Speranza

THE SOUL OF A TENOR: A ROMANCE


By W. J. HENDERSON

Author of "The Story of Music," "The Art of the Singer,"
"Some Forerunners of Italian Opera"





NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT

1912


















THERE are no portraits in this story. I have
dared to give a momentary glimpse of one supreme
interpreter, but none of the other characters in
this book ever existed. The need of a " local
habitation and a name " led to the choice of the
Metropolitan Opera House as the theater of
scenes in the drama. Those who are acquainted
with the history of the institution will know that
no such company as that found in this book ever
sang there, and that none of the incidents ever
took place. No more did those placed beyond
the walls of the opera house. But opera land is
an existing country; and a real artist might be
born in it in some such way as is hereinafter set

forth.

W. J. H.










CHAPTER I
RS. HARLEY MANNERS, iust si






ping from her car in front of the Waldorf-
Astoria, was a vision of radiant expectancy. She
was hastening to one of those perfectly delightful
Monday morning musicales at which, for an in
considerable price, you could sit and rub shoul
ders with people right in the heart of the smart
set. Mrs. Harley Manners was not in that set.
She knew many people in it, and purred audibly
when they spoke to her. When they did not,
which was the more usual occurrence, she retained
her composure and waited. She knew that all
of them would have to speak to her from time to
time, for she was a cheerful and insistent laborer
on all sorts of committees for charitable entertain
ments, benefits, and what not. She was always



2 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

ready to do most of the work, all of the talking,
and to sign a really handsome check.

So when she went to a Monday morning
musicale, and the sun of the smart set shone upon
her, she was repaid. If at the next one the
heavens were covered with gloomy gray clouds,
she imperturbably drew her wraps about her and
waited for brighter weather. Some people might
have called her a climber, but climbers usually at
tain higher altitudes, especially in the complicated
jungle of New York Society. No, Mrs. Harley
Manners was not a climber, for she never rose.
She was just a sitter. She sat tight and waited
for what never came. But her faith and patience
were inexhaustible, and she had a perennial ob
ject in life. She was trying to live down the ap
palling fact that her husband was not a banker,
a broker, or even a wine merchant, but a hotel
provision contractor.

So she stepped from her olive limousine just as
if she were one of the elect. She moved briskly
toward the entrance. She was early. That was
part of her policy. By going early she was more



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 3

likely to catch opportunities to corner in conversa
tion women who would have dodged her at the
last moment. On this particular Monday morn
ing her plans were frustrated by the unexpected
advent of Philip Studley, who, in the most incon
sequent and, indeed, inessential manner, chanced
to be passing the huge hotel. Studley was a non
descript in the seething life of New York. He
was the music critic of a morning newspaper, and
enjoyed all the glory and humiliations of such
a position. One of the humiliations was having
to endure the diplomatic enthusiasms of Mrs. Har-
ley Manners and her breed. For when this distin
guished sitter was not abiding in the neighborhood
of smart-set persons, she passed her hours in
prostration before the throne of some musical
celebrity. Next to receiving a smile from a society
leader, she valued having a musical personage at
luncheon or dinner. Philip Studley was a sort of
musical personage. At any rate, musical per
sonages talked about him. Some blessed him and
many cursed him.

Some of those singular creatures who regard



4 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

it as an object in life to attend performances of
operas generally wearisome to their jaded minds
chiefly for the sake of gathering in exclusive com
partments denominated boxes and making known
to all the world the pregnant fact that they be
long to a coterie set above the small army of
nonentities in the orchestra stalls, some of these
self-satisfied fugitives from the brotherhood of
mankind were in the habit of giving vent from
time to time to their opinions of Studley and his
kind. They asserted that plebeians such as he
should not be permitted to discuss in newspapers
the doings of the entertainers hired to amuse the
lords and ladies of creation. Some of the men
were more deeply wounded by the critical com
ments than the women were, but only when the
offensive comments affected certain feminine song
birds.

And so it chanced at times that the war of
words about some newspaper scribbler waxed
quite hot, and it was known that on more than
one occasion the expulsion of Philip Studley from
the theater had been formally demanded at meet-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 5

ings of the board of directors. But wiser heads
had always prevailed, for there was much influence
in the argument that expulsion would confer too
much seeming importance on a very unimportant
person. And so Studley s name was from time
to time in the mouths of men and women to whom
Mrs. Harley Manners adoringly looked up from
her seat among the sitters. Furthermore, he
served as a target for Mrs. Manners most pointed
comments on " art " and " artists." In their
world these words meant music and people who
made it or performed it. She could talk with her
most eloquent ignorance to Studley, and wet him
down from head to foot with her little amateur
smatterings, and he had to answer tolerantly be
cause she was a woman. Otherwise he was not
especially useful, because he would not mingle
freely in the circles of those about whom he had to
write, and he was acquainted with only two or
three " artists." He could not widen the sphere
of Mrs. Harley Manners by introducing her to
more celebrities. She knew twenty times as many
of them as he did. But it was fated that on this



6 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

particular morning he was to present to Mrs. Man
ners a shocking and delicious piece of information.

" Going to the musicale, I suppose," he said
as he bowed to her.

" I rarely miss one," she replied, smiling up
into his face with that boyish frankness which
was her only charm; "and to-day I am so in
terested. There are to be examples of early
French music sung by that marvelous French tenor,
Remy."

"Yes," said Studley thoughtfully; "queer,
though, isn t it, that he has to roam around the
country doing this sort of thing, instead of singing
in opera, either here or in Paris? "

" I assure you," said Mrs. Manners earnestly,
" that he is such a true artist that he prefers to
do this sort of work, in which he is entirely un
hampered by the notions of impresarios or con
ductors."

" Yes, I rather fancied that had something to do
with it. He is an artist. That is undeniable."

He stopped short to smile brightly and bow to
a very erect young woman who was passing in a



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 7

dark-tinted limousine car. Mrs. Harley Manners
stared at her. Studley looked a little amused.

" Don t you know her? " he asked.

" No/ replied Mrs. Manners, " I do not. But,
really, Mr. Studley, I must be hastening or I shall
be late."

" Good-by," he said; " I m quite sure you will
become acquainted with Helen Montgomery.
Baroni is paying her ardent attention. I shouldn t
wonder if something really serious might come of
it. Good-morning."

He walked away, leaving her bereft of speech,
or even breath, for that was the very first minute
that any one outside of the inner circle of the music
world had heard of this thing. Mrs. Manners
rushed up to the concert room and made a dozen
frantic efforts to entice social persons into con
versation before she remembered that she had
never seen the name of Helen Montgomery re
corded " among those present." Then she won
dered if Henry Murtha, the society reporter of
a certain great daily, would know. So when
she was about to go to her seat, she luckily caught



8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

him, and, pushing him into a corner whence he
could not escape, said:

Who is Helen Montgomery?"
What Helen Montgomery do you mean? " he
answered.

" I don t know, except that she is the one Baroni
is attentive to."

"Ah, yes; but you can hardly expect me to
know anything about that. You might ask one of
the musical news reporters."

But Mrs. Harley Manners drew the line there.
She decided that she would wait, because all things
come to those who wait, and she would not have
to wait more than two hours. She was going
right home, and one of her guests at luncheon was
a member of the opera company. Then she would
find out. How dared any mere woman aspire to
the attentions of the great Baroni?

Born plain Leander Barrett, he had lived the
more or less eventful life of a Pittsburgher till he
reached the age of seventeen. He was then in his
Freshman year at a famous university, and had
" made the glee club." Fortunately for him, the



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 9

university had a department of music, and its head
was one of those uncommon men who know some
thing about the singing voice. He heard Barrett
sing once or twice, and then sent for him. He
asked him what he expected to do after gradua
tion, and learned that the young man contemplated
the study of law. Having ascertained that the
parents of this youth were not of such deadening
social rank that they might not be brought to
consider an artistic career for their son, he sat
down and wrote a letter to old Peter Barrett, which
brought that excellent man by express to an inter
view. The long and short of it was that the
parents of young Barrett were convinced that their
son had an extraordinary tenor voice, and that it
might be his fortune.

The head of the music department assured the
parents that there was a thoroughly competent
teacher in the city where the college was, and thus
it came about that young Barrett was permitted to
continue his course and graduate before he was
sent to Europe to finish his studies. In Europe
his master found him thoroughly well grounded i/i



io THE SOUL OF A TENOR

voice technie, and proceeded to impart the neces
sary instructions in style and interpretation. In
four years the young man, who, curiously enough,
refused to go too fast, was ready for his debut.
He appeared as Elvino in " La Sonnambula " at
the Teatro Bellini in Catania, and the astonished
Italians rose at him. They had not heard anything
like him in many, many years. His voice was the
true lyric tenor, but of uncommon power, and he
sang with a tone production absolutely perfect,
so that his entire scale was perfectly equalized, and
his command of a ravishing mezza voce enabled
him to whisper sentiment into the soprano s ear
in an irresistible manner. In two months he was
engaged for Milan, where his Edgardo was a sen
sation. In less than a year he sang Romeo in
Paris. Two seasons later he was engaged for the
Metropolitan Opera House, and in one more he
reached Covent Garden. Leander Barrett, of
Pittsburgh, Pa., had conquered the world.

It was universally conceded that he was in
some ways the most gifted tenor since Jean de
Reszke. The Boston Herald declared that he



THE SOUL OF A TENOR n

was far greater, because one night, when he had a
cold, he sang out of tune, and this the Boston man
declared showed that he was not a mere vocal
machine. The Evening Post of New York fell at
his feet because, when made up for Lohengrin, he
was the image of Max Alvary. That he sang it
like Campanini was not mentioned. The Tribune
published a deprecatory essay two columns long
after he sang DonOttavio inMozart s inaccessible
" Don Giovanni," and a sprightly weekly printed
eight pictures of him and his shoes and stockings,
with a Sunday page giving an intimate account of
his manner of taking his morning bath and dress
ing for the day. The American expressed regrets
about him because, being an American, he did not
advocate opera in English. The Sun went into a
profound analysis of his vocal method and his
treatment of recitative in all schools of opera,
showing thereby that he was a greater master of
the lyric art than Farinelli or Garat, singers of
whom the readers of the article had never heard,
and about whom, therefore, they cared absolutely
nothing. The Times asserted that he had no



12 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

method at all, and that this was what made him a
truly great singer.

The truth was that Baroni, as the world called
him, had a perfect tenor voice of two octaves and
one note. He had a high D flat in his scale, but
never used it except occasionally in vocalizing.
He valued it because it kept his C in comfort. He
had personal magnetism, graceful action, and a
blind musical instinct which led him to make ef
fective and even bewitching, if not logical, nuances.
It was said of him that he was a highly cultivated
gentleman, who had profited greatly by the serious
studies of his university course. The fact was that
he had passed through the university much as hun T
dreds of other young men do. He had lived the
life of a club man, and some of the floating dust
of learning which was in the surrounding atmos
phere had settled upon his shoulders. He was not
well informed, nor had he any intellectual acumen.
He was not a musician, nor a true lyric artist; but
he had the talent of the theater, and this informed
his singing with a routine eloquence which he him
self could not rightly have explained.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 13

So Baroni conquered the world, and women
threw themselves in his path and begged him to
trample upon their souls. But he was a singularly
decent chap, and laughed at nearly all of them.
He had his little affairs, but they were without ex
ception confined to his profession. On the whole,
he lived a remarkably respectable life for an all-
conquering tenor.

Mrs. Harley Manners did not hear any of the
music at that Monday morning musicale. She
was thinking how stupid she had been not to ques
tion Studley. But she had really been startled into
mental numbness. Now, as the last note was still
vibrating on the air, she sprang to her feet and
intercepted Mrs. Harold Keen, who stared at her.

" Do you chance, Mrs. Keen," said Mrs. Man
ners, with her sweetest accent, " to know Helen
Montgomery? "

" Never heard of her," replied Mrs. Keen,
sweeping slowly onward.

" Not in the old set," reflected Mrs. Manners,
and then she halted Mrs. Fifi Stebbins, of the new
set, who answered vaguely, " There are Mont-



i 4 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

gomerys almost anywhere, but I don t recall any
Helen. 1

Then Mrs. Harley Manners chased Mrs. Peter
Weismann, who was in neither set, and yet was not
in Mrs. Manners own immediate circle. And she
also never heard of this Helen Montgomery.
Defeated all along the line, Mrs. Harley Manners
returned to her car and directed the chauffeur to
take her home. And then kind fortune smiled on
her, for almost at her very door she spied Pro
fessor Silas Mabon, the distinguished chemist, and
she stopped the car to engage him in conversation,
which speedily led to the all-important question.

" I know a Helen Montgomery that is, I know
of her, I am not acquainted with her. My niece
knows her," said the Professor. " She is the
daughter of Edward Montgomery, the great
carpet manufacturer."

" Is Mr. Montgomery rich? "

" I have been told that he is worth three or four
millions."

" A-h-h-h-h! " whispered Mrs. Manners to her
own heart.



CHAPTER II

T3HILIP STUDLEY walked along Fifth Ave-
* nue, and turned into a side street, where he
entered a club. It was not a fashionable club, nor
one in which the sons of millionaires would be
found. It was one of those quiet unobtrusive re
treats which, in the midst of the turmoil of New
York s wild pursuit of wealth and social distinc
tion, thrive in the green peace of intellectual ob
scurity. Studley, being a newspaper writer, knew
all sorts and conditions of men, but those who
frequented this club, he felt, were of his own
people. Perhaps he would have known more had
he gone oftener to the club, but for the most part
he dwelt in a little world colored by the rays of
his own imagination. He was very young, and
had much to learn. In the club he found a letter.
He recognized the clear, strong handwriting, and,
lighting a cigar, he retired to a quiet corner to

read.

15



1 6 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

k< I suppose you will be not in the least aston
ished," said the writer, " to learn that I am going
to be married, and to Leander Barrett. I am just
a little astonished myself, for I hardly know how
it arrived. It finished itself so suddenly that I
have not yet caught my breath. You see, I knew
Leander slightly when he was in college. He was
a great friend of my cousin, Billy Montgomery
you know him and it was through this that I
met him. Of course, at that time I did not dream
that he had so much in him. He seemed to me
to be just an ordinary college boy, and I enjoyed
his chaff and chatter, and passed him on just as
women always pass on nice boys. But when I be
gan to read of his achievements abroad in such
a wide variety of art works, I saw that I had failed
to measure his character at all. Strangely enough,
when he came back to this country and began to
sing at the opera, I did not meet him. He seemed
to have drifted into a totally new set. I suppose
that the exclusively musical set lives quite by itself.
At any rate, no one in the set in which I have
passed my life seems to know anything or care



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 17

anything about music. It is all literature, art, and
architecture. You must know all about Ghirlan-
dajo and Giotto and Bramante and Petrarch and
ever so many others whom I need not mention
to you, but if you speak of Josquin des Pres or
Claudio Monteverde, people stare at you and
coldly ask who they were. And if you can tell,
you are thought to be a crank. I don t know
why I ever became interested in these musical
masters, except that they seemed to me to be just
as much a demonstration of the intellectual life of
their times as the painters and the authors.

" It was only a few months ago that I fell in
with Leander again, and it was of all places in the
world in a department store. We bumped
violently against one another in a crowd, and, as
he turned to apologize, he recognized me and ex
claimed, Well, Miss Montgomery isn t it?
And, of course, I admitted that it was. He asked
me if I remembered him, but made no attempt to
tell me his name. He seemed to take it for
granted that I knew who he was now. Naturally
he supposed that I was a music lover. So we went



1 8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

out of the shop together, and I took him uptown
in my car. We had a pleasant talk, and that
was the beginning of it. Somehow the affair
rushed itself along, and before I really was sure
that I knew him, he asked me the great question.
I am telling you all this, Philip, because in a sort
of way it is your right to know it. You have been
my closest friend, and I believe you really under
stand me. So if I say frankly to you that I ac
cepted Leander without much consideration, you
will comprehend me when I add that no sooner
had I done it than I realized that I would not
have it undone for all the world. Can you gather
that? I believe I m just a woman, after all. -
Anyhow, I know now that I love Leander, and
that I honor him above all men. His art is as
much a religion to me as it is to him. It is good
to hear him talk about the art of voice production,
Philip. It reminds me of the times when you
have talked to me about your art, only now I am
listening with new ears and an inspired under
standing. I wonder if women who are beloved
of business men and have to listen to them talk-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 19

ing about short stock and breaks in the market
and running the bears to cover and all that sort
of thing can listen with inspired understandings.

" Oh, I am blessed, Philip, to be the chosen of a
great artist, a master who has wonderful mes
sages of beauty to give to the world. But you
don t want to hear that, do you? I am sure you
have suspected that this was coming, but I was not
sure of it myself. You are the first person outside
of the family to whom I have given the news.
The engagement will not be announced till Mon
day. We are to be married in three weeks, for Le-
ander, as you know, does not remain till the end
of the season. We sail right after the ceremony,
and he is not going to sing at all in the summer.
We are going to have a real honeymoon, as Mr.
and Mrs. Lee Barrett, in out-of-the-way places.
He was not willing to wait till he came back for
the next season, and we both felt that we did not
wish to be separated for all those months. I dare
say some people will regard it as a hasty wedding,
but we who live in a world far above that known
by the ludicrous * society people will not he



20 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

troubled. So I shall go to Europe with him and
come back with him when he returns for next sea
son. Meanwhile, Philip, I have told him that you
are my best friend, and that he must not object.
Do you know, he smiled and seemed greatly
pleased to know that we were such friends, and
when I told him that I should like to write to you
from Europe, he said, * By all means, you must not
let such a friendship as that fall away. Wasn t it
dear of him, Phil?"

And Phil thought it was.

The spreading of the great news was rapid. In
the evening of the same day it rushed with electric
speed through the atmosphere of a queer little
Italian restaurant, whither some of the divine
singers of the opera company went to eat their
dinners. An opera company is one of the most
peculiar of human institutions. It is a pushing,
eager, suspicious community, in which the largest
of human passions and the meanest of human jeal
ousies jostle and elbow one another at all hours
and in all circumstances. There are castes, and
there are iron gates through which the lower may



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 21

not pass to the higher. Away up in the blinding
glare of that sun of publicity, which rises with the
morning paper and sets only with the last edition
of the evening, dwell the royalties of the opera
realm, those mighty princesses and princes whose
number of appearances are guaranteed for the sea
son, and who do not receive salaries, but " cachets,"
often rising to the proud proportions of four fig
ures. These masters do not dine in little Italian
restaurants. The most palatial hotels provide
them with gorgeous apartments, armies of lackeys,
and food with French titles. Some of them even
set up private domiciles for the season, and dis
play at least the outward semblance of a social
dignity equal to that of their employers.

Little Italian restaurants are for singers who
accept salaries, who humbly take so much a month
and sing as often as the merciless impresario
wishes. And there are other lines of distinction,
moral rather than financial, among the citizens of
opera land. There is, for instance, the company
of uninteresting women. Some of them have hus
bands whom they love and do not divorce. The*se



22 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

women bear children and rear them with tender
ness and intelligence. Also among the uninter
esting women are those honest and ambitious be
ginners, who foolishly worship before the altar
of the chaste Diana, refusing the helping
masculine hands readily proffered to them at so
small a cost as a transfer of their devotion to a
different goddess. These vestals remain in the
gloom of minor roles and wearily wend their ways,
through season after season with painfully slow
progress toward the glories of the realm. None
of these women can appear in this chronicle. They
do not fashion history of this kind. Sometimes
they create history of another kind, important and
even epoch-making in the realm of art, but
of no value as material for the professional
gossip.

As for those women who figure in all animated
chronicles of the present kind, some of them may
have had husbands, but they have tried to forget
them, and usually with success. Little Italian
restaurants, with hot and opaque atmospheres, are
in accord with their temperaments, for their part



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 23

of the opera world is hot and opaque at all sea
sons of the year.

