Tuesday, September the twelfth, 1911
Oh, what a day I’ve had! I don’t believe any girl ever spent a more beautiful afternoon, even with the rain — and indeed, the rain turned out to be one of the best parts! I want nothing more than to wield my pen and relive it all. No. One thing more I want: for the library door to open and for David to come in. But I must not be greedy; my cup of happiness is full.
Everything went well today. To begin with, Malka let me off early. She saw me rushing through the lunch dishes and said she’d rather do them herself and save the china. Dear, good, grumbly Malka! I flew upstairs and changed into my suit. I wish I’d worn my lacy waist instead of the plain one, but how was I to know the delights that lay in store for me?
The day was overcast, which was a disappointment, because David wanted me in dappled sunlight, like a woman in an Impressionist painting. David has told me all about the Impressionists, who are modern. He says they’re as good as the Old Masters any day, but they aren’t much appreciated because some of them are still alive, and the ones that are dead aren’t dead enough. I like a man who can make me laugh.
We went to the park and David posed me beneath a tree and told me to look rapt. Then he sat on the grass and sketched furiously. From time to time, he consulted his watch. After a little while, he said I could pin up my hair, because it was time to go.
I was disappointed, because I’d hoped we’d be together all afternoon. Only then, David gave me a great mischievous grin and asked me when was the last time I’d been inside a theater. I had to admit I’d never been inside a theater, and he said in that case I’d better hurry, because the opera started at two, and he wouldn’t miss taking me for a farm.
An opera! I was so excited that my hands were all thumbs and I couldn’t manage my hair. But David said it looked fine. We ran to catch the streetcar. All the while, I was thinking, An opera, an opera! I’m going to the opera, and David Rosenbach is taking me!
Actually, it wasn’t a whole opera I was going to see but what’s called a cabinet opera. David explained it to me: there would be only a few singers, in costume, and they would sing the finest airs from La Traviata. There would be scenery, but no ballet and no big choruses. David said he’d set his heart on taking me to the theater, but there isn’t much playing on Tuesday afternoons. Luckily the Columbia Parnassus Touring Company is at the Academy of Music for a week, and they do Tuesday and Wednesday matinees. David said he had a hunch that I’d like the opera better than an ice-cream soda.
Wasn’t that beautiful of him? I do think David Rosenbach is the kindest, most agreeable, most gallant man I ever met. To think of him working out in his head what I’d like best, and guessing right, too! Why, it beats everything I ever heard. I almost feel worshipful when I think of it. I try not to feel too worshipful, though, because I think it’s bad when girls think too highly of the men. It’s more suitable when the men worship the ladies.
On the streetcar, David started to tell me about the opera. He explained that traviata is Italian for lost, because Violetta, the heroine, is a lost woman. I asked how she got lost, and he said that Violetta had abandoned herself to a life of giddy pleasures. I said that didn’t sound too bad to me, which made David laugh. Just then an elderly lady got onto the streetcar. She wasn’t at all well dressed, poor thing, but David got right up and gave her his seat. That shows how chivalrous he is. But it meant we couldn’t talk anymore until we got to the Academy of Music.
I was tremendously excited, but a little bit scared, too. I wasn’t sure I was dressed fine enough for the theater, and I don’t know what Mrs. Rosenbach would say about me going to the opera with her son. And though I knew that Grand Opera must be the very summit of culture and refinement, I was just a little bit scared that I wouldn’t like it. Miss Chandler once saw a Grand Opera called Norma, and it was four hours long and there wasn’t a word of English in it. She said it was very edifying.
The Academy of Music is a very imposing building, red-brick trimmed with sandstone. It has a mansard roof, which is French — David told me there was an architect named François Mansart, which is how the roof got its name. David knows so much about everything. He took me inside, and oh, how I wished I’d worn the fancy waist! It was like fairyland, with marble floors and lofty ceilings and two majestic staircases — two carriages could drive up those staircases side by side, that’s how wide they are. There was a crystal chandelier, and velvet draperies, and exquisite paintings of nymphs and muses and little rosy cherubs with wreaths in their hands. David called the cherubs putti, which is Italian for little artistic babies.
