval public square. The soprano was seated languidly upon a bench. Her grande scene occurred in this act. Her hair was un-bound; she wore a loose robe of cream white, with flowing sleeves, which left the arms bare to the shoulder. At the waist it was caught in by a girdle of silk rope.

  “This is the great act,” whispered Mrs. Cressler, leaning over Laura’s shoulder. “She is superb later on. Superb.”

  “I wish those men would stop talking,” murmured Laura, searching the darkness distressfully, for between the strains of the music she had heard the words:

  “ — Clearing House balance of three thousand dollars.”

  Meanwhile the prima donna, rising to her feet, delivered herself of a lengthy recitative, her chin upon her breast, her eyes looking out from under her brows, an arm stretched out over the footlights. The baritone entered, striding to the left of the footlights, apostrophising the prima donna in a rage. She clasped her hands imploringly, supplicating him to leave her, exclaiming from time to time:

  “Va via, va via —

  Vel chieco per pieta.”

  Then all at once, while the orchestra blared, they fell into each other’s arms.

  “Why do they do that?” murmured Aunt Wess’ perplexed. “I thought the gentleman with the beard didn’t like her at all.”

  “Why, that’s the duke, don’t you see, Aunt Wess’?” said Laura trying to explain. “And he forgives her. I don’t know exactly. Look at your libretto.”

  “ — a conspiracy of the Bears ... seventy cents ... and naturally he busted.”

  The mezzo-soprano, the confidante of the prima donna, entered, and a trio developed that had but a mediocre success. At the end the baritone abruptly drew his sword, and the prima donna fell to her knees, chanting:

  “Io tremo, ahime!”

  “And now he’s mad again,” whispered Aunt Wess’, consulting her libretto, all at sea once more. “I can’t understand. She says — the opera book says she says, ‘I tremble.’ I don’t see why.”

  “Look now,” said Page, “here comes the tenor. Now they’re going to have it out.”

  The tenor, hatless, debouched suddenly upon the scene, and furious, addressed himself to the baritone, leaning forward, his hands upon his chest. Though the others sang in Italian, the tenor, a Parisian, used the French book continually, and now villified the baritone, crying out:

  “O traitre infame

  O lache et coupable”

  “I don’t see why he don’t marry the young lady and be done with it,” commented Aunt Wess’.

  The act drew to its close. The prima donna went through her “great scene,” wherein her voice climbed to C in alt, holding the note so long that Aunt Wess’ became uneasy. As she finished, the house rocked with applause, and the soprano, who had gone out supported by her confidante, was recalled three times. A duel followed between the baritone and tenor, and the latter, mortally wounded, fell into the arms of his friends uttering broken, vehement notes. The chorus — made up of the city watch and town’s people — crowded in upon the back of the stage. The soprano and her confidante returned. The basso, a black-bearded, bull necked man, sombre, mysterious, parted the chorus to right and left, and advanced to the footlights. The contralto, dressed as a boy, appeared. The soprano took stage, and abruptly the closing scene of the act developed.

  The violins raged and wailed in unison, all the bows moving together like parts of a well-regulated machine. The kettle-drums, marking the cadences, rolled at exact intervals. The director beat time furiously, as though dragging up the notes and chords with the end of his baton, while the horns and cornets blared, the bass viols growled, and the flageolets and piccolos lost themselves in an amazing complication of liquid gurgles and modulated roulades.

  On the stage every one was singing. The soprano in the centre, vocalised in her highest register, bringing out the notes with vigorous twists of her entire body, and tossing them off into the air with sharp flirts of her head. On the right, the basso, scowling, could be heard in the intervals of the music repeating

  “Il perfido, l’ingrato”

  while to the left of the soprano, the baritone intoned indistinguishable, sonorous phrases, striking his breast and pointing to the fallen tenor with his sword. At the extreme left of the stage the contralto, in tights and plush doublet, turned to the audience, extending her hands, or flinging back her arms. She raised her eyebrows with each high note, and sunk her chin into her ruff when her voice descended. At certain intervals her notes blended with those of the soprano’s while she sang:

  “Addio, felicita del ciel!”

  The tenor, raised upon one hand, his shoulders supported by his friends, sustained the theme which the soprano led with the words:

  “Je me meurs

  Ah malheur

  Ah je souffre

  Mon ame s’envole.”

  The chorus formed a semi-circle just behind him. The women on one side, the men on the other. They left much to be desired; apparently scraped hastily together from heaven knew what sources, after the manner of a management suddenly become economical. The women were fat, elderly, and painfully homely; the men lean, osseous, and distressed, in misfitting hose. But they had been conscientiously drilled. They made all their gestures together, moved in masses simultaneously, and, without ceasing, chanted over and over again:

  “O terror, O blasfema.”

  The finale commenced. Everybody on the stage took a step forward, beginning all over again upon a higher key. The soprano’s voice thrilled to the very chandelier. The orchestra redoubled its efforts, the director beating time with hands, head, and body.

  “Il perfido, l’ingrato”

  thundered the basso.

  “Ineffabil mistero,”

  answered the baritone, striking his breast and pointing with his sword; while all at once the soprano’s voice, thrilling out again, ran up an astonishing crescendo that evoked veritable gasps from all parts of the audience, then jumped once more to her famous C in alt, and held it long enough for the chorus to repeat

  “O terror, O blasfema”

  four times.

/>   Then the director’s baton descended with the violence of a blow. There was a prolonged crash of harmony, a final enormous chord, to which every voice and every instrument contributed. The singers struck tableau attitudes, the tenor fell back with a last wail:

  “Je me meurs,”

  and the soprano fainted into the arms of her confidante. The curtain fell.

  The house roared with applause. The scene was recalled again and again. The tenor, scrambling to his feet, joined hands with the baritone, soprano, and other artists, and all bowed repeatedly. Then the curtain fell for the last time, the lights of the great chandelier clicked and blazed up, and from every quarter of the house came the cries of the programme sellers:

  “Opera books. Books of the opera. Words and music of the opera.”

  During this, the last entr’acte, Laura remained in the box with Mrs. Cressler, Corthell, and Jadwin. The others went out to look down upon the foyer from a certain balcony.

  In the box the conversation turned upon stage management, and Corthell told how, in “L’Africaine,” at the Opera, in Paris, the entire superstructure of the stage — wings, drops, and backs — turned when Vasco da Gama put the ship about. Jadwin having criticised the effect because none of the actors turned with it, was voted a Philistine by Mrs. Cressler and Corthell. But as he was about to answer, Mrs. Cressler turned to the artist, passing him her opera glasses, and asking:

  “Who are those people down there in the third row of the parquet — see, on the middle aisle — the woman is in red. Aren’t those the Gretrys?”

  This left Jadwin and Laura out of the conversation, and the capitalist was quick to seize the chance of talking to her. Soon she was surprised to notice that he was trying hard to be agreeable, and before they had exchanged a dozen sentences, he had turned an awkward compliment. She guessed by his manner that paying attention to young girls was for him a thing altogether unusual. Intuitively she divined that she, on this, the very first night of their acquaintance, had suddenly interested him.