It was not a pretty place, that particular Italian
restaurant. All the men in it seemed to require
cigarette smoke as a condiment for food, and
they chewed and puffed alternately. The room
was filled with a wreathing blue fog, through
which strange head-dresses and still stranger
gowns could be seen, for the denizens of this world
always garb themselves in streamers of splendor
and look not unlike perambulating lamp shades.

They were not only singers. Some were im
pecunious painters and some were patrons of the
arts, who were wont to shout " bravo " from the
highest seats in the temple. It gave them a fine
satisfaction to eat within reach of real singers.
And they were not all Italians, for one feast of
spaghetti makes the whole world of Bohemia kin.
And some of the opera singers had their own no
tions about what was going on in the life of the
great tenor who ate his meals in gilded palaces.
They had no official information, but the gossip
mill of an opera house grinds exceeding small.



24 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

"Who is it, this Montgomery?" asked Fera-
mordi, the Italian contralto, as she drank down
Chianti in great noisy gulps. On the stage she
was majestic in stride and tragic in tone, this Fera-
mordi, but she did not eat prettily at all. She had
never rid herself of the ghost of her hungry days
in the Santa Lucia quarter before her voice was
discovered.

"A society woman, is she not?" said Tre-
montini, the light barytone, who was sure he could
sing Amonasro, while every one else was sure he
could not.

" No," replied Abadista, the general utility
barytone, " I know. I always know. Her father
is a carpet maker."

" Well," said Feramordi, " and in this country
she can be in what they call their best society, these
beasts of Americans they have no aristocracy,
the shop-keeping, stock-selling pigs."

They were all speaking Italian, of course, but
Tremontini looked fearfully around and said in a
whisper:

" Careful, careful, my dear; some dog will be



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 25

carrying your words to one of the stockholders,
and you may fall upon evil days."

What do I care? " she said, affecting a cour
age which she did not feel. " I am the Feramordi,
am I not? I have all Europe and South America
in which to sing, have I not? "

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand and one times yes,
my darling; but I do not wish to go to South
America."

Then go to Tophet," she exclaimed, hurling
an evil look into his eyes; "I can live without
you."

They were not man and wife, either, these two,
and surely never would be. Their quarrels en
livened the life of the opera house, and always
ended in the same way. They invariably went
home together after a performance. Habit was
their master. They leaned upon one another in-

6

stinctively.

" But yet," continued Abadista, who at last got
another opportunity to speak, " she is not of this
American shop-keeping and stock-swindling aris
tocracy. She is of the outside. She has much



26 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

money, but she does not dine and dance with any
of those who applaud us from the boxes. She is
unknown among them."

"Does she attempt music ?" asked Tremon-
tini.

" Alas, I do not know that," replied the utility
man.

" Via via!" exclaimed Feramordi; "what dif
ference does it make? If she is an amateur musi
cian, they will fight because she will know a little.
If she is not, they will also fight, because she will
be a fool and will know nothing."

For a few minutes the three said nothing
further. Their busy mouths were occupied with
spaghetti. From the next table floated scraps of
conversation. Those who sat there were French
and Polish members of the company. They were
not on bad terms with the Italians, but they knew
that Feramordi and Tremontini bullyragged each
other all through meals, and they were wiser
than Abadista, who was just stupid enough to
intrude upon the ferocious lovemaking of the bary
tone and contralto. One could not help hear-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 27

ing, however, a few words of the French chatter,
which was also about the gossip of the day.

" And why," demanded Madeleine Piroux, the
exquisite little French soprano, " shall I not ask
Leandro who and what his chere amie is? "

" Because, most adorable of women," replied
Ponitzky, the Polish bass, " you are just a little
epris of the Baroni yourself."

" Don t be jealous, Ladislas," she said, throw
ing a piece of bread at his mustache; " you know
that I love only you to-day."

" And whom to-morrow? "

To-morrow? Oh, what can one tell of to
morrow? It is always to-morrow."

" But, nevertheless, you will not ask him to-mor
row or the next day."

" Eheu ! I suppose he would smile so enchant-
ingly and show his beautiful teeth and begin to
talk about our joint appearance in Philadelph
sacre nom ! how can one say the word ! "

And the sum and substance of it all was that
the members of the opera company had just got
wind of the affair, and they really knew little



28 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

enough. They had learned that Baroni was in
love with a Miss Montgomery, but who she was
they could not tell. Nor did they know that there
was to be a wedding so soon or, indeed, that there
was to be one at all, for being in love did not in
the operatic half-world necessarily imply a wed
ding. But on one point they were all perfectly
agreed, and that was that if there was a wedding,
the woman was a fool. For they were morally
certain that no woman not brought up in their
sphere could dwell peaceably with one of its deni
zens. They were not at all given to self-study,
these sublime egoists of the world of music. They
never thought about themselves in that way. They
regarded themselves as arrived, as complete, as
finished products of the wisdom of nature. But
they were satisfied that the rest of humanity dwelt
on a level far below theirs, and that only the
sublime people of their own planet could under
stand them. So there was no reason why every
one should not say that the woman was a fool.
Oh, it would, perhaps, be beautiful for a few
weeks, but what would she do if Baroni should



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 29

have one of his grand attacks of the ego? To be
sure, they had another name for it, but that was
what it was. Had he not nearly bitten off the
ear of Tremontini one night in " Cavalleria " just
because that honest and prosaic barytone had got
six recalls after the duo with Nagy Bosanska, the
Santuzza of the evening? And, perhaps, he was
enraged also at the Bosanska, but men did not
show anger at her. If they did, she just looked
deep into their eyes and they forgot. Bosanska
was much more to be feared than Baroni s ego,
for he was only an American, while she was a
mystery.

Some said that she was a Calabrian whose father
had slain her mother because he was not her
father. But others declared that she was nothing
so cheaply melodramatic as a Calabrian. Some
held that she was the daughter of a Moscow Jew
by a Tartar mother. Others declared that she
was the child of an Austrian nobleman and a Dal
matian peasant woman. None of them really
knew, for Nagy Bosanska was still a mystery.
And since they were all a little afraid of her, they



30 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

asked her no questions. Men had asked Nagy
questions away back in the past, and had got looks
for answers, and for the sake of those looks they
had sunk into hell. It was the best and the worst
of all things to love Nagy Bosanska, as some men
in different parts of the world could tell. But the
one who could tell best of all was silent forever,
for he was the Hungarian gipsy who had shot
himself on a mountainside above Csorba, when a
certain Viennese nobleman had discovered the Bo-
sanska s voice and taken her away to the capital
to study under his protection.

And Nagy Bosanska, sitting in the retirement
of her apartment in Madison Avenue, and dining
in peace, accompanied by her ancient and subservi
ent companion, smiled as if her thoughts were most
amusing.

" Why do you smile, Doushka?" asked Mme.
Melanie, the companion.

"Don t talk Russian," said Nagy fiercely;
" you know I hate it."

" Holy saints! " said poor Melanie to herself,
" I forgot that it was the favorite pet name of that



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 31

Viennese devil. What a pity she does not find a
lover who will also be a master. The Viennese
terrorized her. All other men have been her
slaves." Then she said aloud: " Forgive me, dear
one. I am an old fool."

" But I will tell you," said Nagy Bosanska with
an inscrutable look in her gray-green eyes; " I
smile because a tenor is in love with a doll
baby."

Which shows that Nagy Bosanska knew nothing
at all about the matter. And in this she was
neither better nor worse than the rest of the opera
company. For Leander Barrett, despite his con
siderable experience in the opera realms, was yet
an American, and he had a way of keeping his af
fairs to himself. If he had told any one, however,
it certainly would not have been Nagy Bosanska,
for he regarded her with a supreme indifference.
He liked to sing with her because she was
tremendous; but off the stage he preferred
the American members of the company, who
were all cordially hated by the European
members.



32 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Nevertheless, Mme. Melanie observed later
that the serpent was unusually alive this day in
the green eyes of Nagy, and she was very glad
that she was neither the tenor nor his bride-to-be.



CHAPTER III

"1XJ AGY BOSANSKA wil1 y u sin at m ^

-^ ^ wedding? " whispered Leandro Baroni.

Yes," she answered in something like a hiss,
" and dance at your funeral."

" You are most obliging," said Leandro.

" And you are merely stupid," commented
Nagy.

At the moment they were walking hand in
hand toward the cathedral in the second act of
" Lohengrin," and the audience was intent upon
the beauty of the scene. The thrill of it all had
penetrated the house, and there were many who
would have sworn that these two great artists had
so identified themselves with their roles that they
really lived the lives of Lohengrin and Elsa. As
the orchestra thundered the brazen echo of " Nie
sollst du mich befragen," and Ortrud stood threat
ening below the steps, Baroni and Bonsanska, who
could play charmingly on the surface of Wagner s

33



34 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

music, passed slowly from the sight of the audi
ence. And he was saying to her:

"What will you sing?"

" I will sing," she answered, " * Mon coeur
s ouvre a ta voix.

And as she slipped from his encircling arm and
started toward the front to take her curtain call,
she smiled at him an inscrutable and disconcerting
smile.

u It is a contralto number," he said to himself,
" but that creature can sing anything with her two
octaves and a half. I wonder if Helen will think
it has any personal meaning directed at her."

By this time he was bowing gracefully over the
Bosanska s hand in front of the curtain, while the
audience applauded and the standees shouted
" bravi." As the two passed out of the public
sight, he said:

" Nagy Bosanska, you shall not sing the song of
Dalila at my wedding."

" No? Then I sing nothing."
And so it came about that little Madeleine Piroux
and Tremontini were the singers who did the duty



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 35

of artistic fellowship at the wedding two days
after the " Lohengrin " performance. Leandro
made his farewell appearance for the season as
the Swan Knight, and went home to see his
luggage made ready for Europe.

The wedding-day was not altogether a success,
for it was soft and foggy, and all the opera people
were in evil humor. Even Leandro was surly
when he arose and tramped ill-temperedly about
the room, sounding his middle C and shaking his
head because it was veiled. But presently he
smiled a little.

" It is not I who must sing to-day. I have only
to marry," he thought. " And then away, far
away from everything but love for months to



come."



A knock at the door startled him. It was only

his valet. The wedding was set for an early hour,

>
so that the happy couple might take the steamer

immediately after the ceremony. Helen had
vainly pleaded for a quiet wedding entirely in pri
vate, but Leander had assured her that his posi
tion as a public man demanded certain sacrifices.



3 6 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

It must be in a church; some of the company must
sing; their pictures must appear in the next day s
newspapers, and the reporters must be furnished
with full particulars.

u It is only for this once," said Leander; " when
we come back, it will all be an old story, and I
shall no longer be a subject for romantic reports.
I shall be an old married tenor."

And Helen sighed her resignation. After all,
they would not see the newspapers, for they would
be far out on the ocean, and then for months
they would be buried in out-of-the-way places in
Europe. Leander knew so many little nooks and
corners, where tourists never went, and there they
two would go and forget the rest of the world.
So she faced the church wedding and the photog
raphers at the door with calm courage.

In her wedding garb and treading the path
toward the altar she was, perhaps, not quite the
Helen Montgomery of every-day life; but still,
even the operatic guests confessed that she was
good to see. She was not a very tall woman, but
the noble lines of her figure gave her an appearance



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 37

of height, and her walk, which was the incarnation
of feminine dignity, added to the illusion. From
somewhere in the far back generations of her peo
ple she had got a dainty fineness of bone and a
satin sheen of creamy skin. The crimson in her
cheeks was usually that of the rose, though now
she was unwontedly pale. But the sweet pro
fundity of her steady, but soft, gray-brown eyes
was unruffled. She breathed an atmosphere of
perfectly poised, aristocratic, intellectual woman
hood. But it was no chilled atmosphere, for
Helen was adorably human and desirable. There
was a tempting fullness of the lips, a gracious
roundness of the bosom, and a deepness in the
strong respiration which bespoke the existence of a
slumbering passion ready to be awakened to a
splendid life.

As she moved bravely forward, she was happily
unconscious of the strange and motley crowd in
the little church. All that she saw was the re
lentless perspective of the narrow aisle terminating
in the dimly lighted altar before which she was to
kneel, while the crown of life was laid upon her



3 8 THE SOUL OF A .TENOR

brow. Her eyes fixed themselves upon it, and she
moved unfalteringly toward it as one in a vision.
She did not even see Leander, standing there in
all the splendor of his six feet of straight, slim
manhood, waiting for her to deliver her future into
his hands. She did not hear the opera-house
orchestra and the church organ thundering the
" Coronation March " from the " Prophet " Le
ander had vowed that he would not have that
deadly " Lohengrin " music. She saw the cross
over the altar, and behind it a blurred picture of
a drooping figure with outspread arms. Her soul
was floating toward celestial regions. Helen was
consecrating herself to the stupendous conditions
of wifehood, and as she walked forward she
silently prayed that she might wear worthily her
crown; for the cross behind the altar did not seem
to be for her.

Twice in the course of the ceremony the sounds
of song were heard. In neither instance was it
the song which Leander had chosen. The
wretches treated the affair as if it were a Sunday-
night concert and changed the programme at will.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 39

The light, transparent, silver tones of Madeleine
Piroux wafted out into the church Alessandro
Stradella s " Se amor m annoda il piede," which
caused Leander to smile faintly and with a certain
indulgence. Tremontini sang " Sous les pieds
d une femme," from Gounod s " La Reine de
Saba," and the drift of the words made a mo
mentary impression even upon the absorbed spirit
of Helen, so that she lowered her head and blushed
in her sweet humility. As for Leander, he com
muned briefly with himself:

Tremontini well knows that he will not meet
me again till next season, and by that time I shall
have forgotten that I ought to kick him."

When the ceremony was over the orchestra
played the inevitable Mendelssohn wedding march.
Helen was Mrs. Barrett in private life, and Mme.
Baroni in the palpitating world of art. Her life
had doubled at the altar. She was two per
sonages, or, rather, one person and one personage.
But she did not realize it then. She had so much
to learn, and she was so sure that she already
knew. So she had also much to unlearn.



40 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

The automobile was waiting at the door. Some
of the singers crowded about them as they came
out, and tried to embrace either the bride or the
bridegroom. It made no difference to them, so
long as they could give an emotional performance
in the presence of the photographers from the
evening papers lined up at the curb. Press agents
ran up and down the line making sure that the
actors in this historic scene were correctly identi
fied. Leander and Helen hastened into the car,
and the chauffeur gave a loud toot. In A flat,
Tremontini said it was, for he claimed to pos
sess absolute pitch, but he often sang out of tune.
The vehicle sped away, and the singers turned and
hesitated, for they found themselves mixed with
a crowd quite new to them. The friends of Helen
stared at these strange creatures, and said to one
another:

u How remarkable!"

And the singers stared back and said to one an
other :

" People who come from nowhere and go back
there."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 41

They had small esteem for those whom they
did not recognize as opera-goers.

" Hein ! These Americans they are so rich and
so stupid," declared Madeleine Piroux, who had
emerged from the church.

" But they pay the money," remarked Tremon-
tini philosophically.

" Bien ! That is what Americans are for," de
clared Madeleine with an air of finality.

"Shall we go to their luncheon?" asked Po-
nitzky, who had not breakfasted.

" Idiot! " answered Feramordi; " would I wish
to answer their ten thousand foolish questions?
You will take me to Henri s and we shall hide from
every one."

" Adorable angel," murmured Ponitzky, who
hated Henri s.

And so these great " artists," to whom an in-

*

scrutable Providence had confided the interpreta
tion of noble dramatic poems, and whose pulsating
interpretations nightly set thousands of souls
a-tremble, went their several ways, and the wor
shiping public continued to worship from the



42 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

other side of that yawning gulf, the orchestra
pit.

Helen and Leander tarried not long at the
luncheon. Their steamer was to sail at three.
They had yet to make some minor changes in
their garb. At half-past one, while the hungry
ones were still at the tables, they slipped away.
Only Helen s father bade them adieu. The car
went noiselessly down the street, and so Helen
passed out of her old world and faced her new
one. She sat back with her eyes half closed, try
ing to gather her forces, for, although she was not
of the hysterical type, and though a wedding was
not a social ceremony to her, she had passed
through an excitement which puzzled her, because
it was of a new order. She faced the mental situ
ation as she rode toward the steamer. It cleared
itself quickly, for her will was strong.

She saw herself touched by the consciousness
that she was the bride of an artist. She smiled
slowly as she measured that. After all, an artist
was first a man, and a man was a human being,
like herself. Suppose she had been marrying an



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 43

architect, would she have had that same sense of
being translated into a foreign sphere? She
thought not. Suppose her husband were a
financier, or even a politician with huge visions
of power. Would she have had the same feel
ing? She knew she would not. Then, where ran
the imperceptible line which separated the architect
from the singer? Was Palestrina made of a dif
ferent clay from Bramante? Ideals, yes, there
was the difference. But each had them. They
differed merely in their investiture. Leander was
hardly a Palestrina, but he was a king among
singers. Palestrina was the Prince of music.
Surely Leander s pure and chaste ideals might
fairly be classed with those of the great son of
Sante, but there was nothing into which she could
not enter. And in all else he was only a man, like
a stockbroker or a carpet manufacturer. And
she understood dear old Papa better than he under
stood himself.

So, presently, she looked up with a brave show
of confidence, and found Leander looking down
into her eyes with such a genuine tenderness that



44 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

she was profoundly moved by it. A sudden wave
of faith and comfort rushed over her, and left
her with a deep peace in her soul. She lifted her
face instinctively, and Leander, leaning down,
murmured :

" My wife."

And he kissed her on the lips a long, gentle
clinging kiss, that had no touch of passion, but
rather was an act of consecration. It was at that
moment, though he never knew it, that his love
reached its zenith.

" Lee," she said, " it seemed a little strange to
me for a moment; but now I am happy."

; What seemed strange, dear? "

u I felt as if I had strayed out of my own world
into one unknown to me."

* Well, in a sense that is true. But I fancy your
feeling that way was due to your becoming the
wife of a sort of public man, you know what I
mean stepping out into the glare of the
footlights. You see, you ll have to face my
glory."

He smiled and spoke lightly, but the words



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 45

jarred upon her. She was not thinking of his
fame, but of his inner world. After all, though,
she could not expect to knock at its door and hear
him say, " Come in/ and thus complete every
thing. No, she would have to invade this won
derful new territory slowly.

" I was thinking rather of your ideal world,"
she said softly.

" Yes, I see," he said pensively; " but you ll get
used to that. It really is not hard."

And again she wondered if she had not stupidly
failed to make herself understood. She was silent
for a few minutes, and then the car rolled up to
the pier. As it did so, he turned his eyes full
upon hers and said:

" Look here, sweetheart, we are going away on
a vacation; I don t want to talk shop."

" Shop? "she echoed.

" Yes, art and singing and opera and all tfiat
sort of thing. That s my trade, you know, and in
vacation I like to forget it for a time. And this
is going to be the greatest vacation of my whole
life. We are going away, you and I, into secret



46 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

corners, and we aren t going to think of anything
in the world except our love."

And as they went on board the ship she was still
wondering how he intended to separate their love
from a partnership in the thing that made his in
tellectual life. But, after all, what he doubtless
meant was that they should not purposely enter
into discussions of musical subjects. Of course,
enlightening remarks would fall from his lips
from time to time, and she would gradually acquire
a deeper and surer knowledge of his ideals. And
then, in the season they would be absorbed in these
beautiful thoughts, for he would be living in the
world of the imagination.

And because they had exacted a promise that no
one should come to see them off, they stood com
fortably in a corner of the deck and watched the
big pier recede. When the ship had pointed her
bows at the Narrows, Helen resolutely turned her
back on New York, and, leaning on her husband s
arm, gazed at the blue rim beyond Fort Hamilton.
Somewhere behind that she would really begin her
new life.



