“Of course when I got to be famous it would be just Bonaventura. And
that’s a good word--might bring me luck.”
“Why don’t you use your own name?”
She laughed, throwing back her head so that I could see the inside of
her mouth, pink and fresh like a healthy kitten’s.
“Lizzie Harris on a program--never!” Then suddenly serious, “I
like Bonaventura--‘Did you _hear_ Bonaventura last night in
_Tannhäuser_’--strong accent on the hear. ‘How superb Bonaventura was
in _Carmen_.’ It has a good ring. And then I’ve got a little dribble of
Spanish blood in me.”
“You look Spanish.”
She nodded:
“My grandmother. She was a Spanish Californian--Estradilla. They owned
the Santa Caterina Rancho near San Luis Obispo. My grandfather was a
sailor on a Yankee ship that used to touch there and get hides and
tallow. He deserted and married her and got with her a strip of the
rancho as big as Long Island. And their illustrious descendant lives in
two rooms and a kitchenette.”
She laughed and jumped up.
“I’m going to sing for you and you’ll see if Bonaventura doesn’t go
well with my style.”
She swept the hat off the piano stool and seated herself. The walls of
the room are covered with an umber brown burlap which made an admirable
background for her long body clothed in the rich sinuous crêpe and her
pale profile uplifted on an outstretched white neck.
“I’ll sing you something that I do rather well--Elizabeth’s going to be
one of my great rôles,” she said, and struck a chord.
It was _Dich Theure Halle_ and she sang it badly. I don’t mean that she
flatted or breathed in the wrong place, but she sang without feeling,
or even intelligence. Also her voice was not especially remarkable.
It was full, but coarse and hard, and rolled round in the small room
with the effect of some large unwieldly thing, trying to find its way
out. What struck me as most curious was that the rich and noble quality
one felt in her was completely lacking in her performance. It was
commonplace, undistinguished. No matter how objectionable Mr. Masters
might be I could not but feel he was right.
When she had finished she wheeled suddenly round on the stool and said
quickly:
“Let me see your face.”
“It’s--it’s a fine voice,” I faltered, “so full and--er--rich.”
She paid no attention to my words, but sent a piercing look over my
embarrassed countenance. Her own clouded and she drew back as if I had
hurt her.
“You don’t like it,” she said in a low voice.
“Why do you say that--what nonsense. Haven’t I just said--”
“Oh, keep quiet,” she interrupted roughly, and giving the piano stool
a jerk was twirled away from me into a profile position. She looked so
gloomy that I was afraid to speak.
There was a moment’s pause, during which I felt exceedingly
uncomfortable and she sat with her head bowed, staring at the floor.
Then she gave a deep sigh and murmured.
“It’s so crushing--you all look the same.”
“Who?”
“Everybody who knows. And I’ve worked so hard and I’m eaten up,” she
struck her breast with her clenched fist, “eaten up in here with the
longing to succeed.”
The gesture was magnificent, and with the frowning brows and somber
expression she was the Tragic Muse. If she could only get _that_ into
her voice!
“I’ve been at it two years, with Vignorol--you know him? I’ve learnt
Italian and German, and nearly all the great mezzo rôles. And the
polite ones say what you say, and the ones who don’t care about your
feelings say ‘A good enough voice, but no temperament.’” She gave her
body a vicious jerk and the stool twirled her round to me. “How in
heaven’s name can I get temperament?”
“Well--er--time--and--er--experience and sorrow--” I had come up-stairs
to give advice, but not on the best manner of acquiring temperament.
She cut me short.
“I’ve had experience, barrels of it. And time? I’m twenty-six now--am
I to wait till I’m seventy? And sorrow? All my relations are dead--not
that I care much, most of them I didn’t know and those I did I didn’t
like. Shall I go and stand on the corner of Forty-second Street and
Broadway and clamor for sorrow?”
[Illustration: “How in heaven’s name can I get temperament?”]
“It’ll come without clamoring,” I said. Upon that subject I can speak
with some authority.
“I wish it would hurry up. I want to arrive, I want to be a great prima
donna. I _will_ be a great prima donna. I _will_ sing into that big
dark auditorium and see those thousands of faces staring up at me and
make those thousands of dull fat pigs of people sit up and come to
life.”
She rose and walked to the window, pushed it up and picking up one of
the oranges, threw it out.
“I hope that’ll hit some one on the head,” she said, banging the window
down.
“Have you had the public’s opinion on your singing?” I asked, feeling
it best to ignore her eccentricities of temper.
“Yes. I was in a concert in Philadelphia a year ago, with some others.”
“And what was the verdict?”
She gave a bitter smile.
“The critics who knew something and took themselves seriously, said
‘A large coarse voice and no temperament.’ The critics who were just
men said nothing about the singing and a good deal about the singer’s
looks--” She paused, then added with sulky passion, “Damn my looks.”
She was going to the window again and I hastily interposed.
“Don’t throw out any more oranges. You might hit a baby lying in its
carriage and break its nose.”
Though she did not give any evidence of having heard, she wheeled from
the window and turned back to me.
“It’s been nothing but disappointments--sickening disappointments.
I wish I’d been left where I was. Three years ago in California I
was living in a little town on the line between Los Angeles and San
Francisco. I sang in the church and got ambitious and went up to San
Francisco. They made a good deal of fuss over me--said another big
singer was going to come out of California. I was just beginning to
wonder if I really _was_ some one, when one of those scratch little
opera companies that tour South America and Mexico came up. Masters,
Jack--the man you met here the other night--was managing it. I got an
introduction and sang for him, and you ought to have heard him go up in
the air. Bang--pouf!--like dynamite! Not the way he is now--oh, no--”
She stopped. The memory of those days of encouragement and promise
seemed to shut off her voice. She stared out of the window as if she
were looking back at them, her face set in an expression of brooding
pain. I thought she was going to cry, but when she spoke her voice
showed an angry petulance far from the mood of tears.
“I’d never have got such big ideas if he hadn’t given them to me. I
must come on here and study, not waste myself on little towns and
little people. Go for the big prize--that was what _I_ was made for.”
She suddenly turned on me and flung out what seemed the bitterest of
her grievance, “He made me do it. _He_ insisted on my coming--got
Vignorol to take me, paid for my lessons. It’s his doing, all this.”
So _that_ was the situation. That explained it all. I was immensely
relieved. She might be in love with him, but if he was not in love with
her (and he certainly gave no evidences of it), it would be easy to get
rid of him. He was frankly discouraged about her, would probably hail
with relief any means of escaping the continued expense of her lessons.
The instinct that had brought me up-stairs _was_ a good one after all.
“Couldn’t you”--I felt my way carefully for the ground was
delicate--“couldn’t you put yourself in some one else’s hands. Get some
one else to--I don’t know what the word is--”
She eyed me with an intent watching look that was disconcerting.
“Be my backer?” she suggested.