Herma

by MacDonald Harris

  But this was nothing to Herma’s triumph in the second act. It was here that she had her most important piece, the long Canzonetta which she sang to the Countess while Susanna plucked the guitar. “You who know what love is, ladies, see if it’s in my heart.” She delivered the short lines, one after the other, with a bell-like clarity. The voice was youthful and naive and yet vibrant. It rose to the higher notes with an effortless grace, resting lightly, as it were, on the fragile guitar continuo. It floated, trembled, and sank from one note to the next in an arching legato, always in perfect control. When the oboe and then the full orchestra swelled in behind the guitar it was an entrancing moment.

  “Voi che sapete

  che cosa è amor,

  donne, vedete,

  s’io l’ho nel cor.”

  When she concluded on the B flat of cor, chin raised and mouth slightly rounded, the pure and viola-like clarity tempered with just a hint of head voice, there was a silence for a few seconds. Then a kind of storm broke out in the dark gulf in front of her. Beginning with a loud clatter, it swelled until the individual impact of palm on palm was no longer audible and there was only a vast roar, making the windows vibrate and hurting one’s ears a little. It went on for quite a long time. Finally the Countess, breaking in over the last of the claps, was able to sing her “Bravo! Che bella voce!” with a quite evident note of irony.

  For the Countess this whole business of Figaro’s marriage was not a happy affair. The best she could hope for was a mild revenge on the Count for his philandering and the restoration of the status quo ante. It was not really a demanding role, in fact, although the Countess was supposed to be the star of the opera. No one paid much attention to her through the whole complicated imbroglio, and the only fine aria she had was her “Dove sono” in the third act.

  But this was her moment. Alone on the stage, the Diva from New York, otherwise La Moellendorf, advanced to the footlights and stood for a moment dominating that great dark beast the audience, her antagonist. Then, with a silken skill, she embarked into the aria.

  “Dove sono

  i bei momenti …”

  Since she had been singing this for thirty years, she knew it thoroughly and ran through it with impetus and verve. The orchestra, consisting of all the violin, viola, flute, horn, and cello teachers scraped together from the corners of Orange County, struggled valiantly to keep up with her. But before the end of the aria they met their nemesis. The Diva went through it the first time, from “Dove sono” down to “ingrato cor.” Then there was a kind of da capo; she went back to the top of the aria and started over. With the orchestra silent, she climbed gradually up to the beginning with a cadenza of mounting oh’s in sola voce. At a certain point the orchestra was supposed to rejoin her.

  o-o-ohhh, DO - ve so - no

  oh,

  oh, (ORCHESTRA)

  Oh,

  But at this point the orchestra and the Diva faltered a little, like two polite persons trying to go through a door at the same time. She glared at the conductor. He looked up. After a few jerks, Diva and orchestra came to agreement, and they finished the aria together, or almost so. But this little contretemps had thrown the Diva off badly. She was not used to such things. Even if one were paid two thousand dollars for a single performance, what did it avail if one were accompanied by cripples and paralytics with tin ears collected from some asylum! She had gone too far out west; far too far, in her estimation. She bickered with Susanna rather than conniving with her. “I’ve folded the paper, now how shall I seal it?” “Here, take this pin,” gritted the Countess. Susanna jumped as the pin went through the paper into her thumb. Encountering Cherubino in girl’s clothing (imagine, how fantastic and improbable, Cherubino pretending to be a girl), she inquired with throaty sarcasm, her voice having left her entirely, “And tell me, who is that lovable girl with such a modest air?”

  She made it up a little with the orchestra in the fourth act, although by this time Susanna was seriously annoyed with her on account of the pin. Only Cherubino was imperturbable, seeming to have noticed nothing. Figaro, Susanna, the Count, and the Countess sang their quartet. The Count attempted to cuff Cherubino, but the blow landed on Figaro instead. Then Susanna took her turn at slapping Figaro, evidently dispersing in this way her hostility toward the Countess, whom the libretto didn’t call for her to slap. Figaro winced. Everyone sang to be pardoned by the Count.