CHAPTER IV

"VTES," said Helen; " but it seems a pity to

-* leave this paradise of rest."

Leander twirled the sun umbrella and looked
up and down the Paquier. It was late in the
afternoon, and automobiles, laden with foolish
American tourists from Aix, were speeding along
the level road and sending clouds of dust into the
dignified face of the solemn Prefecture building.
Children were beginning to gather in the cool
shadows under the wide-spreading trees, and far
across the lake the first faint touches of purple
were stealing into the thousand hollows of the
majestic Tournette. The bugles were sounding
the retreat, and some two score baggy-kneed in
fantrymen of the gallant Fifty-fifth Brigade w ere
forming in line behind the Casino to march back
to their barracks after an hour of field exercise in
the hot sun.

The lake, a marvelous well of undefiled green,

47



48 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

was shining like a moon, and the splendid Savoy
mountains looked paternally down upon it and
sheltered it and shut out the silly world from it.
The mountains, modest after Jungfraus and Mat-
terhorns, and therefore not advertised to travel
ers, sang silent songs against the lambent sky, and
the rain, which so often drifts across them in the
wet season, lingered far away, leaving the mighty
shoulder of the Parmelan standing forth clear and
strong like a buttress of the world. Helen sighed,
and quoted:

" But list; a voice is near;

Great Pan himself, low whispering through the reeds,
Be thankful thoti: for if unholy deeds
Ravage the world, tranquillity is here. :

Leander smiled with an expression of indulgence
in his luminous eyes, and quoted in his turn :

11 Ich weiss nicht was soil es bedeuten,
Dass ich so traurig bin.

" But that," declared Helen, " is a song of a



river."



Quanti volt al ciaar de luna
Mi t ho dit de vorett ben. "



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 49

Leander sang this sotto voce and Helen made a
little mouth of mutiny.

" And that," she said, " is a song of an over
rated lake where Americans tramp in one another s
footsteps and try to imagine themselves thrilling
with forbidden passions in the bosky groves of the
Villa Serbeloni, where still linger the perfumes of
many roses and the echoes of the voice of the beau
tiful Carrara."

" You like this lake better than Como or Garda,
don t you? "

Helen rose and sighed.

" Nothing is better than this, but one does not
make comparisons with Garda. Leave Claude
Melnotte s pastel picture also out of the question."

" Well," said Leander, laughing, " you are a
lady of lakes anyhow, and to-morrow you must
look at another, Leman, beloved of your friend
Byron."

" I am, indeed, sorry to go," said Helen simply;
" we have been happy here far from the madding
opera houses, and now must we really go? "

" My dear, you know it is all settled. I could



50 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

not break my pledge to Lilli. I promised her two
years ago that whenever she called upon me to aid
her in the Mozart festival I would do so. She has
claimed the fulfilment of my promise. Of course,
I could send word that I was indisposed unable
to travel or "

" No," interrupted Helen; " you must not
descend to any of the petty things. We shall go.
Perhaps I shall like Salzburg."

And so the following day they left the shores
of the lake of eternal green, and, in a train filled
with tourists from Aix, rolled into Geneva in
time to make a comfortable connection for Zurich.
Thence they traveled onward, and still onward, to
Romanshorn and across the wayward Bodensee
into sleepy Lindau, and out again with the express
to sophisticated Munich. And still another day
they whirled eastward till the salty sides of the
Austrian Alps rose above the horizon and the
train boomed into Salzburg, and they plunged into
the turmoil of the pompous little custom house.
A few minutes later they walked into the Hotel
Europe, and out of a chair in the rotunda elevated



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 51

itself the majestic figure of the great Lilli, who
maternally kissed Leander on the brow and turned
with a smile to Helen :

u And this is the heilige Braut ; she is not angry
with me that I kiss him, for see, my hair is growing
white, and I am an old woman, and I heard him
cry when he was a baby."

And for answer Helen put up her sweet young
lips for a kiss, and, having got it, said gently :

" I have never heard you sing, dear Frau Lilli,
but in America they still speak of you with
veneration, and I am glad that you are Leander s
friend."

Yes," said the great woman reflectively; " I
am his friend. I hope to live to see him grow
wise. He is a good child, but a child."

Helen made no answer, for she did not pene
trate the meaning of the great woman s utterance.
A little later, when she was alone in her room,
looking out toward the Hohen Salzburg, she re
called the uneasy hours of their honeymoon. For
they had lingered by lakes and mountains without
finding that perfect peace to which she had looked



52 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

forward. Leander was tender and affectionate,
but from the first she was conscious that his
thoughts had begun to wander. Sometimes he un
successfully tried to suppress a sigh, and when she
asked him why he sighed, he denied that he had
done so. The young wife was troubled. They
sat upon the shore at Stresa and watched the blue
shadows above Pallanza. They saw the Alps
across the Zeller See flame in the splendor of a
July sunset. They had seen the glories of
Grenoble and the peace of Annecy. But always
Leander s mind was out of tune. His thought
was making flights of its own to some other world.
He had not sung a note till just before they
started for Salzburg. He had given his wonder
ful voice a real rest. Then, as they walked
through the galleries of the Gorge du Fier, Lean
der suddenly sang a scale of an octave and a half,
ending with a clarion B flat, and as the echoes of
it rang among the rocks, he threw back his head
boyishly and laughed.

" I ll bet this alley never heard anything like
that before."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 53

And presently he was sure of it, for a guide
approached him and said:

" Monsieur has a good voice for singing. He
should go to Paris and study."

Lilli s letter had changed Leander s moods en
tirely. It was only then that Helen began to un
derstand. The moment her husband knew that he
was about to return to the public gaze, he became
buoyant in spirit, and his affectionate demonstra
tions toward his bride were more spontaneous and
sincere. Helen sighed.

" I suppose," she said to herself, " that it is use
less to expect an operatic artist to be entirely happy
except when he is exercising the spell of his art. I
foresee that a part of my business as a wife will be
to grasp this situation. Leander is a man with a
mission. Nature has set him apart from others
by the gift of a voice and an artist s soul. It is
for me to help that soul to perform its office in
the world. If I am to be the help that is meet
for him, this I must do."

The next day after their arrival at Salzburg
there was a rehearsal of " Don Giovanni." Helen



54 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

had never before attended a rehearsal, and Lean-
der had tried to persuade her to remain away, but
she pleaded to be present, and said she would sit in
a dark corner where no one would see her, and
would be very quiet. Leander dubiously said he
would ask Lilli, but the great woman promptly
granted permission, and smiled graciously when
she did so. Already she had discerned that the
sweet young bride was treading wholly unfamiliar
paths, and perhaps she thought that the sooner
the girl learned true things the better it would be
for her. But she failed to count upon the fact that
Helen was still looking at the world of art
through rose-colored spectacles ; and, furthermore,
that a rehearsal at Salzburg was not quite in the
common order of things operatic.

It was all so strange to Helen. It almost de
stroyed some of her pet illusions to see Leander
as Don Ottavio walking about in a gray suit of
New York clothes, and wearing a straw hat, while
Lilli, with her hat off and her noble gray-crowned
head revealed in all its majesty, looked Donna
Anna in spite of her modern, yet nondescript,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 55

walking-frock. The theater was gloomy and the
atmosphere half-chilled. There was a musty odor
with a singular tang of moldy glue in it. Faint
traces of gas could also be detected, and the one
weak sunbeam which strayed across the ceiling
seemed to be half-obliterated by circling particles
in the crowded air.

The conductor wore a broad slouched hat and
had long oily hair. He beat time mechanically,
and seldom spoke to his men. The Zerlina, a
youthful prima donna, lately sprung into note and
highly conscious of the fact, sat at one side of the
stage. She wore an enormous hat with a brilliant
green feather drooping over her shoulders, and
carried a small dog entirely disguised in white
wool. Lilli cast a Junoesque eye on her, and the
glance seemed to bode her no good. The bary
tone, who was impersonating Don Giovanni, spent
all his spare time bending over the Zerlina. Hefen
smiled at this, and wove her own little romance,
which was some thousands of miles from the
truth. The Donna Elvira was a German, and a
devoted adorer of Lilli. They called one another



56 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

by first names, but Lilli was not polite when she
was displeased with anything which Donna Elvira
did.

They all sang in suppressed tones. They were
saving their voices for the performance. The
Leporello, a gigantic Pole with a notable girth,
piped and whistled the " Madamina " till Lilli
suddenly cried, " Lieber Gott, das ist kein Gesang.
Singe, singe! "

" My dear Lilli," answered the Leporello ur
banely, " won t you be good enough to speak
Italian? I know this part in four languages, and
I must keep to one, or I shall become confused."

Whereupon the great woman launched a tempest
of Italian at him and he shook his huge head
deprecatingly, and began again. This time he let
loose the mighty volume of his big voice, and Lilli
raged once more :

" Man, man, you will raise the dead Com-
mendatore in the wrong scene."

For always it was Lilli who directed the re
hearsal. The conductor beat time, and occasion
ally scolded at a second violin, but he held his



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 57

peace for the most part, except once when he made
a blunder in the harpsichord part, which he played
to accompany the recitative secco. Lilli then be
stowed upon him several uncomplimentary titles,
and he looked up mildly and said :

" Gnadige Frau, I am too small to carry so
many names."

To all this Helen listened with some wonder,
for she had expected to hear learned discussions
about the correct reading of Mozart s great num
bers, or to find the singers going over phrases
again and again till they had them precisely right.
The whole rehearsal seemed to her to be pitched
upon a low level, far removed from the regions of
artistic ideals. When it was over, she and Le-
ander went for a drive to Hellbrunn, where they
took their afternoon coffee. While seated at the
table, Helen expressed her feelings to Leander.

" But, my dear," he replied, " we do not have
to study the roles now. We have all sung them
scores of times. Lilli must have done Anna a
hundred times. All that we have to do is bring
things together. We have to get into the same



58 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

picture, you know. That is the main object here.
Now, in New York, we don t care whether we are
all in the same picture or not, for no one there
knows or cares. We sing every man and woman
for himself. The public has been trained there
to go to hear singers, and each one aims at mak
ing his greatest points in his own most certain
way. But here we must give ( Don Giovanni in
one style together, and that is what the great Lilli
is after. You will see, it will all come out beau
tifully. As for me, I do not have to bother.
You noticed that Lilli hardly spoke to me? "

" Yes," said Helen. " She seemed content to
let you go your own way."

" You see," said Leander complacently, " Lilli
knows that I am the best Don Ottavio in Europe,
and that my arias are certain to set the audience
wild."

Helen shrank a little at these words, but in a
moment she remembered that Lilli had said he was
still only a child, and the vanity of children is al
ways twin sister to their frankness.

She did not go to any more rehearsals. She



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 59

felt that in the future, when Leander was settled
for long seasons in opera houses, she would be
driven into going in order to be near him, and
study him in the behind the scenes of his art. But
it was not necessary yet, and in some dim way she
found the thing depressing. She had watched
painters making pictures, and sculptors modeling
statues, and found it inspiring; but this thing was
quite the opposite. Perhaps it was too much like
sitting beside a pianist when he was practising.
At any rate, she decided to defer further experi
ences of this kind till they were required of
her.

The evening of the performance of " Don Gio
vanni," the first of the festival series, found her
seated in the theater in a sort of dull torpor. Her
expected enthusiasm had deserted her. She cared
only that the festival should come to an end. She
wished heartily to go away from Salzburg. She
hated the Mozarteum with the great staring por
trait of Lilli as Donna Anna set up beside the
little yellow book of Maurel on the proper method
of performing " Don Giovanni." It seemed to



60 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

her almost possible that these people, even the
great woman, were using Mozart as a means to
increase their own glory. But she dismissed the
thought as unworthy of her, and insulting to noble
artists. And in the theater, where the people
around her whispered about the genius of the com
poser quite as often as they did about that of
Lilli, she still found herself unable to shake off the
depression. The performance was really good,
but to Helen s uncertain view it was no better than
some she had seen in New York. At any rate,
that was what she thought till Lilli, gazing with
wondrous eyes after the departing Don Giovanni,
uttered the words, " Don Ottavio, son morta."
Then it was that Helen saw the heavens open and
the inner shrine of interpretative art disclosed to
her dazzled vision. From that moment the
drama became to her a realization of her most
beautiful dreams. One flaming shaft of the elo
quence of genius had reached her soul and set it
afire. Even Leander s " II mio tesoro " became
glorified in her mind, and when the audience, car
ried away by the ravishing beauty of his tones and



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 61

exquisite finish of his cantilena, thundered applause,
she thrilled with inexpressible pride.

" Yes," she thought; "he, too, lives in that
mighty world where Lilli lives. The artist is set
apart from the rest of us. It will not be so easy
to live in that world with him, but that is what I
have to do."

And when the festival was over, more humble in
spirit than when she had sat by the margin of the
lake of eternal green, Helen went with her husband
to Paris, where he was to procure costumes for a
new opera before setting sail for the land of
golden promise.



CHAPTER V

f I ^HE leaves were flying across the yet green

* sward of Central Park and the first ag
gressive winds of the early autumn were probing
the crannies of the myriad chimneys of the rich
on the Fifth Avenue side. Philip Studley was
swinging along the walk beside the west drive,
his cheeks glowing from healthful outdoor exer
cise. He walked often in the Park. He loved
its sophisticated assumption of rusticity and he
had many familiars among the squirrels. But on
this day his exercise was destined to be rudely
terminated by the sudden apparition of Mrs. Har-
ley Manners in her car. She hailed him from the
drive and literally dragged him into her vehicle,
where in ten seconds she had him in the seething
turmoil of her undying musical chatter.

" I am astonished, Mr. Studley," she said,

" that after being a critic for several seasons you

62



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 63

have not become acquainted with more of the



artists."



" I have always felt that it would be bad policy
for me to do that," replied the young man.
" However, I am very well acquainted with the
wife of one and I suppose I shall come to know
him well, too."

" Ah, yes," said Mrs. Manners, " I remember.
You are a great friend of Mrs. Baroni, are you
not?"

" Yes. They are due here on Wednesday s
steamer."

" Have you heard anything about their sum
mer?"

" No, only that Baroni sang with immense suc
cess at the Mozart festival at Salzburg."

" I suppose you read that in the foreign
papers."

" Well, the truth is that Mrs. Baroni was kind
enough to send me all the criticisms."

Mrs. Harley Manners pricked up her ears.
Possibly this young wife "was going to be worth
cultivating. At any rate she seemed to perceive



64 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

that as a mate for a tenor she had certain well-
defined duties.

" Mr. Studley, do you know where they intend
to stay when they arrive?"

Yes," said Studley unenthusiastically; "they
are going to the Plaza."

Mrs. Harley Manners let not the day pass
before she had ordered a " floral tribute " to be
placed in the rooms reserved for the great tenor
and his wife. Mrs. Manners already had bright
visions of the great man at her table. She also
pondered somewhat on the possible character of
the young wife, and wondered if a young matron
who belonged to no " set " would be easy to
cultivate.

Studley went home to his little room and sat
down to prepare certain " stuff," as he called it,
for the Sunday paper. While he clipped off use
less paragraphs from press agents matter or ran
his pencil through impossible adjectives, he sat
wrapped in inner reflection on Helen and her hus
band. Her two or three letters had given him
some small uneasiness. Was she going to make



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 65

the lamentable error of supposing that she must
forward her husband s interests? Was she going
to constitute herself a press agent?

Studley was very young and his knowledge of
the world of music was small. He was aflame
with beautiful ideals. It hurt him to think that
Helen might be an agency in lowering the splendid
standards of her husband. No one had written
so poetically about Baroni s Lohengrin (which
was not poetic) as Studley had. Webster, the
oldest of the music critics, had poked fun at him
for it, and warned him that in ten years he would
be writing more conservatively about better im
personations. But the young man smiled and
comforted himself with the thought that the
" General " was suffering the pangs of many
years. Studley had not been in the habit of
going to the opera house except when he was
compelled to do so in the discharge of his duties.
Some of the scribes called there every day. Some
spent much of their time at rehearsals, and they
knew all the singers, the conductors, the stage car
penter, the stage managers, and even some of the



66 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

orchestra musicians. Some of these scribes wrote
more gossip than criticism. One of them always
carried a score under his arm and made much
pretense of consulting it. But Studley knew none
of the gossip which these men knew. He lived
in his beautiful world of ideals; and he had it
all to himself. But he did not know that.

And so he regretted that Helen had sent him
newspaper comments on Baroni s Salzburg tri- -
umphs. He called on her one day when he was
sure that Baroni was out and stayed only a few
minutes. For some reason which he could not
define he was uncomfortable in her presence, and
he had a singularly strong disinclination to meet
Baroni, However, the season was less than two
weeks old when the young commentator on
musical doings found himself face to face with
much that was new to him.

A new opera was to be produced. All the prin
cipals had studied their roles the previous season;
for it was a postponed production. The chorus
had been at work for a month. Now the early
orchestral rehearsals were in progress, rehearsals



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 67

without scenery or costumes, of course, but quite
sufficient to give expert hearers a clear concep
tion of the composer s artistic methods. Studley
went to one of these rehearsals to learn some
thing about the opera, and hid himself in a dark
spot under the boxes.

They were all present. The house was full of
shadows and the one or two exit lights dimly
burning under the boxes accentuated the gloom.
The gaping rows of empty orchestra stalls, with
here and there the feathers of a woman s hat
marking the presence of some spectator, had an
air of melancholy. Scrubwomen toiled among
the boxes and occasionally peered over the rails
and looked with dull curiosity in their eyes at the
moving shades in the pit below them.

Scattered about in the orchestra seats were
members of the company, some of them inter
ested in the rehearsal, others in those who were
rehearsing, and still others killing time by watch
ing their associates at work. A dozen assorted
newspaper men sat mostly on the left center aisle.
The connection between the front of the house



68 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

and the stage was on the left and those who kept
continually running from one to the other always
assembled on that side. If one wished to know
all that was going on, it was imperative to be on
that side. Studley was on the other. He went
there to keep out of the way. In the front rows,
close behind the orchestra rail and also on the
left side, sat Mrs. Harley Manners. She had no
business whatever at a rehearsal. She was a rank
outsider. But she was always present at such
affairs. She made it a part of her life s business
to be there. In this way she became very friendly
with many singers and was able to get them to
dine at her house. Besides Mrs. Manners, there
were several " society " women. They also had
no reason except curiosity for being present at a
rehearsal and the impresario and singers resented
their presence. But they could not be kept out,
because they were either relatives or close friends
of directors. They made much trouble for the
hard-working impresario. They had many opin
ions as to how things ought to be done, and these
they framed into imperative demands upon their



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 69

husbands, brothers, or friends in the Board.
None of these women knew anything about music
or the stage. Like the majority of their kind,
they knew almost nothing about anything. They
could prattle fluently in French and they had
taken u music lessons " when they were at school.
They imagined that there was no more to know.
They never read the librettos of the operas nor
looked at the scores. They did not know clearly
what any opera was about. But they made no
hesitation in telling their husbands or brothers
that this or that scene was performed entirely
incorrectly and that the costumes were vile and
that the prima donna ought to be taken out of
the part. And what they said had no small power
in directing the affairs of the opera house. The
two or three who really knew things were wise

enough to let the professional musicians alone.

.>

The rehearsal was already in progress when
Studley entered the auditorium and slipped into
his seat apart from the others. Baroni was sit
ting in an orchestra stall beside his wife. He did
not " go on " till the first act was half done.



yo THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Nagy Bosanska, wearing a walking skirt and a
silk waist, with her hat off and her lustrous hair
dressed high upon her shapely head, was going
through a scene with Ponitzky and under her
breath calling him " Pig " at every second meas
ure. Ponitzky paid no attention to her. He was
concentrating his gaze on the conductor. Pres
ently he shouted :

"Impossible! Impossible! Such a tempo is
not to be thought of. It must go twice as
fast."

