But Easter was refractory. She liked the tenor voice, and, notwithstanding the fulness and richness of her middle and lower registers, she preferred her fluty upper tones. Madame Ash was pleased with the voice and told Stone that in two years she would have the girl in the concert-room. A wonderful talent, a wonderful personality, hard as nails, and all the better for it. She would keep off the men, with that cold eye. But when she does break loose—Grand Dieu! The madame comfortably shivered. She was not averse from hearing about exciting scandals—if they didn't happen in her own vocal family. Easter was more than promising material. The kind-hearted teacher and manufacturer of prima-donnas, as she merrily christened herself, was interested in the strange girl Alfred Stone had brought to her for judgment. She also wondered at his noticeable interest, for she knew him as a celibate, a woman-hater, rather say, a despiser of the cloven sex. She had persuaded him, without much trouble, to invite Easter to a full-dress rehearsal at the Opera. The girl couldn't afford to pay for a seat. This he had done and now Easter was in the sixth heaven of anticipation.
At half-past ten Frau Seidl telephoned the director that his assistant-conductor was to go ahead with the first act, which had been rehearsed by him the week before. He was ill but would be down at midday. There was some gutteral cursing, it stopped when the first enigmatic bars welled-up from the mystic abyss. Easter, her eyes closed, her face flushed, swam out on the muffled ecstasy of the prelude. The curtain rose. Soon Lilli passionately broke in upon the song of the seaman, and the glorious symphony of human desire and renunciation went swirling by. The singers were in costume. Jean, warrior and lover, met his Isolde in the shock of passion and remorse, but did not flinch at the climax. Van Rooy and Brema were in the mood-key. At moments Easter thought she couldn't longer stand the suspense. She wished to cry, to roll on the floor, to tear her hair, to press her aching eyeballs till they fell out. She was in the centre of an emotional typhoon. Her previous life shrivelled up like a scroll in the clear flame of the mighty master of musical elixirs. Love and Death and Death and Love. First Things and Last. She was shocked and angered at Stone's commentary after the curtain had fallen, and the sparsely scattered auditory busily buzzing.
"Like the caterwauling of erotic cats on a midnight roof," said he. "Brute!" she murmured, but he overheard. "Brute or no brute, this ocean of sentiment over a pint of catnip—was it worth the infinite bother Wagner gave himself to deliver a mouse from the belching volcano?" "It's a mouse now," she tartly replied, "before it was a tomcat. I admire your similes." "It doesn't matter much to me whether you do or do not." He was quite acid. "You don't know anything, while I've been listening to Tristan for years." "Why be cynical, even if you have heard it so often? It's a masterpiece among masterpieces"—she paused, breathless. "And I imagine," he continued, "you expect to sing Isolde some day better than Lilli." "I do, and if not better, that would be nearly an impossibility, at least I'll be a younger Irish Princess," she announced with the unconscious cruelty of youth. "But I'll first begin with Brangaene. That rôle I can easily better. Have patience and you will see my beautiful young witch Brangaene. She isn't supposed to be ugly and old." "What's this?" he exclaimed, "already a Wagnerian critic?" Then, suddenly, "Hello! You here?" He squeezed her elbow, and she saw standing before her in the next row a vaguely familiar figure, but the dim light puzzled her as to the person.
"Hullo!" came the answer. "Alfred, how did you get home the other night? I saw you were in for a wet time and I skipped." He looked inquiringly at the young woman. Stone apologized. "Oh, I fancied that living in the same hotel you had met. Miss Brandès, this is my very good friend, Mr. Invern. Ulick, this is the coming Lilli Lehmann. Miss Brandès is a pupil of Madame Ash, who predicts a big future. Funny, Miss Easter occupied your apartment for a few days." "Yes, Madame Felicé told me. I am very glad you did, Miss—Miss—Brandès. What a picturesque name for the operatic stage? The only Marthe Brandès in Paris may be jealous. Aren't you from the South, from Richmond—Miss Brandès?" He had seated himself and was gazing at her, she had herself well in hand, but her stomach trembled as if sea-sick. She grasped the velvet arm of her stall and tried to keep her voice steady as she replied:
"Yes, I'm from Richmond. I was born in Virginia. Why do you ask? Is my accent so marked?" She had a good central grip on herself and presently the vibrations ceased. Stone was bored and yearned for a cigarette. "I see Seidl—I'll go out for a smoke." At once Ulick seated himself beside Easter. Eagerly he attempted to take the gloved hand next to him. She crossed her arms. Then she said in commonplace tones: "Do you know, Mr. Invern—I don't miss that lovely apartment. They put me on the third floor. I am away from the noisy kitchen and I can catch a bit of the sky instead of that depressing brick wall—" He whispered, and his voice was hoarse, as if from excess of feeling: "How can you ever forgive me—ever forgive me—Miss Richmond—pardon me, that was your name—down East, in New Hampshire. … " Easter seemed to see smoke. She didn't answer him. Then, in her broadest most cordial Southern tones, she asked: "Whatever in the world are you talking about, mister?" He thought: I'm on the wrong tack. She won't acknowledge that we met—and what a meeting—but, wait, I'll make her acknowledge—everything. She went on in her desultory conversational manner: "I was reared in Richmond. That's not my name. What did Mr. Stone call you?"
He was nettled. Absurd. As if she could pull the wool over his eyes, those clear piercing blue eyes that looked at life so amusedly, so cynically. Then Seidl rapped for silence and the curtain rose on the love-scene of all musical love-scenes.
As she watched the gothic head of Seidl she thought of him as a magician whose wand evoked magic spells, but soon she forgot Time and Space and was living in that enchanting fairyland of high daring and passion transfigured. The deep voice of Brangaene warned the lovers. Tremulous horns told of the King's return. Edouard de Reszke intoned his: "Tristan!" in the inflexions of which are compressed the reproach of betrayed friendship, and chivalry that has vanished. Passion—passion, the yearnings of the man for the woman, and the desire of the woman for the desire of the man, had summarily abolished the walls of duty, of earthy morals. A hand slipped into hers. She did not resist and the hand was hungrily held. The spell was upon her. Music, the most sensual of the arts, for it tells us of the hidden secrets of sex, immersed her body and soul in a magnetic bath; the sound-fluid entered the porches of her ears. She was as a slave manacled within the chalked circle of a wizard. To step across the line would have been an ineluctable attempt. She did not try. And to make more concrete the illusion of a consciousness transposed from the key of her everyday life, the embracement of her arm by this strange man—wasn't he a stranger to her?—sent her spirit cowering into supernatural coverts. What was she? What was he? Tristan and Isolde; Isolde and Tristan. She identified herself with the lovers, who, like the crepuscular figures stitched on some mediaeval tapestry, dreamily moved across the field of her vision. Tristan fell, and Easter awoke with a start. Where has that little wretch Stone gone? The sneak, she thought. Withdrawing her arm she stood up with a sigh of delight satisfied. The lights were now on. The small but select band of invited guests, were shaking hands with dear Maurice Grau,