They entered the box during the nuptial hymn. Farrar, almost supine in
the arms of the seducer, was singing with the voluptuous abandon that
makes this scene the most explicit in modern opera. She had sung it a
thousand times, but she was still the beautiful young creature exalted by
passion, and her voice seemed to have regained its pristine freshness.
She had done many things to irritate New Yorkers, but in this scene,
whether they forgave her or not, they surrendered; and those to whom love
and passion were lost memories felt a dim resurgence under that golden
tide.
Clavering had no desire to surrender. In fact he endeavored to close his
ears. He had received a cold douche and a hot one in the course of the
past hour, and he felt that his equilibrium was satisfactorily
established. He had forgotten to warn Madame Zattiany of the step at the
front of the box, down which so many novices had stumbled, but she had
taken it and settled herself with the nonchalance of custom. Odd. Once
more something beat in the back of his brain. But he dismissed it
impatiently. No doubt many boxes in Europe were constructed in the same
fashion.
He had seated himself a little to the right and behind her. He saw her
lids droop and her hands move restlessly. Then, as the curtain went down
and Farrar was accepting the customary plaudits, her eyes opened and
moved over the rich and beautiful auditorium with a look of hungry
yearning. This was too much for Clavering and he demanded abruptly:
"Why do you look like that? Have you ever been here before?"
She turned to him with a smile. "What a question! . . . But opera, both
the silliest and the most exalting of the arts, is the Youth of Life, its
perpetual and final expression. And when the house is dark I always
imagine it haunted by the ghosts of dead opera singers, or of those whose
fate is sadder still. Does it never affect you in that way?"
"Can't say it does. . . . But . . . I vaguely remember--some ten years
ago a young singer with a remarkable voice sang Marguerite once on that
stage and then disappeared overnight . . . lost her voice, it was
said. . . ."