The conductor threw down his baton and tore
his hair. " I tell you," he cried, " that I will not
be made responsible for such a reading. They
shall not say that I am a fool."

And while the two were still wrangling, Helen
whispered in Baroni s ear: " Leander, has not the
conductor the deciding voice as to tempi? "

" Well, my dear," answered the tenor, " he has
theoretically."

" What do you mean? "

" The truth is, Helen, that Ponitzky is not as
young as he used to be and he can t sing the air



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 71

as slowly as that. He no longer has the breath
support."

" But I should think they would give the part
to some one else who can sing it slowly enough.
It will ruin the music to sing it so fast."

Yes, it will not be so good; but if they give
the role to any one else, there will be a lot of
trouble with Ponitzky. I think you ll hear the
air sung fast."

And for the first time Helen was faced with the
idea that artistic considerations sometimes had to
yield to the demands of " artists."

"By the way, Helen," said Leander; "isn t
that your friend Studley sitting away off there by
himself?"

Helen peered into the dark shadows under the
boxes for a moment before she recognized Philip.

Yes, I believe it is. Lee, you have eyes like
a ferret."

>c I ve got to go on pretty soon," said he.
* Why don t you invite him to come and sit with
you?"

" How can I, if he hides away over there? "



72 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" I think he s looking this way now. Try him."

Helen smiled in Philip s direction and nodded,
although she did not believe that he was looking
at her. But he was and he returned both bow
and smile. Then she beckoned to him. Slowly
and apparently with some reluctance he rose and
crossed the house.

" I m so glad, Philip," she said; " Leander has
to go on the stage soon and I want you to keep
me company. You know my husband, don t"
you?"

The two men bowed, Philip rather more for
mally than the tenor.

44 I m glad of this opportunity," said Leander,
" to thank you for many kind words."

" You should not thank a critic," replied Philip
somewhat coldly. " The artist has only himself
to thank. If the critic fails to appreciate the art,
he is not fit to be a critic."

" Priggish young pup," thought Leander, as
he walked away to go on the stage; "he ll get
over all that if he stays in the business."

Which indicated that the tenor had a fine ca-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 73

pacity for misunderstanding. Philip and Helen
watched the stage with renewed interest. Nagy
Bosanska s scene with Ponitzky had ended some
time back, and her long monologue, through
which she slid languidly at less than half voice,
nodding and whispering and occasionally indi
cating her tempo with a stamp of the foot for
the benefit of the conductor, had come to its con
clusion in a sudden burst of liquid tone, let loose
at full voice. She turned to greet Leander as he
entered. They stood for a moment. Then with
her lithe, exquisite body swaying slightly from the
hips, her hands clasped behind her, and a flower
dangling by its long stem from her crimson lips,
she undulated slowly, languorously across the
stage till she stood before the tenor. She took
the flower from her mouth and struck him gently
across the lips with it, and sang:

" E bello e ardito. "

Twice she sang the line, as the score required,
and then laughed. Helen could not have told
why, but a sudden wave of coldness ran swiftly
through her veins and vanished, while there



74 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

dimly sounded in the remotest chambers of her
memory the fate motive in " Carmen." And then
she turned to Philip and smiled.

" Do you know Mile. Bosanska? " she asked.

" No," he answered. " You see, the fact is
that I know only two or three of these opera
people and none of the important ones at all.
Kraft, the German conductor, is the one I know
best. He has really fine musicianship and I have
learned much from him."

"Listen! " exclaimed Helen; " Leander is ac
tually singing out loud."

Well, he is not exerting himself," said Philip,
" but he is not holding back anything either. I
suppose he gives his voice a little exercise some
times even at rehearsal."

But in a few minutes it became plain to the
two listeners that this could hardly be called voice
exercise. Leander and Nagy Bosanska had grad
ually abandoned themselves to the spirit of the
scene and before it was ended they were both
singing with a fervor of style and a splendor of
tone which would have glorified a first perform-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 75

ance. Nagy Bosanska, her form wreathing like
that of a sinuous serpent, hurled herself upon him
in the ecstasy of the simulated embrace called for
by the action and he grasped her in his athletic
arms and held her firmly while he pealed out the
clarion phrase in which the composer had voiced
the first declaration of passion in the opera. The
scene ended the act. As the last note sounded
from the piano, Nagy Bosanska still standing in
Leander s embrace, slowly lifted her eyes to his,
and then, springing backward, burst into a ringing
and somewhat sardonic laugh. Next she turned
and ran off the stage and out into the orchestra
stalls, where she fell back into a seat, still laugh
ing. Leander followed her, smiling uncon
cernedly.

" What moves you to such laughter, Nagy?"
he asked.

" Only you," she replied; " but it is that you-
are such an innocent big baby."

Helen heard this, for the soprano was only
two rows in front of her, and a little color crept
into her cheeks. She had not yet become familiar



76 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

with the freedom of the theater. Leander left
the soprano and returned to Helen, but Nagy
Bosanska stood up and gazed after him. Then
with a sudden silent movement she was at his side.

" And why shall you not introduce me to your
beautiful wife? " she said.

" Certainly," replied Leander with a chilly in
flection in his speech. " Helen, this is Mile. Nagy
Bosanska, who is to sing the soprano role- and
I suppose I may also take the liberty of intro
ducing Mr. Studley to you, Nagy."

The soprano smiled a slow, strange, inscrutable
smile, as she studied the three faces. Then she
suddenly laughed aloud.

" Mr. Studley," she said, " if you were a bary
tone, and Mrs. Baroni a contralto, we might sing
the quartet from Rigoletto. "

" You are casting my wife for the role of Mad-
dalena and yourself for Gilda, which you can t
sing. What on earth do you mean, Nagy? " said
Leander.

" I don t know myself. I am half gipsy. I
am not bound always to know what my thoughts



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 77

mean. They come they go piff ! like that.
But of course Mrs. Baroni could not be
a contralto," she added in a slow, low utterance;
" they and the barytones are always unhappy in
love."

And then with another thin cutting laugh Nagy
Bosanska ran back to the stage, while Leander
indulgently smiled and the other two looked unut
terable questions.

" Don t mind her," said Leander; " she thinks
it is her duty to be weird because she has gipsy
blood. But it does not mean anything."

But the young newspaper man thought it was
artistic temperament.



CHAPTER VI

^TTMiE new opera was duly produced and prop-
-*- erly applauded by a brilliant audience. The
Herald had over a column of names of those pres
ent. It was a social event. Helen eagerly read all
the newspapers themorning after the performance.

" Oh, Lee," she exclaimed, " listen to this in
the Tribune. l The composer has published the
emotions of his chief actors in a melodic manner
of a reactionary. We are invited to listen once
again to the strumming of the Bellini guitar. I
think that is just a little too violent, don t you? "

" Oh, you mustn t mind what those fellows
say," replied Leander; "you see, their ideas and
ours are as far apart as the poles. What he calls
the Bellini guitar is nothing more or less than a
decent accompaniment under good writing for the
voice. This music can be sung. It gives a singer
a chance to make a tremendous success."

Helen remained silent for a few moments, for

78



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 79

she was trying to stifle the growing conviction that
opera singers placed themselves and their success
before the composer and his. This fundamental
truth had been flaunted before her senses now
several times.

"What does he say about Nagy? " asked
Leander.

Helen understood that her husband really
wished to know what was said about himself. She
had advanced that far in her education as the wife
of a tenor. But of course he would ask about
Nagy.

" He says that Mile. Bosanska valiantly en
deavored to reduce the heroine to terms of
Carmen and almost succeeded, and that she sang
with more brilliancy than insight."

" Nagy won t mind that sort of talk. She ll
translate that into her own language to this effect :
Mile. Bosanska was an irresistible little gipsy and
she sang so that the house rang with bravas. I
suppose there is something about the old husband,
too."

" Yes," answered Helen with some slight hesi-



8o THE SOUL OF A TENOR

tation. " He says that Baroni poured out his
glorious voice with his customary prodigality and
made all his habitual ritardandi and diminuendi
and used the mezza voce in the inevitable places,
and that it is a great pity that he has so much
vocal skill and so little imagination."

"Humph!" exclaimed Leander; "what does
he know about it, I should like to ask? A poverty-
stricken scribbler who tries to earn his living by .
seeming to be smart in the morning after he has
been stupid all the evening. He s an ignoramus.
I always knew he was."

Leander s cheeks were quite crimson by this
time and he went and looked out of the window
as hard as he could. Helen gazed at him re
flectively. Was it true that he lacked imagina
tion? She had never thought about it before.
Suddenly he turned and said:

" What does your friend Studley say about the
performance? "

Helen searched in the pile of papers till she
found that for which Philip wrote, and turning
to the amusement page read swiftly.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 81

" Well," she said presently, " he seems to think
that the opera is a clever, but superficial work,
and that "

" Oh, bother that rot!" exclaimed Leander.
"Let me tell you something, my dear girl; it
doesn t make an ounce of difference what these
so-called critics say about an opera. They write
a lot of pretentious twaddle. Most of them
haven t the faintest idea of what it is that makes
an opera a success. If the tenor and the soprano
have plenty of good melody to sing and one or
two lively love scenes with a corking climax,
allegro con brio, with a couple of B flats in it,
and there is a fair amount of doings for the
barytone and contralto, plenty of loud music for
the chorus, and a good ballet or procession, it is
a tolerably safe bet that the opera will catch on.
And that is what we are all in the business for.
We are not there for psychology or imaginations
or aesthetics. We are there to make the public
shout and clap its hands, and hasten to put more
dollars in the box office."

Then Helen laughed heartily, for she was as



82 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

certain as she was of her own love for him that
this was merely Leander s pose. She was sure
that no man could sing as he could if he were
concerned only with the catchpenny devices of
the lyric stage. But long afterward the chilly
words came back into her mind. Leander smiled
indulgently when he heard the laugh.

* That does my heart good, girlie. These critic
fellows take themselves so seriously that they
make every one else merry. But you haven t yet
told me what Studley says about me."

" He says your singing had all the brilliancy
and changing tints of an iceberg," replied Helen
softly.

"Well, that s a fine backhander, isn t it? An
iceberg, eh ! See here, Helen, what sort of a chap
is this Studley, anyhow? "

" Surely, Lee, you don t care what he says, do
you?"

" No, of course not; but all the same he ought
not to write that way about me. I m the husband
of a woman he calls an old and close friend,
and it seems to me that he might just as



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 83

well make things a little more agreeable for all
of us."

You don t mean that you will show any resent
ment on account of his criticism, do you? "

" No, of course not. I m not such a fool as
to do that. You have to take these fellows as
they come, if you want to get anything out of
them in the long run. The idiots are not for sale,
you know. People who say they can be bought
know nothing about the game. That isn t the
way it s done. A little judicious flattery and con
tinual diplomacy are the only weapons. Of course
I m going to be agreeable when I see him, and
so must you. You must treat him all the better.
Be as sweet as you like to him; I won t mind. It s
all in a good cause."

" But I thought you didn t care what these
fellows said and that they don t know any
thing."

You misunderstood me, girlie. I said you
must not care what they wrote about an opera,
because they don t know. But one naturally cares
when they try to make people believe that there s



84 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

something wrong with his singing. That s our
stock in trade."

After that there was a silence which was not
broken till Leander declared that it was time for
him to go out and take his morning walk. He
always did a swift four miles in the morning,
unless it was pouring. Ordinarily bad weather
was not considered. One of his peculiarities was
that he did not take care of himself after the
manner of singers, but after that of college ath
letes, and that was why he so seldom was " indis
posed," as they call it in opera land.

Ten minutes after he had gone, Philip Studley
was announced. Helen had told him he might
come in any day before luncheon, because his
afternoons were usually occupied with concerts.
Helen greeted him with unaffected pleasure. His
nature was distinctly grateful to her, though for
just what reason she could not herself tell. But
she did know that instinctively she disclosed to
him certain precious bits of her innner life which
equally instinctively she did not unshrinkingly lay
at the feet of her husband. And yet she knew



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 85

that she loved Leander, and that Philip, dear
fellow that he was, belonged to the undistin
guished fraternity of life-long brothers.

" Leander has just gone for his morning walk,"
said Helen; " you know he reels off four or five
miles every day at a racing pace."

" Yes, I have read all about that in the papers.
You know the yellow journalism of to-day makes
far more account of the private habits of singers
than of their art."

"Certainly," laughed Helen; "it was almost
maddening to me at first to find camera men lying
in wait for us everywhere, but we don t mind I
mean I don t mind it now."

" Of course your husband doesn t mind it. He
must have grown used to it years ago," responded
Philip with a smile.

" Yes," answered Helen thoughtfully, and then
for a moment she was silent.

You know," she continued, as if with a slight
effort, " in his profession it is important for him
to keep in the public eye."

Philip thought that the right way to do this



86 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

was by being a great artist, but he was too wise
to say so, and he briefly agreed with Helen. They
were both quiet for a few minutes. They were
real friends; they did not have to talk incessantly.
It was Helen who spoke first.

" Philip, I often wonder whether a woman can
enter perfectly into a man s ideals."

" I should say that depended upon the woman
and the ideals."

" Sometimes it seems to me that a wife ought
not to try to become part of her husband s intel
lectual or artistic life, but merely remain on the
borders of it as a sentinel to keep away intru



sion."



" You have your choice of two points of view
in the matter," said the young man, smiling; " in
the first place there is the discriminative theory of
Hamerton in his Intellectual Life. He believes
that the intellectual man ought to take one of
two courses. Either he should marry some sim
ple, dutiful woman who would devote herself en
tirely to the household and love him trustfully
without jealousy of his occupations, or some



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 87

highly intelligent woman, willing to undergo the
labor of following him in his studies."

Helen answered nothing, for neither of these
cases seemed to meet the immediate requirements
of her situation.

" Perhaps," said Philip after waiting for the
reply which did not come, " you will prefer to
think with Weininger that no woman ever knows,
or can know or will know, what she does when
she mates with a man; but that at any rate she
has the power to bridge some difficulties by acting
in direct opposition to what she is herself."

Helen looked up with a startled expression on
her face.

" Why should a woman do that? " she asked.

" Well, of course," replied Philip, u my knowl
edge of the married state is pretty small, for, as

my friend Hamerton, whom I quoted before, has

>

said, no man really knows anything about any
marriage except his own. But I am inclined to
think that some wives have to live a rather long
and weary falsehood in order to save their mar
ried lives from going to wreck."



88 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

u It seems to me that neither Hamerton nor
Weininger has taken into consideration the state
of things which might exist between a man and
a woman who were willing to grant each other
perfect independence in intellectual matters."

" Hamerton has written something on that
point, but Weininger did not believe that women
had real intellects and he did believe that they
were incapable of truth. But your independence
plan might work well enough where both had
intellectual pursuits. But if the wife, for instance,
were a great novelist and the husband were only
a sportsman, I am afraid there would always be
trouble."

" Yes, but such people would never marry."

" It s been heard of," said Philip with a smile.

" Would you marry a woman who could not
share your inner life? "

" Oh, I ! Well, you see, I m an eclectic in all
my theories of sex relations. On that particular
point I am heart and soul with Ellen Key. There
is only one real kind of love and that is the kind
which unites the whole nature of the man with



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 89

the whole nature of the woman. It is neither all
physical or all spiritual, but the fullness of both.
Those who have this love know one another.
Their union is perfect. They are made truly
one and attain the highest glory of living."

Helen rose from her chair and walked quickly
to a window. For a few moments she stood look
ing out into the prosaic vista of the avenue and
then turned to Philip, and in a most casual man
ner, as if serious topics were furthest from her
mind, said:

You didn t care much for the new opera, did
you?"

" No, not much. It is smart, and I dislike
smartness in all its forms. All little brains are
smart. Big ones never are. Think of Michael
Angelo or Leonardo da Vinci doing anything
smart. Think of Beethoven being smart. No,
that is what George Bernard Shaw is, and news
papers cable his gabblings under three thousand
miles of ocean and aesthetic hucksters of both
sexes prattle them over in the market places. And
I am more than half afraid that Richard Strauss



90 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

is smart in music in one way just as this new
opera s composer is in another. It s all paint and
mannerism, like the ridiculous fantasms of the
cubists and the futurists. Set one of those silly
things beside the disintegrating Last Supper of
Leonardo and it looks like a Parisian cocotte in
the presence of the Venus de Milo."

Another silence fell upon them. Helen s eyes
studied a pattern in the rug at her feet and Philip
studied her eyelashes as they fell in a soft shadow
on her delicate cheek. How exquisite she was,
how perfect an embodiment of the equal balance
of physical and spiritual qualities. Philip s ad
miration was frank; it had an element of adora
tion. If he had been a Catholic she would have
been his idea of the Madonna. Suddenly she
looked up and found him gazing straight into her
eyes. Her lids trembled just a little and a faint
pink crept into her cheeks.

" You cherish ideals, do you not, Philip? " she
said in a low voice.

" Of course. They are the best of life. Men
live for them, die for them."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 91

" Women have ideals, too," she said; " and I
think sometimes they, too, die for them."

And after that their talk was most common
place till Philip went away. In the street he
stopped as if an unseen force had hurled itself
against him.

u I wonder," he said to himself, " if everything
is all right there. Can it be that the coldness in
Baroni s singing is the reflection of an apathetic
nature? But even so, how is it that she has failed
to melt the ice? How could any man live near
her and not become great? "

It was a question that came back to him more
than once in days long afterward. He was not
in love with Helen. Perhaps, if circumstances
had been right, he might have been. He had
often felt the compelling charm of her divine per
son, but there had never been anything in his feel
ing for her beyond a strong tenderness. And now
as he pondered upon the new doubt in his mind
as to her happiness, he wondered more and more
whether the tenor really knew that he had taken
into his home one of the masterpieces of Nature.



CHAPTER VII

TN the swift passage of the crowded New York
"- season, when he had to attend from two to
five performances of music in each day and to
prepare a page of comment and notes for the
Sunday issue of his paper, Philip did not meet
Helen again for a month. Neither did he have
any conversation with her husband. He was con
scious of smoldering antagonism to the popular
tenor and he fought against it with all his resolu
tion. Nevertheless there was within him a grow
ing conviction that Leander was a self-centered
epitome of artistic insincerity. He studied the
man s art with the closest scrutiny, but could find
nothing in it below the surface. Yet he dared
not write the truth, for he feared that feeling
might be leading judgment.

If he had known neither Leander nor Helen,
his comments on the tenor s singing would un
doubtedly have been such as to arouse a storm in

92



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 93

operatic centers and probably to set the directors
to considering once more whether it would not
be a proper vindication of the glory of their insti
tution to cease advertising in Philip s paper, stop
issuing his tickets, and exclude him from the
house. But Philip wrote with reserve and harped
heavily on the beauty of Leander s voice and the
perfection of his technic.

If he had only known it, this was all that
Leander wished. Philip had yet to learn that
musicians, especially singers, almost never discuss
anything but technical points. Meanwhile matters
were moving in a direction which threatened the
general peace. Day by day Helen found herself
plunging deeper and deeper into a sea of doubt.
There was something in Leander s attitude toward
his art which troubled her. She could not tell

what it was, but in some vague way she felt that

>

it had a relation to his love for her.

The first clear awakening came to her one
morning when Leander was at work restudying an
old role in which he was to appear before the end
of the season. It was des Grieux in Puccini s



94 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" Manon Lescaut," and he had, as he expressed
it, become " rusty " in almost every page of it.
Helen was astonished to find that he did not sit
down at home with the score and read it through
carefully before he began work with the accom
panist. He told her that such a proceeding would
be quite useless. He knew the story and the points
of the part. All that he had to do was to set to
work to recover the text and the music. He had
advanced as far as the second act and was now
working on that.

" Sempre la stessa, sempre la stessa.
Trepida divinamente
Nel 1 abbandono ardente, "

Leander sang, and then suddenly interrupted him
self to say to the accompanist:

" Confound the fool, why does he run me away
down to the bottom of my medium right there,
when in another phrase he carries me up to a
high A?"

