Willa Cather

by Willa Cather

  “By the way, will you tell me your first name, please? Thea? Oh, then you are a Swede, sure enough! I thought so. Let me call you Miss Thea, 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 Bayreuth. He’ll pretend not to care, but he does. Do you warble with him? Have you anything of a voice? Honest? You look it, you know. What are you going in for, something big? Opera?”

  Thea blushed crimson. “Oh, I’m not going in for anything. I’m trying to learn to sing at funerals.”

  Ottenburg leaned forward. His eyes twinkled. “I’ll engage you to sing at mine. You can’t fool me, Miss Thea. 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 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 ‘Gioconda’ is more in your line. What’s this Grieg? It looks interesting. Tak for dit Räd.. 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 Thea to enter before him. She hung back.

  “I couldn’t give you much of an idea of it. It’s a big song.”

  Ottenburg 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.

  Thea 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 Norwegian’s 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.”

  Thea continued to frown, but she also smiled. She was confused, but not embarrassed. She was not afraid of Ottenburg. 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 must I 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.”

  Ottenburg 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 Ottenburg as the steady industry of his older sons. When Fred sang the Prize Song at an interstate meet of the Turnverein, ten thousand Turners went forth pledged to Ottenburg 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 moulding itself to the galloping rhythm of the song. Bowers perceived such things sometimes—unwillingly. He had known to-day 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 a 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, Ottenburg 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 Ottenburg 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 business man, 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 Ottenburg were having to eat. At that moment they were talking of her.

  IV

  Thea noticed that Bowers took rather more pains with her now that Fred Ottenburg often dropped in at eleven-thirty to hear her lesson. After the lesson the young man took Bowers off to lunch with him, and Bowers liked good food when another man paid for it. He encouraged Fred’s visits, and Thea soon saw that Fred knew exactly why.

  One morning, after her lesson, Ottenburg turned to Bowers. “If you’ll lend me Miss Thea, I think I have an engagement for her. Mrs. Henry Nathanmeyer is going to give three musical evenings in April, first three Saturdays, and she has consulted me about soloists. For the first evening she has a young violinist, and she would be charmed to have Miss Kronborg. She will pay fifty dollars. Not much, but Miss Thea would meet some people there who might be useful. What do you say?”

  Bowers passed the question on to Thea. “I guess you could use the fifty, couldn’t you, Miss Kronborg? You can easily work up some songs.”

  Thea was perplexed. “I need the money awfully,” she said frankly; “but I haven’t got the right clothes for that sort of thing. I suppose I’d better try to get some.”

  Ottenburg spoke up quickly, “Oh, you’d make nothing out of it if you went to buying evening clothes. I’ve thought of that. Mrs. Nathanmeyer has a troop of daughters, a perfect seraglio, all ages and sizes. She’ll be glad to fit you out, if you aren’t sensitive about wearing kosher clothes. Let me take you to see her, and you’ll find that she’ll arrange that easily enough. I told her she must produce something nice, blue or yellow, and properly cut. I brought half a dozen Worth gowns through the customs for her two weeks ago, and she’s not ungrateful. When can we go to see her?”

  “I haven’t any time free, except at night,” Thea replied in some confusion.

  “To-morrow evening, then? I shall call for you at eight. Bring all your songs along; she will want us to give her a little rehearsal, perhaps. I’ll play your accompaniments, if you’ve no objection. That will save money for you and for Mrs. Nathanmeyer. She needs it.” Ottenburg chuckled as he took down the number of Thea’s boarding-house.

  The Nathanmeyers were so rich and great that even Thea had heard of them, and this seemed a very remarkable opportunity. Ottenburg had brought it about by merely lifting a finger, apparently. He was a beer prince sure enough, as Bowers had said.

  The next evening at a quarter to eight Thea was dressed and waiting in the boarding-house parlor. She was nervous and fidgety and found it difficult to sit still on the hard, convex upholstery of the chairs. She tried them one after a
nother, moving about the dimly lighted, musty room, where the gas always leaked gently and sang in the burners. There was no one in the parlor but the medical student, who was playing one of Sousa’s marches so vigorously that the china ornaments on the top of the piano rattled. In a few moments some of the pension-office girls would come in and begin to two-step. Thea wished that Ottenburg would come and let her escape. She glanced at herself in the long, somber mirror. She was wearing her pale-blue broadcloth church dress, which was not unbecoming but was certainly too heavy to wear to anybody’s house in the evening. Her slippers were run over at the heel and she had not had time to have them mended, and her white gloves were not so clean as they should be. However, she knew that she would forget these annoying things as soon as Ottenburg came.