Most of the ladies present were better dressed than I was. But there were a few that were in suits, so I didn’t feel too bad. I was so awed by the grandeur around me, I was afraid I was gawking like a country bumpkin. So I lowered my eyes and tried to act nonchalant. I think David read my mind, because he murmured into my ear that the privilege of looking around the theater was included in the price of the ticket. He led me over to the frescoes and started telling me about the Greek gods and Muses and the parts where the flesh tones had been well painted. I blushed a little because some of those nymphs didn’t have too much on. It seemed funny to be looking at them with a man. But Miss Chandler says the ancient Greeks thought the unclothed form was beautiful, and there can be nothing vulgar or unchaste in the world of fine art.
Our seats were close to the stage. David bought me a libretto, a little pamphlet that explained the story and translated the Italian. I read it, and what I caught on to was that Violetta’s giddy pleasures weren’t what I’d thought they were. She wasn’t just frivolous. She was wanton and depraved, like Céline Varens in Jane Eyre. That was how she made her living. I guess she couldn’t be a hired girl because she had consumption.
When the music began, it was soft and mournful, almost as if you were in a sickroom and shouldn’t wake the patient. I found it beautiful, but I was worried the whole opera might be slow and soft like that. I think my tastes in music are unrefined, because I like fast music better than slow music. Of course you can’t have a tragedy with frisky music. But just as I was thinking that, the music became merry and skittish, and the curtain rose.
There were three gentlemen in black frock coats, and two ladies in hoopskirts with ringlets falling over their bare shoulders, and earrings in their ears and fans in their hands. I guess hoopskirts are nonsensical, but I should dearly like to wear one, because they make your waist look small. And oh, the scenery! On one side of the stage there was a little garden, with roses ambling up trellises, and a fountain that spouted real water. But most of the stage was like a ballroom, with sconces and candles, and mirrors and little fragile gilded chairs. There was a long rose-colored couch, which Violetta used when she had to faint. She fainted very gracefully. Her step would falter, and she’d sidle over to the couch. Then her whole body would droop, and she would tumble onto the rose-colored silk. It was awfully effective. I tried fainting onto Mr. Rosenbach’s couch, but I was like a load of bricks being dumped from a wheelbarrow.
When the people first sang, I didn’t know if I liked it or not. The men’s voices were as strong as a team of horses, and the women sang like wrens: shrill and tight and complicated. The acting wasn’t like real people, either; the men pumped their arms up and down, and raised their eyebrows, and the ladies rolled their eyes and fluttered their fans. It took some getting used to.
But then the shortest, stoutest man — he played Alfredo — began to sing a song called “One Day a Rapture”— that’s what it would be in English, but he sang it in Italian, which is better. Violetta was languishing on the sofa after an attack of coughing. He seized her hand and sang about the love that palpitates throughout the whole universe. He sang misterioso, which I knew must mean mysterious. And he said his love was rapture, rapture and torment. The significance of those words — the way the tune explained them — gave me a thrill like nothing I’ve ever known. I understood then that it wasn’t the libretto that told the
story of the opera. It was the music, the way it yearned and swelled — the suspense and depth and mystery of those sounds. At that moment, I knew I loved Grand Opera. I felt those notes in the very fibers of my soul.
When Violetta sang, I began to see why she was twittering like a wren when you get too near its nest. She was afraid of love, as if it were a wave that could drown her. But she desired it, too: the love that palpitates through the whole universe. How could she resist it? Alfredo’s love was true, pure love, unlike anything she’d ever known. So of course his love conquered her, and he took her to the side of the stage with the trellises and the fountain. That was the country.
Once the lovers were in the country, it seemed like things were going to work out. Violetta’s consumption got better. Her love was as pure and true as Alfredo’s. She would never have forsaken him, and he would never have betrayed her. But then Alfredo’s father came to visit and he was as cruel as mine, maybe even worse, because Father’s no hypocrite. Alfredo’s father was the kind who acts pious. He told Violetta she must make a sacrificio and give up Alfredo, because the way they were living together, without being married, was a scandal. (I don’t know why Alfredo didn’t marry Violetta. But he didn’t.)