" It is certain that he is a pig," answered the
French accompanist, who had no love for Puccini.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 95

" You should sing only in the Manon of Mas
senet. But if monsieur will pardon me, he can
take the low phrase with almost no voice at all,
for who will care, so long as the high A comes
out well?"

" Now, Cartier, old man, that s what I call
horse sense. You are the best trainer I ve had
in five years and it s all because you have



sense."



" Leander," said Helen in a soft voice, " can
you tell me what this Italian text means in this
passage for des Grieux? "

" Well, roughly speaking, Helen, it s like this.
Des Grieux says, Manon, you thoughtlessly be
tray me. Always the same are you. Divinely
trembling in ardent abandonment, good and gen
tle, how the passion of your embrace thrills me.
Then suddenly overwhelmed by the splendor of
pleasure, I, your slave and your victim, descend
the ladder of infamy. Earth to earth am I, and
the pitiable hero of a gambling hell.

"I see," said Helen thoughtfully. " Why
would it not be better to saturate yourself with



96 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

the misery of these thoughts and try to express
them in the music than to worry over a high A? "

Leander looked at her in immeasurable aston
ishment for a few moments and then burst into a
fit of laughter. He looked at Cartier and Cartier
smiled politely, as one who was disposed to listen
with some respect to the utterance of the wife, but
not inclined to offend the tenor.

" My dear girl," said Leander, when he had
recovered from his laughter, u I am trying to do
just the very thing you have told me to do, but
I am doing it as a professional, not as an ama
teur. If I get the musical phrases right, the ex
pression will take care of itself. That has all
been arranged by the composer. But when he
writes an ineffective passage for the voice, he
spoils his own plan and lessens my chance for
success with the scene."

" I see," said Helen; u go on with your study,
Lee; I shan t interrupt you again."

There was something curiously dry and hard
in the tone in which she spoke, and for a moment
it arrested the attention of the tenor, but not for



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 97

long. He was soon buried in the score of Puccini
again, and she heard him saying to Cartier:

" Now there is fine writing for the voice."

Then he sang: " Vitima descendo la scala del
1 infamia."

" Some sense in that, eh? " he said to Cartier.
" Starting with the upper G on * vi and keeping
the voice up to the E on scendo and then giv
ing the B flat on * la why, it sings itself."

Cartier said to himself that if he had been
composing the scene he would not have put the
emphasis on u la " but on " sea," the first syllable
of " scala," but since the tenor had an advan
tageous placing of his high B flat, all would be
well.

When the morning s work was over Leander
went out for his usual four miles of exercise. And
for once he and Helen took their luncheon alone
in their apartment. When they had finished and
were sitting yet at the table, the young wife gazed
rather wistfully at her husband and said:

" Lee, I wish you would be more frank with



me."



98 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" What do you mean, little girl? "

" Let me into the inner closet of your artistic
life; don t talk to me as if I were an outsider, an
amateur incapable of understanding your ideals.
I am not an amateur at all. I am your wife, a
part of you, a part of your soul, and there is
nothing that you can be or feel or think that I
cannot understand."

She spoke with a sudden and rising ardor, and
Leander gazed upon her with kindling admiration.
He rose quickly from his seat, and, striding
around to her side, kissed her cheek kindly.

" You dear girl," he said, " of course you are



not an amateur."



" Lee," she said gravely, as he resumed his
seat, " it isn t a child s bruise to be cured with
a kiss."

" Sweetheart, you are making a mountain out
of a molehill, aren t you? I don t quite catch
the point of your trouble."

" Surely, Lee, you do not expect me to believe
that when you are studying a role, you think of
nothing but the voice effects."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 99

" Well, it comes to pretty near that. If you
were an amateur, as you don t seem willing to be,
I should let you talk a lot of rubbish, but I can t
do that sort of thing with my wife. If I get the
vocal effects of this part all properly planned, I
shall have another big success with it, and it ought
to be bigger than it was when I first sang it, be
cause I know so much more now than I did then."

Helen remained silent for fully a minute trying
to gather the inner significance of these words.
It had always been her habit of mind to strive
to look clear through anything that was said to
her and study it from the rear, as it were. And
just now her husband s words seemed to her to
mean so much more than they said.

" Lee," she finally said, " am I to believe that
opera singers think only of technical effects? "

" That is about what it all comes to, dear. We

>

are all trying to make successes of our roles, are
we not? And the way to do that is to get the
big effects over the footlights."

" But don t you think of the glory of the mas
ter who wrote the work? "



ioo THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" Now, my dear love, can t you see that if I
get the voice effects all right in Lohengrin that
the part will carry as Wagner intended it to, and
that I shall have a big success? It is all right
to talk about the composer, but just think of this :
if I could not make a big public success in * Lo
hengrin, what good would it be for me to rever
ence Wagner? Any performance of the opera
with a failure in the title role would not be to the
glory of Wagner, would it? The first thing to
look out for is the success of the singer. The
composer will come out all right if that is made
certain."

Leander smiled indulgently upon her, as if he
were talking to a child and flooding its imma
ture intelligence with new light. And indeed
he was doing just that, for Helen was listen
ing to him with a growing, yet wholly in
definable, fear in the most secret recesses of her
soul.

" I think I understand," she said slowly and in
a low tone.

Leander rose and went to her side. He patted



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 101

her softly on the head and cooed at her with a
little sarcasm in his tone :

" Don t be an amateur, Helen, if you can help
it. Remember that you are the wife of a profes
sional and learn to look at things with profes
sional eyes. And don t forget that the most im
portant thing in the business for us is my suc



cess."



" I am trying to come down to that level," re
sponded Helen.

Leander stared at her for an instant and ceased
to caress her. He strode across the room and
back.

" Look here, Helen," he said; " I don t quite
like the way you speak about it. You have no
reason for saying that you are coming down to
my level."

" I said that level."

>

Well, it amounts to the same thing. It s my

level, isn t it? "

1 You seem to desire that I should think so."
There was a silence between them for several

minutes, while Leander went and gazed out of a



102 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

window and seemed to be plunged in annoying
thought. He drummed on a pane of glass and
whistled softly. Suddenly he stopped and went
back to his wife s side.

" Helen," he said; u I am pained; I am disap
pointed. I am beginning to be afraid that you do
not understand."

" Do not understand what?" she asked in a
dull tone.

" Me," he replied.

She hesitated a little before she spoke again.
" I I think I understand you. Perhaps it is art
that I do not understand."

" Yes, that must be it. Think about it, Helen.
You really must get the right idea of the thing,
or we shall have disputes about it often, and I m
afraid I m not very patient. You see, I am an
artist. Art is my business, and and well, you
know you ought to pay attention to what I say
about it. Good-by for a while."

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the
forehead and went out. Mechanically she passed
her hand across the spot where he had kissed her



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 103

and drew a quick, short breath, as if something
had suddenly hurt her. Then she crossed her
hands in her lap and gazed before her into the
land of thought.

No, she told herself, it was not amazing after
all that a singer should bestow so much considera
tion on the purely mechanical side of his art.
Leander was right, he was surely right, in saying
that if he planned the vocal effects artistically
that was to say, with a view to their public results,
their stimulus to an audience the great scenes of
an opera would carry across the footlights and
the composer s aims would be achieved.

But oh, she could not bear the notion that
Leander was doing it all without any thought for
anything save his own public success. It was
too hard to believe that, but she could not es
cape the conviction that there was nothing mor>e.
It was all for personal glory, for self,
self, self!

When she had confessed that to her own inner
most soul, she sprang up from her chair and ran
across the room aimlessly, as if seeking some way



io 4 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

of escape from the dark thing which was standing
so menacingly in front of her.

Self! The glory and the worship of self!
His personal success the only thing to be sought;
his instructions to be her gospel of art; and
he whimpered that she misunderstood him!
Great Heaven ! The trouble was that she under
stood too much. " Misunderstood ! " The piti
ful cry of the weak man. She knew that, even
she, for she had seen weak people in her life.
And it was the weakness of selfishness.

And what did it all signify for her? That he
wished her to join the sheeplike herd of his adu
lators, to lie at his feet and adore his majesty,
to make him an idol and offer him a worship
which he would accept as his just due? No, it
could not mean so much as that. Her dreams of
a great and perfect love in the union of two souls
made not of the common order could not fall to
such a miserable wreck as that. Leander was
right. She misunderstood him. She must learn
to regard it all from his point of view, not so
poetic as hers, perhaps, but true and therefore



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 105

nearer to the ideal. Leander loved art and her
more than himself, of course.

And then she sank into a chair, buried her face
in her hands, and shook with a furious storm of
weeping.



CHAPTER VIII

much later in the same week Philip
Studley was accosted by Webster, as the
two walked slowly out of a concert hall, where
they had been painfully listening to the demon
stration of the lamentable incapacity of a pianist
recently arrived after a sensationally successful
tour of Australia.

" Let us go and smoke a strong cigar and get
the taste of it out of our mouths," said Webster.

" Thanks," replied Philip with a smile, "if
you ll take the qualification off the cigar I ll go
with pleasure."

" Smoke a cigarette, if you like, my child."

And so they went together to a certain educa
tional chop house where learned Thebans of the
theater and the lyric hall sometimes assemble to
talk of their great professions. Their conversa
tion dwelt not at all on the poor pianist whom

they had just heard. They were only too glad

1 06



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 107

to forget her. They soon drifted into opera, for
through the half-curtained window they could see
the ugly walls of the yellow temple of lyric art.
Philip s youthful enthusiasms interested and
touched the " General." He listened reflectively
while the younger critic aired some of his views
about the distinguished artists who excited audi
ences in the theater across the street. How sad
it all seemed to the elder man that the whole
thing should be so hollow. What a pity that a
fresh and virile young soul should waste its
splendor on such worthless things. He shook his
head slowly till Philip asked him why he was do
ing it.

" Well," said the General, " I hate to destroy
illusions, but these so-called artists are pretty
much all alike."

" What do you mean by that? " asked Philip,
who had for some time been convinced that Web
ster was soured by his own want of recognition
in foreign musical centers. Certain Berlin papers,
for example, had referred contemptuously to what
they called the " dilettante criticism " of Amer-



io8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

ica, and this had caused the General to go out
into a corridor of the opera house and lash him
self into a fury. Philip recalled that and similar
incidents and he feared that Webster s dicta were
not always free from bias.

u Well," said the General, " you keep yourself
unspotted from the world, my son. You have
done so without difficulty so far, and you will have
to do so now, even if it is not so easy. I know
that you are a friend of Baroni s wife and it is go
ing to be hard for you to avoid being drawn into
the opera crowd. But keep away from them as
much as you can. They are no better than a lot
of cattle."

" You don t mean that," replied Philip, smiling.

"Don t I?" demanded Webster somewhat
warmly; " wait and see. The opera singer is first,
last, and all the time for himself. His own public
success and the increase of his salary are his ob
jects in life."

" Don t you think Baroni is a real artist? "

" As real as any of them. Baroni values
Gounod, for example, just as far as Gounod fits



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 109

Baroni and helps him to become famous, and not
one bit further. He studies his roles earnestly
in order to make as big a success as possible for
Baroni. That s all he thinks about. Don t delude
yourself into the belief that he or any of the rest
of them care anything for the great art of music.
Did you ever see Baroni sit through a Brahms
symphony or a concert of the Kneisel Quartet? "

Philip started. He certainly never had seen
the tenor at a Kneisel concert; but yes he re
membered now he had once discovered him in a
box at a Philharmonic, and so he told Webster.

; Wlio was the soloist at that concert? " asked
the Old Man.

Philip searched his memory.

" Freiburg, the German tenor," he answered.

"Exactly; the other tenor!" exclaimed the
General sardonically. And Philip understood.
He was silent for a few moments, and then he said
to Webster :

u I have already become acquainted through
them with one of the sopranos of the company
Mile. Bosanska."



no THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Webster sat bolt upright in his chair and laid
a firm hand on the shoulder of his young confrere.

" My boy/ he said, " shun the women as you
would the devil. So far as we of the critical fra
ternity are concerned every one of them is a vam
pire a rag, and a bone, and a hank of hair
and she never can understand."

They cannot all be like that," answered
Philip.

* Those who are not will none the less en
deavor to make a fool of you. Remember that
no one in the musical profession has any other
use for you than one, namely, to get you to write
praise in your paper."

Philip smiled again. He hoped he would not
be so soured when he had spent twenty-five years
in the business of writing music criticism. At
present he felt very human and he believed that
musicians were just as human as himself. He had
faith in the best of them. He was willing to
believe that the little ones were all self-seekers,
and that they had no true artistic ideals, but he
was sure that the great masters and mistresses of



THE SOUL OF A TENOR in

art who made Siegfried and Tristan and Briinn-
hilde and Isolde and Armide and Orfeo live on
the mimic stage were reverent worshipers before
the altar of aesthetic beauty. So he smiled some
what indulgently as he rose and looked at his
watch. Webster read his thoughts and sighed.
He had been through it all, and he knew.

" I m sorry," Philip said; "but I ve promised
to drop in at Mrs. Manners at home."

"Oh, Heaven help us!" exclaimed the Gen
eral. " You too, Brutus! Can t you keep away?
That woman is the demon ex machina of the
musical world. If you go to her house, you ll
meet every professional musician whom you do
not wish to meet, especially the vampires."

" The vampires? "

" Yes, of course. Women like Mrs. Manners
receive them in their homes, these creatures, IJttle
better than the shadows who prowl the great
white way at night. They invite them to luncheon
and dinner and get decent women to come and
be introduced to them and all because they are
opera singers. If the same women were engaged



ii2 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

in any other line of business, Mrs. Manners and
her kind would draw their skirts together when
passing them for fear of getting soiled."

Webster panted in his indignation and strode
away, shaking his head mournfully, as one who
sees his friend taking a glass more than is good
for him. And Philip went to Mrs. Manners
house. He had never known her intimately, but
in the present season he had met her often at
rehearsals and in the concert hall and she had
seemed to make a point of pushing the acquaint
ance. She was always at home on Thursday
afternoons, she had told him, and he had prom
ised to go. He had neglected to do so, and had
been duly upbraided and had neglected some more
and been upbraided some more till now he felt
that it would be altogether too rude to delay the
matter any longer. So with the melancholy words
of the General still lingering in his ears, he en
tered Mrs. Manners drawing-room.

You climbed a flight of rather chillingly im
portant stairs to reach this drawing-room and
all the way up a grim marble statue of Verdi, ex-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 113

ecuted by a German who adored Bruckner, glared
down upon you from an icy niche in a white wall.
But when you had accomplished the ascent, you
found yourself in a curious labyrinth of rooms,
all more than half dark, and with the darkness
accentuated by tiny rose-shaded Eastern lamps
burning in the most unexpected places and casting
the most distracting shadows. You also became
conscious of an olfactory irritation, slight, but
none the less perceptible, caused by thin, acrid
smoke issuing from the tops of these same lamps.
Incense of some sort or other it was, and you
easily persuaded yourself that Mrs. Manners
burned it before her musical gods who came to
visit her on her at home days.

Three rooms ranged through the floor, but the
cunning distribution of doors and mirrors pro
duced an illusion of innumerable apartments open-

>

ing into ever further and further remote regions.
And heavy portieres, more little lamps, and
myriads more of distracting shadows heightened
the effect. Furthermore you could not discern the
lineaments of any one seated in the drawing-room,



n 4 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

which was really the second of the three, for the
lights and shadows made sight most uncertain.
So that when you suddenly heard the thin voice
of Mrs. Manners cutting the air close to your ear
and looked around to discover that she was not
what you had just taken for another shadow, you
experienced a delightful little shock, which was
precisely what she wished you to experience.
Philip went through it all, and was somewhat
amused when he heard her saying to his left ear:

" Mr. Studley, this is just too sweet of you.
Come right over here and be introduced to the
greatest woman in the world."

He was literally dragged toward a broad heavy
shadow, which presently turned out to be a sofa,
and out of this wide area of gloom issued a liquid
voice, which said:

" But it is not necessary to present Mr. Studley;
he and I are already acquainted."

Philip had not the faintest idea who was speak
ing, but he composedly sat down beside the up
right part of the shadow, which presently turned
its head so as to permit one of the little lamps



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 115

to cast a dim ray upon it, and he perceived that
he was gazing into the green eyes of Nagy Bo-
sanska. And for the moment, with the uncertain
light of the Oriental lamp wavering in their lumi
nous depths, they made him think of cruel and
treacherous green waters rushing over quicksands.

" I am sure you remember that we met Mrs.
Baroni, you and I, at the same time, at a rehearsal
months ago," she said in her strangely sensuous
voice.

" Mrs. Baroni and I made your acquaintance.
She and I are old friends. Indeed I have known
her even longer than he has."

" She has the grand air," said Nagy musingly,
as she let her sloe-black lashes mask her eyes for
a moment; " and Baroni he has no air at all.
He is a great baby. I wonder why she took him.
But one cannot understand love. It is royal v a
master, not to be questioned is it not so? "

And the sloe-black lashes rose slowly, showing
the green depths aflame with baleful fires. For a
moment some strange thing stirred far down in
the secret lair of Philip s soul, something he had



n6 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

never felt before, something that burned within
him like an inward blush and at the same moment
stung like the sudden lash of a whip. He
wrenched his eyes away from those of the woman
with an effort and gripped himself well before he
answered :

" I am not able to qualify as an expert, made
moiselle. I have had no experience."

Nagy Bosanska s eyes half closed again and she
gave a little faint sigh.

" No experience ! You have not yet lived; you
are still asleep in the cradle of life. When will
you wake up, I wonder? "

Philip did not answer; he merely smiled.

" Ah, my friend," said Nagy, leaning forward
till her face was close to his and he could feel
the faint sensuous warmth of her breath upon his
cheek, " you smile in your sleep, but you will
weep when you are awakened. I, Nagy Bo-
sanska, tell you this, and it is true."

And again Philip smiled, for he remembered
what Baroni had told him; she was a gipsy and
she had to play up to the role. But nevertheless



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 117

there was something about the woman that
troubled him. He had always been free from
the seduction of the senses. Women had always
appealed to him with potent spell, but his high
idealism had kept him clean. Nagy Bosanska,
however, had moved something within him that
was beyond his understanding.

And while he was -still wondering he heard
Mrs. Manners at the entrance to the room ex
claiming:

" I knew you would take pity on us some day,
and to think that it should be this, of all days! "

A moment later she came up to Nagy and
Philip, triumphantly leading Baroni. The tenor
and the newspaper man shook hands rather for
mally, and the latter said:

" I had the pleasure of seeing your wife at
home not long ago."

" Yes, I ve heard of your being there and I m
sorry to have missed you."

Nagy looked from one to the other with a
wicked little gleam in her wonderful eyes. Life
for her was a perpetual turmoil of tangled sex



n8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

relations, and she suspected at once that the critic
and the tenor s wife what? She did not know,
but she had to suspect because an inscrutable
Providence had created her that way. She never
ended with mere suspicion, for with her certain
knowledge was bound to come. She had a pro
found insight into human nature, that insight
which has so often enabled her race to look into
the faces of men and women and so measure their
characters as to make prophecies not far amiss.
Sooner or later she was sure to know Philip s real
feelings for Helen, and to respect him for them.
But just now she counted it her time to watch.
So she said little, but she listened, and meanwhile
she was deeply considering Baroni.

She was certain she did not suspect that life
was to him yet an uncut volume. He had looked
at the attractive binding and had peeped at the
title page. Yes, he had even glanced at the
preface. Some day he would begin to cut the
leaves and read. Then he would discover him
self and yes he might be very well worth
while. But would the patrician wife ever find that



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 119

out? Pah! How could she, that puritanical
American woman? What a pity he had not loved
her Nagy ! What a revelation of life she would
have made him. But would he really be worth
while?