  Mary, the Hungarian chambermaid, came to the door, stood between the plush portieres, beckoned to Thea, and made an inarticulate sound in her throat. Thea jumped up and ran into the hall, where Ottenburg stood smiling, his caped cloak open, his silk hat in his white-kid hand. The Hungarian girl stood like a monument on her flat heels, staring at the pink carnation in Ottenburg’s coat. Her broad, pockmarked face wore the only expression of which it was capable, a kind of animal wonder. As the young man followed Thea out, he glanced back over his shoulder through the crack of the door; the Hun clapped her hands over her stomach, opened her mouth, and made another raucous sound in her throat.

  “Isn’t she awful?” Thea exclaimed. “I think she’s half-witted. Can you understand her?”

  Ottenburg laughed as he helped her into the carriage. “Oh, yes; I can understand her!” He settled himself on the front seat opposite Thea. “Now, I want to tell you about the people we are going to see. We may have a musical public in this country some day, but as yet there are only the Germans and the Jews. All the other people go to hear Jessie Darcey sing, ‘O, Promise Me!’ The Nathanmeyers are the finest kind of Jews. If you do anything for Mrs. Henry Nathanmeyer, you must put yourself into her hands. Whatever she says about music, about clothes, about life, will be correct. And you may feel at ease with her. She expects nothing of people; she has lived in Chicago twenty years. If you were to behave like the Magyar who was so interested in my buttonhole, she would not be surprised. If you were to sing like Jessie Darcey, she would not be surprised; but she would manage not to hear you again.”

  “Would she? Well, that’s the kind of people I want to find.” Thea felt herself growing bolder.

  “You will be all right with her so long as you do not try to be anything that you are not. Her standards have nothing to do with Chicago. Her perceptions—or her grandmother’s, which is the same thing—were keen when all this was an Indian village. So merely be yourself, and you will like her. She will like you because the Jews always sense talent, and,” he added ironically, “they admire certain qualities of feeling that are found only in the white-skinned races.”

  Thea looked into the young man’s face as the light of a street lamp flashed into the carriage. His somewhat academic manner amused her.

  “What makes you take such an interest in singers?” she asked curiously. “You seem to have a perfect passion for hearing music-lessons. I wish I could trade jobs with you!”

  “I’m not interested in singers.” His tone was offended. “I am interested in talent. There are only two interesting things in the world, anyhow; and talent is one of them.”

  “What’s the other?” The question came meekly from the figure opposite him. Another arc-light flashed in at the window.

  Fred saw her face and broke into a laugh. “Why, you’re guying me, you little wretch! You won’t let me behave properly.” He dropped his gloved hand lightly on her knee, took it away and let it hang between his own. “Do you know,” he said confidentially, “I believe I’m more in earnest about all this than you are.”

  “About all what?”

  “All you’ve got in your throat there.”

  “Oh! I’m in earnest all right; only I never was much good at talking. Jessie Darcey is the smooth talker. ‘You notice the effect I get there—’ If she only got ‘em, she’d be a wonder, you know!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Nathanmeyer were alone in their great library. Their three unmarried daughters had departed in successive carriages, one to a dinner, one to a Nietszche club, one to a ball given for the girls employed in the big department stores. When Ottenburg and Thea entered, Henry Nathanmeyer and his wife were sitting at a table at the farther end of the long room, with a reading-lamp and a tray of cigarettes and cordial-glasses between them. The overhead lights were too soft to bring out the colors of the big rugs, and none of the picture lights were on. One could merely see that there were pictures there. Fred whispered that they were Rousseaus and Corots, very fine ones which the old banker had bought long ago for next to nothing. In the hall Ottenburg had stopped Thea before a painting of a woman eating grapes out of a paper bag, and had told her gravely that there was the most beautiful Manet in the world. He made her take off her hat and gloves in the hall, and looked her over a little before he took her in. But once they were in the library he seemed perfectly satisfied with her and led her down the long room to their hostess.