  Susanna: “Perdono, perdono!”

  Figaro: “Perdono, perdono!”

  Count: “No, no, non sperarlo!”

  Tutti: “Perdono, perdono!”

  In the end, since everybody including the Count himself had been kissing the wrong lady, the Count agreed to pardon all. Everyone joined together in the Tutti finale, and they went off to celebrate the double marriage. The curtain came down to reveal the significant word “Asbestos.”

  There was a sound like Niagara Falls from the dark chasm out in front of the stage. It went on for some time. The Diva took several curtain calls, then the whole company came out. They stood holding hands, bowing and smiling toward the bright footlights. There were more calls of “Diva, Diva!” “Bravi tutti!” added some linguist in the audience. The Moellendorf from New York didn’t care as much for that, putting her as it did on the equal with the others. But then another call began too, collecting and swelling as more voices took it up.

  “Herma!”

  “Herma!”

  “Herma!”

  After that the various calls were mingled: “Herma!” “Diva!” “Bravi tutti!” This made the Diva extremely annoyed; she was unable to suppress a scowl as she went on smiling, all teeth, over the footlights. The combination was not attractive. It made every line show in her face. The smile became mechanical, a kind of corpselike rictus. She bowed once more, deeply, but the applause was already dying away.

  The house lights went on, and the black animal turned into an audience in which individual faces could be made out. In the middle of the fourth row was Mrs. Opdike in her flowered dress, one huge smile. Mama’s face glowed, and Papa went on clapping like a marionette long after everyone else had stopped. People began putting on their coats. In her box at the left-hand side Madame Modjeska collected her gloves, smiling in her own faint and controlled way, and left inconspicuously.

  Herma went back to her dressing room to take off the gilded coat, the flamingo-colored breeches, the lace shirt with the ruff, and the white silk stockings. There was a note stuck into the mirror in the familiar blocky hand: “Don’t forget The Last Rose of Summer.”

  26.

  At Arden, Madame Modjeska’s ranch estate in Santiago Canyon, a few friends had gathered to celebrate Herma’s triumph. The house, which from the outside seemed only a simple bungalow standing in the moonlight, proved on the inside to be full of endless rooms and corners, unexpected turnings, stained-glass windows like a church, large paintings covering the walls, glassed-in bookcases full of books, an immense stone fireplace, and, in the main salon, an ornate table with carved lions serving as legs. The painting on the wall opposite was a life-sized portrait of Madame by Bastien-Lepage. Another painting, sitting on the floor, was a pre-Raphaelite triptych depicting nymphs fleeing through the woods trailing flimsy scarves. There was no electricity in the house; the lamps were expensive china, with stained-glass shades. The chairs had long fringes like piano scarves.

  Madame Modjeska took her by the hand. “This is Mr. Paderewski, my dear. The famous pianist,” she added, as though there were danger of confusing him with some other Mr. Paderewski. He was a man with a pale, serious face, a noble nose, and a slightly bony and protruding chin.

  His most prominent feature was the shock of blondish hair which stuck up, curly and unruly, on all sides of his, head. He also had a mustache and a small Pan-like lip beard. He wore a dark-gray frock coat, a white shirt, and a white cravat. Nearby was a lady who was declared to be Mrs. Paderewska. Finally, there was Madame Modjeska’s own husband, who for some reason was called Mr. Ch
lapowski. Herma recognized him as the scholarly looking man with the pale forehead who had accompanied Madame to the church social, years ago. “My Karol,” said Madame. There was another person, a wisp of a man who stayed in the rear of the room, whom Madame did not introduce. He gave the impression that he was trying to hide behind a chair.

  “And who is that?”

  “Oh, that is just Henry, he is nobody in particular.”

  “But Pani Helena,” objected Paderewski, “Mr. Sienkiewicz is not just anyone. After all, he has won the Nobel Prize only last year.”

  “Ah, but for us he is only our Henry,” said Madame placidly. “And now where is the champagne? Have Oliver bring in the champagne.”