" What? Oh, I suppose so," she said, answer
ing at random a remark of Mrs. Manners. " I
must go on that is what you say here, isn t it?
Will you ride up with me in my car, Baroni? "

Philip had just invited the tenor to go to his
club with him, and Baroni had not answered.
Now the tenor smiled at him apologetically and
said to Nagy:

" I suppose if I decline the first invitation you
have ever given me, you ll spoil our next scene
together."

And so Nagy carried him off in her triumphal
chariot.



CHAPTER IX

"QHALL I take you home? " asked Nagy.

^ " Um-m-m well, no, I don t think I
shall go just yet. I want to stop at the

Nagy interrupted him with a ripple of laughter.
The laugh of Nagy Bosanska was more wonderful
than many fountains. Sometimes it showered
flashing streams of silvery staccati, and then it
was as if one heard a scale of detached notes on
a flute. Sometimes it flowed downward in a swift
chromatic torrent, like a scale of semitones in the
high positions of the A string of a cello. And if
ten other descriptions of it were written, no one
would have more than a shadow of knowledge,
for it was ever different. This time Nagy rippled
and that ripple was like the Waldweben in " Sieg
fried " or the bubbling of water on the lips of
a drowning man. One could never be perfectly
certain whether it was tragedy or comedy with



120



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 121

Nagy. Upon Leander all was quite lost. Noth
ing had any special significance to him. He was
so utterly American. He had no more imagina
tion than a stock broker. And yet there was
something in him, something which had never be
come an active force. And doubtless it was this
which caused the wise Nagy to say that he was a
great baby and was not yet awake. So when she
had interrupted him with her incomprehensible
laughter, she said:

You don t want to go home, and the first year
of your married bliss is not yet finished! "

" Oh, cut that out, Nagy. You know nothing
about it and it is not for you to discuss."

You are right, my friend," she said with a
sudden and wonderful softness in her voice.
" She is very beautiful and you are a very happy
man."

Leander swallowed the words with difficulty.
Of course Helen was very beautiful, but he did
not relish hearing Nagy comment upon her.
However, he answered heartily:

" Now you re talking sense, Nagy."



122 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

* Yes, sometimes I feel quite sensible and it
interests me. I am always ravished with novelty.
But after all, since you are not in a hurry to go
home and you do not know just where else to go,
why do you not come and pass a few minutes at
my little retreat? It is most quiet there and the
old Melanie, my companion, will be overjoyed.
She is of your adorers."

Entrancing, inexhaustible Nagy! There was
in this speech a naivete, a childish simplicity which
came as balm to the inflamed sensibilities of the
tenor. He saw himself relaxing in body and spirit
in the bower of this adorable exotic. He leaped
instinctively to the conclusion that it would be
restful there. How restful Nagy herself was at
this instant; how soft, how gentle, how soothing.
He hesitated a moment, drew a quick breath, and
said:

" Can t say I m eager about your companion,
Nagy; but it does sound inviting."

And so he went. He had begun to have a
lively curiosity about Nagy. Hitherto she had
been to him only a brilliant apparition of the



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 123

theater and he had delighted in singing with her
because her style was so aflame with dramatic
modulations, so elastic, so subtle, and so magnetic
that she helped him to make successes. He had
sometimes been a little jealous of her effect on
audiences, but not for long. He realized that she
was a splendid foil for him and that her methods
made his own stand out more clearly. But now
he was slowly developing an interest in the per
sonality of the woman. He had never before
been in Nagy s apartment and he walked around,
studying it, while Nagy threw off her wraps and
sank into a deep chair, from which she regarded
him with an expression for her unusually
thoughtful.

You might have known Nagy a lifetime and
never have guessed how she would furnish a dwell
ing. Her flat was one of those large, airy, light

*

ones which exist in some parts of New York.
Nagy did not love too much light and she had
draped her windows with heavy curtains of a rich
ruby red, too dark and opulent in tone to be ag
gressive. The walls of the drawing-room were



124 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

covered with a figured brocade of the same tint
as that of the curtains. The floor was in dark
wood and the rugs were all in deep velvety shades.
There were few pictures a copy of Franz Hals
" Hille Robbe," with the wicked owl perched upon
her shoulder, an etching after Lucas van Ley-
den s " Eulenspiegel," and a remarkably well-
executed copy of Couture s " Les Remains de la
Decadence," small, but faithful in spirit and color.
These were the chief pieces. There were some
smaller things, photographs and one or two prints,
including a sepia view of the interior of the
Church of Our Lady at Treves. It was a strange
and incongruous mixture, like Nagy herself.
There were no flowers in the room. Nagy al
ways threw them away as fast as she received
them. But on a table in a corner stood a Hun
garian cembalon. Mme. Melanie could have told
Leander that when Nagy was in a harsh mood
she could hammer out the most blood-curdling
music from the jangling wires.

; Well, my friend," said Nagy, " how do you
like it?"



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 125

" It s fine," answered Leander; " so restful and
quiet."

And he sank down into a chair and sighed.

"Cigarette?" murmured Nagy, holding out
her little gold case.

Leander took one. Nagy lighted her own and
then leaned forward to let him take a light from
it while she still held it in her lips. The tenor
accepted the Promethean gift, and they both
smiled with a touch of amusement as they
leaned back after the feat had been accom
plished.

" Funny you and I have never been better ac
quainted, Nagy," said Leander; "for although
we talk familiarly and treat one another with the
imitation of intimacy that one finds in an opera
house, we don t know one another particularly
well, do we? "

" Speak for yourself, Baroni. I know both
you and me. You will perhaps one day know
you, but you will never know me."

" Do you mean to say that you think I don t
know myself now? "



126 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" Not the least little bit in the world, my dear
boy."

Well, how am I going to become ac
quainted? " asked Leander with an indulgent
smile.

* Through love," slowly answered Nagy.

Leander was silent, and presently Nagy con
tinued :

" But it is very well; you have begun rightly.
You have found the beautiful, proud woman,
made her your wife, and she will educate you in
love, and thus you will come to be as wise as a
god."

Yes, I see," commented Leander as he slowly
blew thin smoke from his lips. He fell into a
silence. He forgot that he was in Nagy s pres
ence. His mind was retracing certain steps in
the past and finding them not what he now wished
that they had been. And Nagy smoked her ciga
rette, said no word, and watched him through the
fringes of her eyes. She was beginning to believe
that he might be worth while. And she could



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 127

not drive out of her mind a suspicion that his
senses and his soul had neither one been yet
touched by the woman whom he had married.
She was certain that he had something worth
stirring. She would interest herself by indulging
in experiment. She glided over to the piano
which stood in one corner of the room, and before
Leander was aware that she had seated herself
she began to play a strange, weird Oriental melody
such as he had never heard. He turned and
listened attentively, and suddenly she modulated
and swept into the accompaniment of a song.

" Guschi ki behakk bazi biiwed der herne dschai,
Belli jari, belli dost jari dschani men wai.

And there was not a little more of the queer
sliding melody of melting intervals and oily

scales. Leander, understanding nothing yet, felt

>
strange waves running through all his sense. It

was as if he had suddenly been thrust into the
depths of a fragrant tropical garden. He drew
a quick breath, looked swiftly at Nagy, and said
in a strained tone:



128 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" For Heaven s sake, Nagy, what is that, and
what does it mean? "

" Oh, it is a Persian folk song," she answered
lightly. Then flashing into a half-serious man
ner, she added: "As for the meaning, it is in
effect this: * I am singing here alone. Hear me
and do not turn away, beloved soul.

Leander smiled one of his familiar indulgent
smiles. The tension which had temporarily come
upon him was relieved and he relaxed all over
inside and out.

" Always love songs, aren t they, Nagy? I sup
pose you never sing a song with a moral to it,
or a purely fantastic song, eh? I sometimes be
lieve that you never think of anything but love.
You appear to have an idea that that is life."

1 You are mistaken, my friend. I do not think
about it always. But I live for it always. It is
life, or at any rate it is the only thing worth living
for. It is the only power that can raise life above
the level of the grimy earth and make it truly
great. But in this sordid America no one is great.
You are a nation of hucksters. You see nothing,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 129

you know nothing, you feel nothing. You have
two objects in existence, the pocket and the stom
ach. The one is for the other. The pocket
that is for money. The money is to buy things
for the stomach, things to eat and to drink. Also
to go to the things for the stomach. You become
rich. What do you do? You buy an automo
bile. Do you ride in it through dream-haunted
valleys and heaven-storming mountains, that you
may feed great your souls upon the spirit of the
world? No, you go as fast as the car can fly
to some famous place for getting things for the
stomach. You eat, you drink, and your soul be
comes as the soul of a pig. That is your pleasure.
The next day you hasten downtown to get more
dollars to buy more things to eat and drink. And
that is what you fancy is life, for it is your life.
But you are all dead, dumb, soulless. You know

6

nothing, you see nothing. This beautiful world,
that was made to glorify us, is lost, wasted on
you. Everything that is great and noble is
crushed here into the mire. Where are your
poets, your painters, your sculptors, your great



1 30 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

masters of music? Parrots, taught in Europe to
repeat our alphabets! Children, who prattle by
rote! Pah! Fools! And what are your women?
Sheep, bleating, idle sheep. They are emanci
pated women of the harem, women who have no
souls. Bon Dieu! What a nation! The men
hagglers for more dollars and the women over
dressed geese, waiting always to be fed. Not
one beautiful thought in their lazy minds ! And
then you smile like a fool at me and say that I
think always of love. Of what shall a real woman
think, you wooden image? Do you believe that
I, Nagy Bosanska, an eternal spirit, a living, burn
ing, throbbing soul, that shakes the very sky
above me, that I shall be a thing of the pocket
and the stomach, like an American odalisque?
No, I live, I am! I vibrate with the eternal fires!
I am an immortal poem, a deathless song! I am
all that was and all that shall be. I am the holy
temple of celestial passion. The riddle of life
is open to me. I am as the very gods. But you
pish I Man, you are a marionette. "

And Nagy, panting, strode across the room



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 131

and flung herself upon the keyboard of the piano
in a wild torrent of exotic harmonies above which
she suddenly burst once more into song :

" As ich wolt gehat adus wus ich mein
Wolt ich doch gliklich gewein;
Mir thut doch mein harz oisgehn
Wen ich thu dichdersehen.

As the last line of the quaint Jewish song died
slowly away, Nagy turned swiftly and buried her
face in her hands, while her exquisite frame shook
with a thunderstorm of weeping.

" Now what on earth is the matter with you,
Nagy? " asked Leander, going over and standing
beside her in a rather uncertain attitude.

"It is nothing," she sobbed; "you must not
give to me any attention. It will pass. No one
can help me. I think no one understands me.
Do you know how dreadful that is? "

Leander did not answer immediately, and she
furtively watched his face from beneath her
drooping lashes. Presently the tenor walked
away from her and sank again into a deep chair.
He seemed to forget that Nagy was in the room



132 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

and lost himself in a profound reflection. Nagy
went and stood beside him. She looked down on
him with an inscrutable expression. There was
in it tenderness, amusement, contempt, and yearn
ing. Softly, very softly she laid a hand upon his
splendid bright hair, and, as he did not move, she
stroked the silky locks caressingly, as a mother
might stroke those of her child.

Yes," she said; " it is certain that I am -
stupid. I forgot. You do not have to be mis
understood. You have your beautiful wife who
sees down into the very shrine of your being and
understands all of your moods, your hopes, your
fears, your delicate artistic perceptions, your
music soul. Yes, that is very wonderful. It is
always more wonderful for a man than it is for
a woman. A woman does not expect to be un
derstood by a man; it is impossible. But a woman
can understand the man she loves. He has no
secrets from her. His soul is her daily scripture.
She reads it, she drinks it in with every thought.
It is her life study. It becomes her soul. Ah,
that is the glory of love."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 133

Leander sprang up from the chair, throwing
her hand rudely from his hair.

"Nagy, I will not listen," he said; " be
quiet."

" What have I done? Is it that I have been
familiar with the sacredness of your love? But
you will forgive me for that, for I am only your
friend, your friend, who is thinking of your hap
piness, Baroni."

Again he was silent, and Nagy ventured to take
his hand in hers.

" Or shall I dare," she continued, " to fear
that it is not perfect, and that the stately queen
does not see all the way into the soul of the great
artist?"

" Nagy, be silent," said Leander sternly.
You must not dare to question me about my
wife."

" It is true. I am very sorry. Ah, one should
not expect poetic insight from an American
woman. I am sorry. But fear nothing. I shall
bury this in my heart, Baroni. I shall not speak
of it. It shall be our own little secret, which we



134 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

shall not breathe even to each other. But when
you are weary and sad and need to be understood,
you will remember that Nagy Bosanska is your
friend, will you not? And she has the eternal
woman soul, the soul of the world."

She leaned against him and he felt the firm
round curves of her beautiful body swelling
through the slight silken gown, and the dainty
perfume which always exhaled from her rose to .
his nostrils like an incense. He smiled down upon
her and his head bent slowly as if drawn by an
irresistible force. She lifted her voluptuous red
lips, which were slightly parted so that her quick
breathing could almost be seen. Leander s eyes
darkened with a look of the wild beast that dwells
in every man, and he gripped her with his arm.
But the woman, wise as a serpent, saw that the
hour had not yet come. She had touched only
the outer skin of his grosser sense. At the very
instant when it seemed as if their lips must melt
together in a kiss, she drew back swiftly, pressed
a hand over her heart in an expressive gesture,
and said in a barely audible voice:



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 135

" You will come to see me again when the
world seems dull to you and I shall try to make
you forget, shall I not? "

Leander shook himself as if he found dust upon
his garments. Forget? That was the one thing
he must not do. He must remember every minute
that he was the husband of a good and true
woman, who unfortunately cherished utterly false
ideals about his profession.

" No yes no; I suppose so. It s getting to
ward dinner time, Nagy, and I must be getting
home."

" Home! Yes, that is the right place for you,
Baroni. But I shall see you here again some time.
I am sure of it."

She gave him her hand, which he kissed quite
formally, and he departed. As soon as he was
gone, she called her companion.

" Melanie," she said; " I shall dine out. You
can do as you please or go to the devil. Tele
phone at once to Comparelli that I shall expect
him here in half an hour to take me to dinner."

And when Melanie had gone to obey the com-



136 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

mands Nagy remained standing thoughtfully be
side the piano and singing in an undertone:

" Si tu ne m aimes pas, je t aime;
Si je t aime, prends garde a toi.

Wise, far-seeing Nagy! But she did not see
to the borders of all things.



CHAPTER X

f"T"^HE spell of Nagy had fallen upon the tenor,
-* and he knew it not. He believed that he
had walked out of its magic circle when he had
left her apartment. And it was creeping behind
him like his own shadow. And there was another
man upon whom it had fallen, a man whom Nagy
herself had forgotten when her eyes were drawn
to the tenor, but whom she would presently re
member.

******

Philip Studley was uneasy in his mind. He
strode up and down his room and smoked vi
ciously. He was dissatisfied with himself, for
suddenly he realized that he had conceived a sin
gularly active curiosity about a prima donna. He
had fallen to trying to analyze Nagy Bosanska
and had discovered that his methods were inade
quate. There was more material for analysis than

he knew how to handle. He turned his examina-

137



i 3 8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

tion inward. He became introspective and then
he was quite as much in the dark as he was before.
He found himself crowded with conflicting feel
ings. He knew that it was all wrong for him
to think about a prima donna at all. That con
viction stood out with perfect distinctness. But
right beside it stood another, namely that he
desired to think about her very much.

Then he pondered on the wise words of Web
ster. How much did the General really know?
All the " boys " said that Webster never went
near a woman. It was whispered that a very
beautiful and interesting prima donna had once
followed him halfway across Europe only to be
compelled in the end to say to him, " You re a
Parsifal." Philip was well aware that he himself
was no Parsifal, but neither was he a Klingsor.

Why could he not interest himself in the ex
citing phenomenon called Nagy Bosanska without
getting into difficulties? Besides, had he any
reason to flatter himself that the prima donna
would be especially interested in him? Oh, yes,
he was a critic, to be sure, and the General had



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 139

declared that so far as the guild was concerned
all the prima donnas were vampires. But Philip
was morally certain that no vampire could get
anything from him. He was sure that he was
unapproachable. His three gears experience had
seemed so large to him ! Anyhow, he decided that
he would go down to the opera house and listen to
some of a rehearsal of " Manon Lescaut." It
was not at all likely that she would be there, of
course, as she was not in the cast of Puccini s
opera. And so he walked into the almost im
penetrable gloom of the auditorium and sat down
in a quiet corner.

The usual lot was there, with Mrs. Harley
Manners in the foreground. The rehearsal was
more uninteresting than such things commonly
were, for the reason that none of the singers was
trying to do anything more than indicate "the
music, and the conductor, Comparelli, was in a
bad humor; which caused him to stop the orchestra
every two or three minutes and deliver an angry
lecture in swift Italian. There was no reason
except Comparelli why Nagy Bosanska should



1 40 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

have been present at this rehearsal, and even
Comparelli was no longer a strong reason. Her
friendship with him was overripe. His conceit
had wearied her. She would soon cast him off,
that was certain.

She had been swept off her feet at first by his
masterful conducting. She had once more
dreamed her beautiful dream, that she had found
a man who would fill her life. But this was what
Nagy was always seeking and had never found.
She drained the wine from ordinary souls in a
few draughts, and went onward, ever onward,
consumed by a fierce thirst. No man who walked
upon life s common levels could be her mate. But
she herself was as boundless as the sea and as
inexhasutible as space. She was a measureless
giver and men fought for her gifts, but usually
in vain. She gave only where she fancied she
saw her happiness, and she was still wandering in
pursuit of her vision.

However, she was in the theater, and her keen
eyes discovered the young man sitting in his quiet
corner. Presently she glided noiselessly into a



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 141

seat behind him and when the first act was ended
leaned forward and breathed upon his cheek.
There was something sinister in that breathing of
Nagy Bosanska. A score of women might let
a man feel their breath on his face without stir
ring his pulse. But when Nagy did that the
primal man of Rodin rose up in pride and force.
It felt like a voluptuous caress. The actual touch
of the woman s lips could not have done more,
and, being less subtle, might have done less.
Philip was about to turn, when she murmured
with her mouth close to his ear:

" Since I first met you I have thought some
times that I was sorry that I had."

" Really? " said Philip, freed at once from the
strange influence of that breathed caress; " I am
sure I know of no reason why you should think
of the matter at all."

" Well, I have found reasons."

" Perhaps," said Philip, politely responding
to her plain indication that she wished to be
asked, " you would not mind telling me one of
them."



1 42 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" Since I met you I have much wished to be
friends with you."

" And is that a reason for wishing that you
had not met me? "

* Yes, for if I try to be friends with you, you
will believe it is because I wish you to write flat
tery of me in your paper."

" And you, of course, wish to stand entirely
on your merits."

" Of a certainty. Would not you, if you were
a singer? "

u Oh, I m not so sure. I ve been told that
prima donnas desire unending praise. They think
it fools the public; but it does not."

" I do not fool the public; I conquer it. If my
best is not good enough, I make it better. Is not
that what I should do? "

1 Yes, but that is not the usual course."

"Neither am I usual; I am Nagy Bosanska.
And yet I cannot make you believe in me."

She bowed her head so that stray tendrils of

-her hair brushed his cheek and her voice sank

into a deep musical murmur. Then she raised



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 143

her head again and looked deep into his eyes
and his eyes turned not away. Some strange
swift current passed from one to the other.
Philip trembled in his chair. The magic spell of
Nagy Bosanska was upon him. And still they
stared into one another s eyes, like Tristan and
Isolde in the first act. Presently Philip, hardly
knowing his own voice, so tense and low was it,
heard himself saying to her:

" It is for you to make me believe in you if
you think it worth while."

" If," she whispered, " you will believe in me
in your heart of heart I shall not care what you
write about me. It is your faith I crave."