  Mrs. Nathanmeyer was a heavy, powerful old Jewess, with a great pompadour of white hair, a swarthy complexion, an eagle nose, and sharp, glittering eyes. She wore a black velvet dress with a long train, and a diamond necklace and earrings. She took Thea to the other side of the table and presented her to Mr. Nathanmeyer, who apologized for not rising, pointing to a slippered foot on a cushion; he said that he suffered from gout. He had a very soft voice and spoke with an accent which would have been heavy if it had not been so caressing. He kept Thea standing beside him for some time. He noticed that she stood easily, looked straight down into his face, and was not embarrassed. Even when Mrs. Nathanmeyer told Ottenburg to bring a chair for Thea, the old man did not release her hand, and she did not sit down. He admired her just as she was, as she happened to be standing, and she felt it. He was much handsomer than his wife, Thea thought. His forehead was high, his hair soft and white, his skin pink, a little puffy under his clear blue eyes. She noticed how warm and delicate his hands were, pleasant to touch and beautiful to look at. Ottenburg had told her that Mr. Nathanmeyer had a very fine collection of medals and cameos, and his fingers looked as if they had never touched anything but delicately cut surfaces.

  He asked Thea where Moonstone was; how many inhabitants it had; what her father’s business was; from what part of Sweden her grandfather came; and whether she spoke Swedish as a child. He was interested to hear that her mother’s mother was still living, and that her grandfather had played the oboe. Thea felt at home standing there beside him; she felt that he was very wise, and that he some way took one’s life up and looked it over kindly, as if it were a story. She was sorry when they left him to go into the music-room.

  As they reached the door of the music-room, Mrs. Nathanmeyer turned a switch that threw on many lights. The room was even larger than the library, all glittering surfaces, with two Steinway pianos.

  Mrs. Nathanmeyer rang for her own maid. “Selma will take you upstairs, Miss Kronborg, and you will find some dresses on the bed. Try several of them, and take the one you like best. Selma will help you. She has a great deal of taste. When you are dressed, come down and let us go over some of your songs with Mr. Ottenburg.”

  After Thea went away with the maid, Ottenburg came up to Mrs. Nathanmeyer and stood beside her, resting his hand on the high back of her chair.

  “Well, gnädige Frau, do you like her?”

  “I think so. I liked her when she talked to father. She will always get on better with men.”

  Ottenburg leaned over her chair. “Prophetess! Do you see what I meant?”

  “About her beauty? She has great possibilities, but you can never tell about those Northern women. They look so strong, but they are easily battered. The face falls so early under those wide cheek-bones. A single idea—hate or greed, or even love—can
tear them to shreds. She is nineteen? Well, in ten years she may have quite a regal beauty, or she may have a heavy, discontented face, all dug out in channels. That will depend upon the kind of ideas she lives with.”

  “Or the kind of people?” Ottenburg suggested.

  The old Jewess folded her arms over her massive chest, drew back her shoulders, and looked up at the young man. “With that hard glint in her eye? The people won’t matter much, I fancy. They will come and go. She is very much interested in herself—as she should be.”

  Ottenburg frowned. “Wait until you hear her sing. Her eyes are different then. That gleam that comes in them is curious, isn’t it? As you say, it’s impersonal.”

  The object of this discussion came in, smiling. She had chosen neither the blue nor the yellow gown, but a pale rose-color, with silver butterflies. Mrs. Nathanmeyer lifted her lorgnette and studied her as she approached. She caught the characteristic things at once: the free, strong walk, the calm carriage of the head, the milky whiteness of the girl’s arms and shoulders.

  “Yes, that color is good for you,” she said approvingly. “The yellow one probably killed your hair? Yes; this does very well indeed, so we need think no more about it.”

  Thea glanced questioningly at Ottenburg. He smiled and bowed, seemed perfectly satisfied. He asked her to stand in the elbow of the piano, in front of him, instead of behind him as she had been taught to do.

  “Yes,” said the hostess with feeling. “That other position is barbarous.”

  Thea sang an aria from ‘Gioconda,’ some songs by Schumann which she had studied with Harsanyi, and the “Tak for dit Räd,” which Ottenburg liked.