  Oliver proved to be the same wooly-headed coachman who had brought Herma to Arden, and who also served as butler, and seemed in all respects to be one of the family. “For,” as Madame said while Oliver was right there in the room, “in America it is only the Irish, the Chinese, and the Negroes who know how to serve.” Oliver nodded vigorously. He seemed to agree thoroughly with this judgment. He allowed Mr. Chlapowski to open the champagne, and then he, Oliver, accepted a glass himself. They all held up their glasses.

  “To a new star that has appeared in the heavens tonight,” offered Madame.

  They drank. Herma, aware that you were not supposed to drink when the toast was to yourself, left her glass untouched. Instead she gazed speculatively at Madame. From across the room she gave an appearance of youth; at closer range it was clear that she was well into her sixties. Her heavy gray hair was coiled in a chignon, leaving the bottoms of her ears and her pale perfect neck exposed. She wore a simple black dress enclosing her to the neck, with a necklace from which some sort of badge was suspended; no other ornament. In spite of the dark patches under her eyes, it was her face that gave the impression of youth. She had an alert expression, merry eyes, and a restrained smile. She talked constantly, not listening very much to what other people said in return.

  “Play something, Ignace. Play, play. “We must have wine and song.”

  With a glance at Herma, and a humorous shrug, Mr. Paderewski sat down at the piano and spun his way effortlessly through a few nocturnes of Chopin. He sat bolt upright, with his elbows straight and hands high, glancing around ironically at the others—a kind of parody of a concert pianist’s stance. He seemed to be a person who was easily amused. After the Chopin he did a few trifles of Gounod and Massenet.

  Herma and the others clapped, and Paderewski, in the Slavic tradition, turned on the bench and clapped too to thank his audience. All this with his waggish expression, and his lip-beard like a dignified goat.

  “Does Mr. Paderewski often play for you?”

  “Whenever I ask him. He has to. For,” explained Madame, “it was I who launched him on his career. Isn’t that so, Pan Ignace?”

  He smilingly agreed.

  “He is my creation,” she went on in her theatrical and slightly mocking voice. “He was only a waif, a vagabond, stealing hungrily through the streets of Warsaw. And finding him, I took him under my protection, I arranged for his first concert, and I introduced him to the most famous composers and conductors of Europe.”

  “Not exactly a waif, Pani Helena,” he objected mildly. “More precisely, I was a music student.”

  “You were nobody. I found you. And now you are the most famous pianist in the world.”

  He made no objection, only smiling to himself. They had finished the champagne, and Mr. Chlapowski opened another bottle. They all filled their glasses again, except for Oliver, who set his glass on the piano and left the room with another friendly nod. Perhaps he had to clean the carriage, or bed down the horses.

  “And now you, Pani Helena,” suggested Paderewski. “Recite something.”

  Becoming at once mock-serious, she drew herself up. This was her stage manner—standing bolt upright or even rearing a little aft. She advanced to the center of the room and announced, in a parody of her light accent, “Becawss of my defectif English, I am going to recite in my native languish.”

  She launched into a long and dramatic speech of some sort. The succession of incomprehensible consonants, as prickly and agile as porcupines, ran through the whole gamut of emotions: suspense, drama, and pathos. The liquid voice, with only a slight scratchiness of age in it, was by turns melancholy, gay, impassioned, and tragic. At one point she laughed rather frenetically, and at another broke into sobs. She finished with her arms spread wide, in a peroration so magnificent as to seem Shakespearean. Mr. Chlapowski sighed, and Paderewski and Mr. Sienkiewiez for some reason were laughing.

  “But what is it?”

  “Only the alphabet in Polish, my dear. I often recite it in order to make fools of Americans. For,” she said, “everyone should know Polish. It is the most beautiful language in the world. On a number of occasions, “she said, “I have played Lady Macbeth in Polish, while the others only piped along in English as best they could. And at the end, whom do you imagine the audience acclaimed?”