The word " write " restored Philip temporarily
to his senses.

" My dear Mile. Bosanska," he said, " if I con
demned your Tosca you would regard me as your
enemy."

For answer she gazed steadily into his eyes
once more and then whispered:

" To-morrow evening I shall be at home
alone. Come and let me try to convince you."



144 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

As she rose to depart, Philip shook his head
with a smiling negative and she smiled back a
contradiction. And at half-past eight the follow
ing evening, Philip, finding that after all there was
neither opera nor concert demanding his attention,
thought he might as well be convinced, if only for
the satisfaction of discomfiting Webster, and he
walked calmly into Nagy s parlor. He found
the room mystic, with a delicious half-gloom, in .
the midst of which he saw Nagy, a wonderful
vision.

Her hair, which was of the softest and most
velvety black, was coiled in something like a
Grecian knot and hung low upon her neck, while
in front it swept in two seductive curves away
from her broad white forehefad. The robe, which
covered, but did not wholly conceal, her adorable
body, was cut rather low around the neck, so that
the firm lines of her splendid throat and the
round breast partly revealed themselves and the
elbow sleeves permitted a ravishing display of
her marvelously beautiful forearms.

Philip was no expert in the garments of women,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 145

but he was sure that the soft clinging stuff which
floated around Nagy must have come out of the
East. It had a sensuous languor that breathed
Oriental luxury. When Nagy moved it twined
around her caressingly and threw the lines of her
form into clear relief. And she seemed so charm
ingly unconscious that she was like an odalisque
or an houri of the Turkish paradise. She undu
lated toward him with a strange inscrutable smile
upon her ripe lips. She held out her hand and
let her rosy fingers caress his for a moment.

* I dreamed that you would come," she mur
mured in her low register.

I knew I would," he answered, astonished to
hear his own voice sound a wooing note.

They stood gazing at each other till suddenly
Nagy laughed a little forced laugh and said:

" How foolish we look standing without a word
in the middle of the room. Come and sit by me
on the sofa and tell me things."

She drew him to the sofa and sank into its em
brace. Philip felt once more that singular inde
finable influence which he had noted when he sat



146 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

beside her at Mrs. Manners , but he could not
now even make an attempt to shake it off.

" I think I cannot tell you anything," he said
presently; " you seem to me to know everything
already."

" Peste ! I am not so old as that, my friend."

" No, not old; young. It is the wisdom of
eternal youth."

She did not answer, but smiled a faint, half- -
hidden smile and looked at him with a sweet gen
tleness in her eloquent eyes. For some time after
that their conversation was not rapid. It was
composed chiefly of a richly instrumented silence
with occasional flashes of recitative. In the in
tervals of silence Nagy looked down at the floor.
If he spoke she looked up into his eyes. The
young man s pulse fluttered as a bird sometimes
does at the beginning of the serpent s charming.
Suddenly Nagy rose and walked across the room
rapidly. Then she just as suddenly sat down in
a large chair far away from him. She said noth
ing and he said nothing; but he saw her bosom
rising and falling rapidly and he noticed that she



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 147

clenched her hands. His impulse to rush across
the room and seize her in his arms must have be
trayed itself in his face, for she rose from the
chair as swiftly as she had dropped into it, and,
throwing her hands out in front of her, ex
claimed:

" Sit still ! I am going to sing for you."

She went over to the piano and seated herself.
Her hands stroked the keys caressingly and the
strings sang flute-like, subdued tones.

" No opera," she murmured; " something alto
gether different, something quite for you."

The inflection on the last word was like a kiss.
Then she began to sing, first a quaint acrid pierc
ing song of the Greek isles with pungent, melodic
surprises in its flattened second and its augmented
fifth. Hardly was Philip s ear filled with the keen
taste of this when she glided into a Turkish love
song, with a spineless tune and harmonies
startlingly suggestive of a depraved soul. Nagy
sang in tones which Philip had never before
heard in her voice, low, mellow, cooing notes, like
those of the dove in the mating season. But still



i 4 8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

the young man was able to contemplate the sing
ing with his mind, although his soul confessed the
marvelous witchery of the tones. Nagy seemed
instinctively to realize that her songs were not
conquering him. With a sudden modulation she
slipped into the first words of " Wie bist du meine
Konigin." If Philip had one musical weak spot,
it was for the songs of Brahms. Nagy watched
him narrowly through her eyelids and saw that
he was now really moved. So she sang on
through " Liebestreu," " Immer leiser wird mein
Schlummer," " Von ewiger Liebe," and " Wie
Melodien." It was a matchless exposition of the
innermost soul of the self-contained German mas
ter. How this wild, untrammeled, undisciplined
creature, with her imperfect training and her
depreciating operatic experiences, ever acquired
such a noble and potent art is something that re
mained forever one of the mysteries of Philip s
life. He rose from the sofa slowly and re
luctantly, as if drawn by some supernatural power
against which his weakening will battled in vain.
He drew near to her and stood beside her, breath-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 149

ing quickly. She gave him a quick, short glance,
and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.
Suddenly she rose and laid her hands upon his
shoulders :

" Do you believe in me now? "
" Yes," he answered in a choked voice.
Both were silent. They stood straining their
looks to read each other s heart. Philip s senses
swam with deep, elemental throbs of a passion
such as he had never dreamed. His limbs trem
bled and his sight grew dim. Nagy was moved.
This beautiful, fresh, youthful emotion, so pure
in its naivete, so rich and splendid in its self-
surrender, roused to a pulsating response all that
was most generous in her strange nature. Per
haps this would be for life. She leaned forward
slowly, tenderly, till she lay caressingly against
his breast. He made one last feeble effort to free
himself. She felt the movement and looked up
into his eyes and he was sure that he saw the
glisten of tears. A mighty thrill swept through
him. Could it be true that this marvelous crea
ture loved him? He cast away all thought. He



150 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

suddenly wrapped her in his arms and flung his
lips upon hers.

******

The morning light had a lurid tint to the eyes
of Philip. He even cowered under it as if shrink
ing from an impending blow. A lassitude, such as
he had never before known, lay upon his mind.
He felt only the chill glare of the dull, cold light
and a faint trembling in his limbs. He asked
himself nothing. The mental numbness resolved
itself into a steady stare at the thin line of white
between the portieres at the window. Real con
sciousness returned to him only when he heard
as from a distance the voice of Nagy.

u It is growing late. There is coffee in the
next room when you are ready."

He did not see her. He did not try. He shiv
ered as he recalled the previous evening. He
rose slowly and heavily and in half an hour passed
into the adjoining chamber, where he found her
sitting at the little table, looking divinely lovely
and exquisitely submissive. She turned a plead
ing pair of eyes upon him and lifted her red



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 151

mouth. He bent down and kissed her and then
sighed deeply as he seated himself opposite her.

" Why do you sigh, my friend? " she asked.

u What shall I do next?" he responded.
" Shall I resign?"

"Resign what?"

u My post as music critic? "

" But for what should you do this? "

" Because I love you," he answered with simple
earnestness. " I cannot write honestly about you,
can I?"

Nagy gave him one of her long melting looks
from half-closed eyes.

" What a dear innocent child it is ! Do you
think, Philip, that I would care for you if you
were not honest? "

" It is not you, but myself, that I cannot trust."

" How is that?"

" Everything you do will be beautiful to me.
I shall adore you if you sing out of tune."

: I never sing out of tune,"

There was a note of challenge in the declara
tion, but the infatuated young man did not hear it.



152 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" No," he continued; " but you may do some
thing which ought to seem wrong to me, and it
will not."

" Come, then," she said, passing around the
table and twining her arms about his neck. It
shall be a battle between us. You shall swear to
write always the truth about me, and I I shall
try always to make you blind with love."

Philip sighed again, and Nagy broke into a
low ripple of laughter.

" Silly boy! " she said; " it shall be nothing of
that kind. It shall be something much better.
When I am on the stage, I shall be for you Mile.
Bosanska, prima donna assoluta. You shall study
me as a curiosity of art and write about me as
something that dwells behind footlights and not
in your world. And then you shall come to me
and I shall be just a woman who loves you."

And that was the beginning of their impossible
compact.



CHAPTER XI

TT was a bright, sharp morning, with almost no
* wind. The frost lay white upon the shrunken
grasses of the park lawns, and Helen strode rap
idly along the walk gazing upon the field of dia
monds with unobservant eye. Her mind was ab
sorbed in her own affairs. More than one man
passing on horseback or in a vehicle turned his
head to drink in the beautiful vision. With her
perfectly shaped head bowed, and her long soft
lashes falling upon her rosy cheeks, her lips parted,
and her hair shining in the sunlight, Helen was a
ravishing figure. Every line of her expressed
high-bred character and intellect. But a single ex
amination of her face sufficed to convince one that
she was a sensitive human instrument with infinite
vibrations. It was in the line of her upper lip that
much was revealed. The two little points under
the nostrils turned upward just the least bit in the
world, and this gave the lip the air of reaching

153



154 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

itself forward always in the invitation of a kiss.
It was a lip to rouse the ardor of any man, and it
had had its day with Leander. But now?

Perhaps it was of that " But now? " that Helen
was in a dim way trying to think. The opera sea
son was dragging its slow length along, and she
realized that a barrier, undefined, unconfessed, was
growing up between her and her husband. Le
ander was restive in her presence, impatient of her
words, unmelted by her caresses. She almost
shrank from offering to kiss him, and yet she felt
that if she did not, he would be offended, for she
knew how childish he was in regard to all atten
tions. He expected so much, and gave so little.
But it was not so much this that troubled her as
the thought that he was slowly coming to give
almost nothing, and to value but lightly that which
he received. What was at the bottom of it all?

Helen knew that she loved him. That was set
tled for life, she thought. It was not her fault,
she believed. She gave him all, all that she had,
and she felt it no shame to confess to her own soul
that she had much to give. She knew that never



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 155

in the earliest transports of their union had Lean-
der given as much as he had received. He was
merely the man, taking boldly that which was his
right; she was the woman, whose rapture it was to
give and to suffer the deepest pangs of woman s
agony of joy in the giving. Leander had told her
more than once that she did not understand him;
but she knew well that he did not understand her.
She was not afraid of that. She was afraid of
only one thing. She dreaded to admit that he
failed to perceive the fullness and splendor of her
love for him. She would not confess it. But
away down in the secret place where unconfessed
thoughts hide, this one existed in spite of her.

Ever since that day on which the full revelation
of his egotism had smitten her so sharply she had
been discovering further evidence of Leander s in
ability to comprehend anything which did not fawn
before his greatness. Helen had turned away in
disgust from the prostrate attitude of such women
as Mrs. Harley Manners, who spent much of their
time in telling the tenor how marvelously he had
sung this aria or that scene. And why did he sit



156 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

and smile complacently when such talk was
paraded before him? How could any man who
really had the true humility of a great artist listen
to the flattery of ignorant amateurs, who could
not know whether his art was beautiful or not?
How much more easy it would be for Helen to un
derstand his accepting with interest some intelligent
bit of praise from one of his fellow singers. Even
that strange creature, Nagy Bosanska, would at
least know what the vocal excellence of a scene
really was.

And at this moment Helen was crossing a drive
and had to stop in order to avoid being run down
by an automobile. She raised her eyes and saw in
the car, in close conversation, her husband and
Mile. Bosanska. As the car slowed down to take
a curve they both looked up and saw her. At
once Mile. Bosanska signaled her chauffeur to
stop, and, leaning out of the car, called
to Helen:

" Mrs. Baroni, come with us, will you not? I
have brought your husband to talk to me about
some of our scenes together."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 157

Helen walked up to the side of the car and
smiled at them both.

" Thank you, Mile. Bosanska, but I am out for
a good walk, and you two are much better without
me. I should only put an end to your studies.
You see, I do not understand all these nice little
operatic relations and distinctions."

" What do you mean, Helen? " asked Baroni in
a strained tone.

" Just what I say, Leander. You must not try
to make what the conductors call readings of my
simple prattle. Good-by. Have a pleasant ride,
and be sure you get your scenes all planned, so
that they ll make hits."

And the automobile rolled slowly up the slope
as Helen strode off in the opposite direction. It
was fated to be a morning of small but significant
incidents, and this one was not the least significant
of them. Helen went on her way, thinking that
her words had been unnecessarily pointed. Lean
der might almost think that she was jealous. Was
she? She asked herself that question, and then
smiled. What reason had she to suppose that her



158 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

husband was interested in the soprano any more
than one singer might be interested in another who
helped him to make successes?

She had learned not a little about the inner life
of an opera house. She knew that all sorts of ir
regular relations existed in that strange artificial
world, where the unreal people seemed to belong
to a species different from that commonly called
human. She had seen a prima donna holding in ,
abject subjection two men at the same time, and
she had watched the comet-like rise of an unknown
young singer who was credited with the most im
partial distribution of her favor among those in
power. She knew, as every one else knew, that
Nagy Bosanska and Comparelli,the conductor, had
been entangled in a relation of long standing, but
she had been told (falsely, indeed) that it was en
tirely a liaison de convenance on the part of the
soprano, who had a surprising way of freeing her
self from bonds at a moment s notice. But she
had discerned nothing in the conduct of her hus
band to suggest to her anything more disagreeable
than the domination of his own splendid egotism.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 159

She had no fear that he was likely to fall a prey
to the seductions of Mile. Bosanska. And even if
he were in such danger, it could not well be re
garded as anything serious. He loved his wife
still.

So she strode along the walk, while the caresses
of the ardent breeze heightened the glow in her
cheeks and the light in her eyes. And suddenly
she became aware of a familiar figure walking on
the opposite side of the drive. It was Philip
Studley, with his head bent low, his hands in his
pockets, and his coat collar turned up. He was
going in the direction opposite to that in which
Helen was walking, and as they drew nearer to
gether she noted that his face was pale, and that
he was biting his lips in an agitated manner.
Rapidly she crossed the road and intercepted
him.

" Some unfortunate wretch must be going to
catch it in the Sunday article," she said, laugh
ing.

He looked up, greeted her in a somewhat con
fused manner, and then she saw that his eyes were



160 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

bloodshot and the lids heavy, as if he had passed
a sleepless night.

" Let me walk with you. Philip/ she said; " you
seem to me to be not quite well."

She slipped her hand inside his arm and smiled
kindly at him.

; What do you mean? " he asked; " I am per
fectly well."

The eagerness with which he spoke brought a
sudden suspicion into Helen s mind. Could he
have been dissipating? But she knew that he was
one of the steadiest of men.

" I am glad to hear that," she declared; " I sup
pose it is too much work, then."

" Oh, I don t know," he answered a little im
patiently.

"Did you pass Leander?" inquired Helen,
hoping to find a diverting topic. * You came
down the road just after he and Mile. Bosanska
went up in her car."

Philip stopped short in the path and stared into
her face.

" Did you meet them? " he demanded.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 161

Yes; they invited me to get into the car; but
you know they were out talking over scenes, and I
should only have been in the way."

" Oh! " That was Philip s reply, and then he
strode on in silence.

" You see," continued Helen, " I think that
when it comes to matters of their profession, these
singers are best left to themselves. They do not
care to have outsiders intruding."

You are not an outsider," said Philip; " you
are the man s wife."

" Of course, I am not an outsider in that sense,
only in opera affairs."

They did not invite me to get into the car.
She pretended not to see me."

Philip spoke with some bitterness in his tone,
and Helen stared at him in astonishment.

" Why should she pretend? "

" Because because

He stopped, and, summoning a smile to his lips,
continued with some assumption of carelessness:

" I really don t know. I suppose I am fool
ishly sensitive."



1 62 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Helen looked at him very hard, and he turned
his eyes away. Then each tried to probe the
other s heart. Helen was troubled. She pressed
his arm gently and said :

" Philip, I wish I were not anxious about you."

" Are you ? Why should you be ? "

" I am, but I am not sure that I ought to tell you
why."

The young man s cheek flushed, and he turned
his head so that he looked squarely into her eyes.

" Say anything you please, Helen. You are an
old friend."

Still she hesitated for some moments before she
went on.

" Don t spoil your career by becoming interested
in a prima donna. No, don t answer. I know
you are not in real peril yet; but she is very
fascinating, and you are still young, and I do hope
to see you at the top of your profession, recog
nized all over the world as our leading authority."

The young man s lips burned with eagerness to
say, u You are too late; I love her;" but he
knew that he must not. Unanswerable questions



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 163

would follow. He could tell no one. He must
go on hugging his secret, ashamed of the thing
that had come to trouble his life. In the brief
time which had passed there had been no perform
ance calling for the expression of new opinions.
Nagy had been repeating her old roles, and Philip
found it easy enough to write non-committal gen
eralities. Furthermore, Nagy was a consummate
artist, and there was seldom any difficulty in find
ing ground for praise. Yet, like all other artists,
she had her limitations, and she was sure some day
to fail to recognize them, and what then?

" Helen," he said at length, " what makes you
think that I need this warning? "

Your strange manner this morning. You actu
ally seemed to be jealous of my husband."

" My dear Helen, that is, of course, quite pre
posterous. You must know that that I what
do you mean, anyhow? Do you believe
that ?"

* I believe that my husband has no concern in
your affair at all," she replied as kindly as she
could. " And I believe that unless you make up



1 64 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

your mind to avoid close friendship with Mile.
Bosanska, she will exercise a detrimental influence
upon you. That is quite all that it is possible for
me to say in regard to this matter, Philip."

They had reached one of the park gates, and the
young man, who could find no words with which
to continue the conversation, and who was, indeed,
covered with confusion, made a half-intelligible ex
cuse, and hastened away, leaving Helen to finish
her walk alone. As she went on close to the park
wall, she felt a genuine regret for her old friend,
but she had no suspicion of the seriousness of his
trouble. She was certain that he would have the
determination to keep away from the prima donna,
and that, in a brief time, he would be beyond the
reach of her charms. And at that very instant
Philip was striding through a side street, filled with
contending emotions, for he had heard enough of
the history of Nagy Bosanska to make him fear.



CHAPTER XII

^T^HE next afternoon he stood in her drawing-
"* room. There she came to him a melting,
loving woman, whose embrace was close and
tender. He was reassured. He believed that her
love was his, and that it was the crowning glory
of his life. He had been present on the previous
evening, when she sang Marguerite for the first
time in New York. She was a singer of the kind
usually called " phenomenal " by newspapers, be
cause her repertoire, like herself, was wayward and
unaccountable. It ranged through a series of
roles which no one woman could be expected to
sing. Yet this curious creature, with her sin
gularly capricious temperament and her marvel
ous voice, which swept the scale from low A to
high D, sang them, some well, some ill, but all in
terestingly.

Philip had sat through the performance of

" Faust " in a state of dumb amazement. He

165



1 66 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

found his passionate mistress transformed into a
prima donna of the Grand Opera. Her Mar
guerite was perfect in every external necessity. It
was the essence of polite convention. And Philip
knew that Nagy was not polite, not conventional,
and, above all things, not phlegmatic. That gave
him his cue. He praised her Marguerite in
phrases as polished and pretty as her own per
formance. But he declared that in the subtle and
eloquent personality of this matchless prima donna
there was far more than the role could evoke.
The part, therefore, was depressing to her. It
chilled the native fire of her soul. It left her
with only the resources of her perfect routine to
guide her through a faultless, but dispiriting, im
personation. A correct and exquisitely beautiful
singer of Gounod s musical ideas, she was none the
less not an illusive Marguerite. Every word
which Philip wrote was studied in its accuracy.
He did not temper the wind to the shorn lamb.
He had never done that in his young critical life,
and, remembering his compact with Nagy, he com
pelled himself to speak the truth about the woman



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 167

he loved. Had she not told him that she could
not love him if he were not true to himself? And
so that next afternoon, on his way home from a
deadening piano recital at Mendelssohn Hall, he
went to her, and she melted into his arms and
caressed his hair as she gazed into his eyes.