Now, if Alfredo’s father had come to me, I’d have sent him away with a flea in his ear. But Violetta had a tender conscience, because of having been depraved so long. Once Alfredo’s father convinced her it would be best for Alfredo if she left him, she couldn’t stand it: she had to make the sacrificio. She left the country and went back to her life of giddy pleasures in the ballroom.
That’s when I started crying. I knew it wasn’t going to go well after that. It seemed so tragic that this poor sick girl had found true love, only to lose it again. I knew it would kill her, and it did.
After the intermission, Violetta came back onstage in the most glorious black dress. It had jet beads on it and black rosebuds and lace around the shoulders. I wish I had a dress like that. Alfredo came to the ballroom and reviled Violetta in front of all the guests, because he thought she was untrue to him. She swooned and fainted dead away on the sofa. By that time, I’d soaked my handkerchief, and David had to give me his.
There was worse to come. In the last act, Violetta was on her deathbed, which was the rose-colored sofa. She wore her hair loose, like a girl’s, and a lacy white nightgown. She looked oh, so pale and pathetic! All I could think of was that Alfredo must come back before she died. She was gasping and coughing as she sang: “All of life must end, all of life must end!” I felt terrible sitting there, strong as an ox, enjoying myself while she was dying. Because I was enjoying myself, no doubt about that. Even though I was crying my eyes out, it was so satisfying: grandeur and tragedy and her doomed, true love.
Just when hope had fled, Alfredo came! And Violetta rallied, and she and Alfredo sang together about how they would go away and be happy together, and she would get well. I believed it. Even though I’d read the libretto, I thought there was still hope. There was one moment, infinitely happy and pathetic, when she rose from her couch and held out her trembling arms and her face was alight! But then she collapsed, and Alfredo flung himself down on her dead body. And the curtain came down.
When I came to myself I realized I was clutching my throat with one hand and squeezing David’s handkerchief with the other. My face was soaked with tears. The curtains rose and there were the singers, smiling and bowing, and oh, how I clapped! Some people shouted “Bravo!” which is what you shout when a man is a good singer. David taught me that if the singer is a lady, it’s more proper to shout “Brava!” Of course ladies do not shout at all, but I wanted to. I wanted to shout and stamp my feet and whistle. Girls aren’t supposed to know how to whistle, but I know how.
David asked me if I enjoyed the opera. I could scarcely speak. He showed me a drawing he’d done of me during the opera — I never saw him drawing me, but I certainly did look rapt. He gave me his arm so he could guide me through the crowd. I ought to have been afraid someone might see us, but all I could think about was Violetta and Alfredo.
Oh, why can’t real life be as glorious as the opera? Of course, in real life people fall in love and get consumption and die, but it isn’t the same. In the opera, the music makes everything deeper and truer and grander. I don’t know how to express it. All I know is that it was a good thing that I had David’s arm to hold on to, because I stumbled on the grand staircase, and would have fallen if he hadn’t steadied me. The people around me were only shadows. Reality was what I had known when I was watching the opera — rapture and torment and the love that palpitates throughout the universe.
When we reached the doors, we saw it was pouring great sheets of rain, so that you could scarcely see. I came back to earth and cried, “Oh! My new hat!” and David said, “My sketches!” because he hadn’t brought his wooden portfolio, just his sketchpad. He thrust the sketchpad into my arms and said, “Stay inside and keep dry. Don’t stir a step!” And he dashed out into the rain.
I stood by the doorway and stared after him. At first I was glad to be alone, because I wanted to think about the opera, but then I began to worry. I knew I was going to get home late, and I didn’t know where David had gone. More people left the theater, and I began to wonder what would happen if I was the last one there. Outside the traffic was dreadful; carriages and umbrellas and a broken-down auto whose driver kept honking the horn.
Then I noticed a red umbrella, bobbing and thrusting its way through a sea of black ones. It was a lady’s umbrella, but the lady must have been the forceful kind, because she was cutting through traffic like a hot knife through butter. When the red umbrella came closer, I saw that David was underneath it. He was soaking wet, and there were raindrops in his hair, but he looked quite happy.