  No answer was needed to this. Madame finished her champagne, and threw the glass into the fireplace. But not wildly, instead with all the dignity of a countess. “Not only can I recite,” she declared, “but I am also capable of acting, even though I am an old woman.”

  Arms akimbo, she broke into a kind of jig, or rather she seemed to be imitating the walk of various kinds of persons.

  “Tak jedzie pan,

  Tak jedzie pan,”

  (showing the way a lord walks),

  “A tak chlop,

  A tak chlop,”

  (and the peasant walks so),

  “Tak Zyd na jarmark,

  Tak Zyd na jarmark,”

  (and the Jew walks to market this way).

  Recovering her breath, she said, “Like most Poles, I am afraid I am a little anti-Semitic.”

  “Oh no, my dear,” Karol reassured her, “you are only realistic.”

  “What you are really saying, my great and good friend, is that you are the anti-Semitic one, and I am not.”

  “I am pro-Semitic,” said Paderewski, “on account of the many sufferings of Jews which I saw in my youth.”

  “Bravo Ignace!”

  “And also on account of Rubenstein, who is a friend of mine.”

  “But if you have a Jewish friend, that doesn’t count.”

  “How, doesn’t count?”

  He and Madame began arguing this point in Polish, and Karol went out to the kitchen to see if there was any more champagne. Herma was left alone with Mr. Sienkiewicz, who seemed to have recovered some of his presence at least and had come out from behind his chair to stand by the fireplace.

  “I am pleased to meet you, my dear. Pardon me, I don’t know how to address you, I am a foreigner.”

  “Is it true that you won the Nobel Prize only last year?”

  He stared back at her out of his pale eyes, and after a moment admitted shyly, “Yes.”

  “And what for?” Herma pressed him.

  “It was on account of a book that I wrote called Quo Vadis,” he said almost apologetically, as if he wanted to defend himself against any suggestion that his importance could be equal to Herma’s own.

  Herma: “Oh.”

  Mr. Sienkiewicz: “You have perhaps … heard of it?”

  Herma: “No, I’m afraid I don’t read very many books.”

  “I expected you wouldn’t have read it,” he said. “My dear, will you accept the congratulations of an old foreign man? I mean on your performance this evening.”

  “Ah, you were there?”

  “I worshipped with the others.”

  “Anyhow, you’re not such an old man.” She smiled. He was another of the sort of men that Herma liked, gentle, shy men who knew how to do things, in his case write books.

  He said, “I was born in the previous century,” which was really not to the point, since so was Herma herself, and Boy Sampson. Back came Karol from the kitchen with another bottle of champagne, and filled all th
e glasses. But at this point there was a diversion. The wind had been blowing all evening, roaring in the oak trees and shaking their branches, and now Oliver came in to report that there was a fire.

  They all went out to look at the fire. Standing on the lawn under the oaks, they watched while a river of bright orange crept across a hill in the distance, now and then throwing up a shower of sparks. The fire was to the west, and the wind was from the north, said Karol, so there was no danger of it burning down Arden. Still, they always had several fires like this in the windy season. “Which,” he said, “is from January to December, with a day off for Christmas.”

  They went back into the house and finished their champagne. Paderewski seemed nervous. “These hills are one vast tinderbox,” he said. “And if we caught on fire, who would help us? No one.” He stared out of the window into the blackness, where a thread of orange was still visible on the hill opposite. “It’s barbaric. One might be in Patagonia, or the jungles of Brazil. Pani Helena, I don’t understand how you can bury yourself in this remote corner of the world.”

  Madame Modjeska: “Because we like it here, Ignace. It’s a new land! When we came to California, there was not even the railroad. We carried our possessions from Los Angeles in carts. We are pioneers!”

  Paderewski: “You who have played before the crowned heads of Europe, in the most famous theaters of Vienna and Berlin.”

  Madame Modjeska: “Well, it’s pooh to all that, because I’m an old woman now, Ignace, and I like it here, as I said. And do you know, there is a coyote who comes into my garden, and also a rattlesnake.”