I stepped outside, under the overhang. He gave the umbrella to me, and put out his hand for the sketchpad. From under his coat he took a piece of dry canvas and wrapped it around his sketches. “You waited! Good girl! I dashed over to the store and bought you an umbrella.”
“It’s too much,” I protested. “First the opera, and now —”
“I can’t keep it,” said David. “Get a look at that tassel! I felt like Lord Fauntleroy, carrying it through town. Besides, I have an umbrella at home, and I bet you don’t.”
He was right about that, so I gave in. At first we meant to take the streetcar, but the ones that passed were all full, because of the rain. David and I walked home together, sharing the red umbrella. David asked what I thought about the opera and I told him I had never, never seen anything so fine. He said he was proud — stuck on himself was the way he put it — because he’d known it was just what I would like. He says I have an instinct for art. What a beautiful thing for him to say! I asked him about the operas he’s seen, and he told me about Caruso and Nellie Melba. And then — I felt shy, but it was easier with the umbrella over us both — I asked him about his painting.
He has very noble aspirations. He feels that every artist has a gift to give to the ordinary laboring man. The ordinary laboring man — or woman — needs to be inspired and uplifted, the way I was this afternoon. David likes painting portraits. He says that some artists look down on portrait painting because portraits make money, and landscapes are more distinguished. But David says a portrait painter can tell the truth about the human soul just as Rembrandt did. He said he wouldn’t mind being a great portrait painter, even a society painter like John Singer Sargent.
It’s terribly important that he should get this commission from Madame Marechaux (who is forty-six!) because she has a vast amount of influence. If she hires him to paint Joan of Arc, he’s going to tell his father that he means to be a great artist, instead of the owner of a department store. When he spoke of breaking the news to his father, he looked wretched, because he knows Mr. Rosenbach will be disappointed. He (David) had thought his brother would carry on the family business, but Mr. Solomon is going to move to New York so he can attend a Jewish school called yeshiva.
That means Mr. Rosenbach is counting on David. But David has no head for business, and Mr. Rosenbach must see that it would be cruel to force an artist into a life of sordid commerce.
I told David that Mimi could manage the store, and he said, “But she’s a girl!” Then I flared up and said a girl could do anything a man could do. David said I was a regular fire-eater but maybe I was right.
I wanted our walk to last forever. My boots aren’t watertight, so my feet got wet and cold, but I would have followed David to the ends of the earth. That’s how fascinating our conversation was.
At last we got home, and I had to face Malka. When I came through the back door, she flew at me and shook me with all her might, which isn’t saying much, as she isn’t strong. But her nails are sharp and they dug into my arms like an owl’s talons. She said I was a bad, disrespectful girl, and she had imagined me murdered somewhere and my body thrown into a back alley. When she stopped railing, she told me that she’d had to make the whole dinner herself. But she didn’t get me in trouble. She never told Mrs. Rosenbach that I hadn’t come home.
I thanked her profusely. Her eyes narrowed and she asked me where I got that fancy new umbrella. I said hastily that I’d bought it at Rosenbach’s, and the price was reduced because one of the ribs was a little bit bent. Oh, what a liar I am! I’m sure I ought to be ashamed.
Then Malka demanded to know where else I’d been. She told me not to say I’d been having religious instruction, because no girl ever looked so happy after an afternoon of religious instruction.
I hedged, saying I’d gone shopping, but Malka caught sight of the libretto under my arm. She jabbed her forefinger at me and exclaimed that I’d been to the opera.
I admitted it. I thought she would scold because it’s above my station to go to an opera. But to my amazement, she didn’t seem to mind it. She said I’d get up to less trouble at the opera than I would with that lying priest Father Horst. And at least I hadn’t run off with a man. Malka’s never seen an opera, but she’s seen the Yiddish theater, which is more thrilling than any Gentile theater, she says. She saw the great Thomashefsky play Hamlet, which was tremendous.
The Hired Girl Page 25