" Ami choisi de mon coeur," she murmured,
" que je t aime, que je t aime."

" Say it in English, dear," he whispered.

" How I love you," she cooed, with her ravish
ing little foreign accent, which made the phrase
sound even more caressing than it was.

You were not hurt by my words? " he asked.

"No, no," she answered swiftly; "how could
your sweet honesty, your beautiful courage, hurt
me? And Marguerite is not a good part for me,
anyhow. That is true. I have not sung Gounod
before in New York. I am going to sing Juliette
next week. You ll find that much different."

Something in this speech sent a momentary chill
through Philip s veins, but he soon rallied. Doubt
less, what she said was true. He would wait.

" You wrote exactly what your mind told you,



1 68 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

did you not? " she asked; "you did not let your
heart misguide you ? "

" That is it, dear; you have said it."

She mused a minute as her head rested on his
shoulder. Then she lifted her lips for a kiss, and
when he had poured out some of his soul, she
murmured :

" You are the first who ever thought my Mar
guerite cold. How can it be? "

" That is one of the impenetrable mysteries of
art," he answered with an indulgent air.

"Like some of your criticisms, eh?"

u Oh, Lord! " he exclaimed; " if you re going
to talk about them, I expect we shall soon be
buried in impenetrable mysteries."

She laughed and cooed at him, and twined her
soft arms about him, and he was most utterly and
foolishly happy. Then she looked up into his
face with a strange compelling expression in the
marvelous green eyes. The air turned rosy
around the young man, he trembled, and suddenly
clasped her convulsively. Then for a time he
knew nothing accurately except that he was trans-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 169

ported into the realms of unspeakable ecstasy.
And when he left her an hour later, he was more
completely hers than ever before.

He did not see her the next day or two, for he
and she were both much occupied with their pro
fessional labors. Finally came the performance
of " Romeo et Juliette." Philip was nervous.
He suffered an indescribable agony for her, but she
was apparently as calm as a summer noon. He
wished she had not been. She sang the waltz
song faultlessly. The scintillating cadenza flashed
from her lips deliciously, and the dear public went
into raptures. Indeed, the whole first act was
most commendable. She was the Lady Juliette in
very truth. But with the second act began the
descent into elegance. Philip was troubled.
Was this the woman who had thrilled the house
with her blazing Carmen, with her exquisitely
pathetic Mimi, with her superb Tosca? Was
this the singer who had poured out for him the im
mortal treasures of a great spirit in " Wie bist du
meine Konigin "? And then he had a flash of in
spiration. In the morning his paper said this:



170 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" Beautiful, proud, stately, the daughter of a
hundred earls, as it were, this Juliette moved to her
fate with the poise of a grande dame of the
revolution. Not a flaw was there in the delivery
of the unctuous music of Gounod. The river of
melody flowed, undulating and glinting, ever on
ward. The ear was ravished by such singing.
But in the end it was the taste, not the emotions,
that was satisfied. What was the secret of it?.
This public well knows that Mile. Bosanska does
not lack temperament. But in this elegant salon
music there is something that cabins, cribs, and con
fines her splendid genius. One easily imagines her
moving the world with an interpretation of * Wie
bist du meine Konigin, or Liebestreu.

There was much more of it, but this will suf
fice to show the trend of the entire article. Philip
wrote it in an intense mood, and pondered each
word of it. He felt, when he had finished it,
that he had turned out something quite beyond
cavil. He was sure that, if Nagy were in the least
annoyed at his discovery that her temperament



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 171

was crushed by Gounod, she would be deeply
touched by his reference to her marvelous Brahms
singing, and to the very songs which she had sung
for him on the day when they had discovered their
hearts to each other.

She must know that there was neither soul nor
foundation to the music of Gounod, that the score
of " Romeo et Juliette " was as far from
Shakespeare as that of " Faust " was from Goethe.
Nagy, that profound, inscrutable embodiment of
the ewig weibliche, would penetrate with a single
flash of her illuminating intellect to the very bot
tom of all things. She would know, she would
understand, she would always understand. The
General was a fool, and there was no wisdom in
his heart.

And in her singing of the Brahms songs she
had probed the depths of all human experience.
What melting tints had come into her voice!
What indescribable accents, filled with the utter
most pain of concentrated tenderness, had vital
ized every phrase! How could such a woman
toy with the table dessert of Gounod? She was



172 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

made for life, not for the pastime of a horde of
prattling society people, expressing in shop-worn
phrases their conventional raptures over this con
ventional music. And so, confident of her far-
reaching vision, he went to her in the afternoon.

" So," she said in a low purring tone, " you
don t think I m fit for an opera singer."

Philip was transfixed in the center of the room.
For the instant words would not come to him.
Presently he stammered:

" My dear love- "

" Omit that just now," she said, interrupting
him with precision. " I m somewhat afraid, my
good friend, that you do not understand the na
ture of your calling or mine. How dared you
to intimate that I would be better as a lieder
singer than as the prima donna of Gounod s mas
terpieces? Stupendous! I, Nagy Bosanska, the
idol of two continents, to descend to Carnegie
Lyceum and a piano accompaniment! "

" But surely you can be a greater artist there
than in a Gounod candy factory. Besides, my
dearest, I have never said that you were not



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 173

superb in other works. Still, I do believe that you
are the greatest lieder singer in the world."

" Greatest idiot you ! I m the first Juliette.
Saint-Saens told me so. I am a prima donna, the
great Nagy Bosanska. As for you, you are a
fool."

" I thought that it was understood between us
that I was to write according to my convictions,
and that this would have no relation to our love,"
Philip said slowly.

" My dear friend, you cannot expect me to love
a fool, can you? You are surely a fool. I have
no patience with fools."

" I am, perhaps, fool enough to have given you
a great love," said Philip bitterly.

u Oh, prince of simpletons ! Go, go. Can
you not see that you weary me ? You are a child.
I am a woman. I thought you might bring- me
joy, but I find that you only tire me. You are too
stupid to be the lover of a real woman. Run
away and find yourself a little yellow-haired, blue-
eyed doll to play with."

With no little dignity Philip picked up his hat.



174 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" You are quite right in your attitude," he
said; "I have made a grave mistake. I think
we shall do better to remain on opposite sides
of the footlights. You sing opera; I shall write
comment. You have taught me wonders of life.
I have seen a little way into the soul of a woman,
and I have tasted the depths of passion. I thank
you. I am grown somewhat wiser than I was."

He went to the door of the room, but on its -
threshold the ruling passion of the critic proved
too strong for him, and, with a cold smile on his
face, he said :

" Nevertheless, Mile. Bosanska, it is my opinion
that you would be the greatest lieder singer in the
world."

" Beast! " she shrieked, and, picking up a vase
which was near at hand, she hurled it at him. It
crashed against the door as he closed it behind
him, and then Nagy threw herself upon a sofa
and filled the room with peals of uncontrollable
laughter.



CHAPTER XIII

DAY by day the chasm between Helen and
her husband widened. She strove in vain
to bridge it. She reached out toward him with
all the sweet lure of her beautiful spirit. She
wove around him a dream of subtle, intangible
passion, a thin, lambent flame of pure fire, which
burned immortal on the altar of her soul. But
it was all to no purpose, for he seemed to be in
sensible, and her conviction that Leander wor
shiped only one god, self, grew stronger and
stronger. She saw it always in his attitude toward
his art. In his demeanor toward herself it took
the form of more or less intolerant endurartce.
Sometimes his impatience was curbed for a period,
but only to break forth again with renewed
violence.

It was a petty impatience, but it showed that

his nature was under a pressure. But when it

175



176 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

came to questions of art, he spoke in no uncertain
terms. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion
that for Leandro Baroni music was simply the
instrument by which he raised himself to glory.
The music itself was great or little, according to
the opportunities it afforded him.

Helen had tried to persuade him to go with her
to certain concerts, such as those of the Kneisel
Quartet or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but
he would not consent. There was nothing to be
learned, he declared, from listening to fellows
sawing fiddles or blowing brass. At the opera
house one heard quite enough of them, and most
of the time too much. They made such a noise
that no human voice could carry above it. The
old-fashioned opera composers, who wrote for
harpsichord and strings, were the only sensible
ones, after all. Of the mysterious influence of
Nagy Bosanska on this self-centered nature Helen
had as yet no suspicion. She knew that the selfish
man was a weak man, but she felt that Leander
was entirely and exclusively interested in himself,
and prepared to accept worship from any quarter,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 177

so long as he was not required to give anything in
return for it.

Nevertheless, daily the tenor was unconsciously
drawing closer to the strange Hungarian gipsy.
A drifting, purposeless character, he unconsciously
leaned against the elemental forces of this other
complex and inexplicable soul. For such a man
as Leander such a woman was as the great sea
to a floating feather. It was inevitable that in
time he would hover over the fathomless abyss,
fall, and be drawn down into the depths. And
all that was required to bring about the catas
trophe was a direct controversy between husband
and wife. Leander was selfish and weak enough
to remember and accept Nagy s invitation to him
to come to her if the world was hard upon him.

Trifles have sufficed to start revolutions when
everything was ripe. It was the merest of tnfles
that broke the last of Helen s bridges across the
spreading chasm. She was enduring a visitation
from Mrs. Harley Manners. That industrious
lady, going up and down the world seeking to
devour some celebrity, had hoped that she might



178 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

gather in the tenor and his wife as the central at
tractions of a musicale in aid of charity, to be
given at her house. Her plan of campaign was
to open with a masterly assault on the good will
of Helen, and, accordingly, she was enthroned in
a chair of state while Helen summoned her forti
tude and hardened her ears. In the midst of
the conversational monologue Leander unexpect
edly arrived, and was greeted with fluttering ser
vility by Mrs. Manners.

" Oh, Mr. Barrett," she said, for she had now
advanced to such intimacy that she did not use
his stage name; "you are so delightful to come
home while I am here. I so much wanted to see
you."

Leander smiled his habitual indulgent smile.
He accepted all homage as his inalienable right,
and accorded it his royal favor.

" I heard your Walther in Die Meistersinger
the other night. I am now certain that I never
understood the character before. All the other
tenors have given me the impression that Walther
was a sort of society man, who did not think that



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 179

singing was really worthy of his dignity, while
you have shown me that he sang as he had
to because he was a real poet. It was so inter
esting."

There was much more of the same sort before
Mrs. Manners, finding that she really had to look
in at Mrs. Truman Bellows afternoon, hastened
down the avenue in her limousine.

" Leander," said Helen, after the departure had
been successfully effected, " how can you bear to
listen so readily to the meaningless nonsense that
woman talks? "

" Nonsense? What nonsense? "

" Such twitter as she emitted about some tenors
making her think Walther a society man and your
teaching her the truth."

"Well, I did, didn t I?"

>

" Nun sang er wie er musst ,

Und wie er musst , so konnt er s.

Helen softly sang the words, and then, smiling,
added:

" Leander, I m sure you don t think that Mrs.



180 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Manners invented that idea. You ve heard Hans
Sachs say it too often."

" Oh, rubbish. As usual, you are trying to
belittle my art."

Helen rose with dignity and looked at him with
a serious countenance.

" I beg your pardon, Leander, what was that? "

" I say that you are trying to pooh-pooh the
praise which I extract even from such connois
seurs as Mrs. Manners. I don t understand why
you assume such a position. You ought to be glad
that I arouse her enthusiasm."

" I am sorry to see that you are willing to ac
cept the silly comment of a wholly superficial
mind as a tribute to your art. I am only eager
to see that art deepen and widen."

" You are what? I see now. I have been
coming to it for some time, and now I m there. I
told you long ago that you did not understand
me, and now I repeat it. You do not understand
me, and it isn t possible for you to do so. You
live outside of the world of art, and you can t
find the way into it. You misconceive everything



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 181

I do, and my greatest successes become failures in
your eyes. Hereafter I wish you to keep your
opinions of my art to yourself."

" Am I to understand that you prefer those of
that distinguished connoisseur, Mrs. Harley Man
ners?"

" Don t talk like a fool. You make me lose
my temper, and that s bad for my voice. Can t
you mind your own affairs, and let mine alone?
I tell you that you are incapable of understanding
the workings of the world of art or the mind of
a great artist."

" That sounds to me like a formal declaration
of the failure of our marriage, Leander," said
Helen very gently.

" You may take it that way if you like," snarled
the great tenor, and, flatly turning his back upon
her, he strode out of the room.

Ten minutes later he entered the half-dark
apartment of Nagy Bosanska. The light which
softly glowed through it was a rose madder tint,
shot with a shade of burnt sienna. A strange,
pallid blood color, it exerted a searching influence



1 82 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

on his vibrating nerves. He stared at the woman.
She lay on her couch, clad in a sweeping drapery
of thin green, which fell close around every line
of her symmetrical body. The train of the robe
ran out on the rug before her in a long curve,
and the picture she made was serpentine, uncanny,
fascinating. She seemed a daughter of the Nile
or a Rhine maiden, ready to lure the passing
knight to the depths under the Loreleiberg. Le-
ander stood speechless and gazed at her, while she
looked back at him with an inscrutable tenderness
in her green eyes.

What is the mystery of the flesh? Or is it a
mystery? Men have fallen before Delilah, be
fore Cleopatra, before Salammbo, before Fulvia,
who saved Rome, before Ninon, the immortal,
and even before Fanny Legrand, the Carmen of
the back stairs. What destroyed Samson, An
tony, Matho, or Lentulus, the senator? No, it
was not the mere lure of the sense. It was the
irresistible union of the flesh and the devil. The
mighty workings of the sex power in the women
whose sex reigned imperial and imperious this



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 183

was the force which gave the desire of men do
minion over their souls and over their honor.
This was the force which laid even their daily
common sense to voluptuous sleep upon the per
fumed pillows of white breasts.

For the elemental working of the sex force in
woman makes her great, arouses all that is
splendid in her blood, all that is majestic in her
intellect. With this she becomes a queen, sov
ereign mistress of a man or of men, according
to the bent of her spiritual genius. The woman
whose sex instincts are only half-developed never
reigns at all; she merely marches through a flat
world and has her triumphs in the drawing-room
or the kitchen. The woman whose soul burns
itself out in one great love, and whose sex force
arises to its demands, is glorified into a world
power. She whose sex impulse sputters first for
one object and then for another, is only a local
power, for she lacks the foundation of universal
greatness, stability. Still, indeed, she is great,
for she is the flesh and the devil; and wherever she
goes the gates of Eden close behind her, and the



1 84 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

doors of Hell swing wide before her. And she
has her power and dominion, and men, poor fools,
sell their souls for her and fancy they have found
the foot of life s rainbow.

Leander knew Delilah only as an opera char
acter. Of the others he knew nothing. Yet he
was gazing into the bottomless deeps of Nagy s
eyes, where dwelt all the lost souls of the Deli-
lahs, the Cleopatras, and the Fulvias. She
could no more help adventuring into new seas of
passion than could a hawk help pursuing a spar
row. The child of Lilith, the incarnation of all
those who of old were the world s delight, she
burned now with real flame for this new thing,
which she saw approaching the borders of her life.
She saw herself on the brink of a new love, facing
a sleeping soul which she would awaken.

" You have come, mon ami," she said in low
flute-like tone; " you have waited long."

" I have remembered something you said to me
when I was last here," said Baroni.

"Yes?" she responded, with an exquisite
rising inflection; " I know what it was. When



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 185

you are weary and sad, and need to be understood,
you will remember that Nagy Bosanska is your
friend. That was it, was it not? "

" Yes," he whispered in a manner half-reluctant
But it was a part of Nagy s magic that she made
men say what was in their hearts, even when they
most desired to keep it there. The woman made
no immediate answer. She seemed to be lost in
thought, and presently she shook her head and
sighed deeply.

" I have found it impossible, too," she mur
mured.

"Found what impossible?" asked Leander
with astonishment in his voice.

* To get perfect sympathy and understanding
from one not of our own world."

Nagy looked down at the rug and sighed. Le
ander leaned over her and gently took her hand in
his.

Why, Nagy, you seem unhappy."

u No, Baroni, no, I am not unhappy. I am,
perhaps, a little, just a little, disappointed, but I
could be unhappy only if I had loved."



1 86 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

He did not know what to say to her, and for
a few moments there was a silence, after which
she went on in purling low tones :

" I thought I had found one who would be
able to enter into my art and to grasp it from
outside. But I found that the fool was thinking
only of his own work, a silly, stupid, mechanic,
who tries to make an art of talking about art."

"Oh!" exclaimed Leander, suddenly enlight
ened. ;( That damned critic fellow is the most
exasperating idiot on earth. Nagy, I m amazed
at you. How could you take a fancy to him? "

" Only a curiosity, my dear Baroni, only a curi
osity. It was he who was serious. I had to send
him away. He could not understand. And now
she cannot understand."

"She? Who?"

She smiled up at him and shook her head.

" I think you once forbade me to discuss her."

Again a silence fell between them. Nagy
broke it.

" Only an artist can understand an artist."

" Of course. These outside people have wild



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 187

notions. They make me weary. They talk a lot
of idiotic poetry, and think that means something
practical to a singer. We who live in the great
world of the theater know that what we have to
do is to keep in good voice and sing. We ve got
to look out for our success with the public, and
that s the only way to get it."

" My dear Baroni, you are wonderfully young,"
said Nagy with a smile.

" Rubbish! I m "

" I don t mean years. They have meant
nothing to you. You are still a boy, Baroni; your
soul is asleep, and it is such a splendid soul
that I long to see it awake and thrilling the
world.""

" How is it to be awakened? oh, I remember.
I asked you that once, and you told me."

" Yes, I told you that love would awaken it."

" Well, it hasn t."

" No, not yet. It has not come to you yet."

" Do you mean to tell me that that she has
never loved me? "

" I cannot speak for her. I speak of you.



1 88 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Love has not come to you. But it s close, close,
close."

Something in her voice sent a shiver through
Leander. He remembered again how he had felt
when he had been in that same room before, and
he then had fled. Now he determined to know
what this was which affected him. The restrain
ing power which had held him before was gone.
Nagy knew it. Wise as a serpent, she felt that
her hour was at hand, and she pulsated with swift
little throbs of that indescribable excitement which
told her that the incarnated forces within her
were at their work.

" Nagy," said Leander, " I do not wish to be
asleep."

" Love is a master, not a servant, Baroni."

" I will serve him," said Leander, his breath
coming fast. " Can t you teach me the mysteries,
Nagy? You are very wonderful, I think."

She was silent, and he touched her hand with
his lips. They were hot and dry. Nagy started
and shook her head.

" You have so much to learn, you poor boy.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 189

You are not half-grown. But I think I shall
like you."

She put up a hand and caressed his hair. He
bent his head and kissed her very gently. It was
all so quiet so apparently passionless. Nothing
could have been more decorous. And he did not
know that it was the will of the woman that gov
erned the situation.

" Leander," she said presently, " can you take
me to dinner and afterward come back here and
talk about it to me? "

And thus it came about that, an hour later,
he returned and took her to dinner in a restaurant
where he was sure that none of the opera-house
people would ever go, and also it happened that
the little Madeleine Piroux and her faithful Po-
nitzky had gone there, also to be quite alone, and,
although hidden in a corner behind some plants,
they saw Nagy and Leander pass through the hall
on their way to the rear room. Ponitzky smiled a
grim smile.

* Too bad, ma petite ange," he said coolly.
" I m afraid your chances with the Baroni are



i9o THE SOUL OF A TENOR

very small, now that the Bosanska has taken him
in hand."

Madeleine shook her pretty head.

"Pestel What shall I care? I am not in
love with him."

" Only because he never gave you more than
a kindly look," said Ponitzky, who had always
been uneasy about the tenor. " But he is in safe .
hands now for a time. He will not be much
use to you after she is through with him."

" She will destroy him body and soul," said
Madeleine, " or she will make him the greatest
singer the world has ever known."

" That is what the English call a rather tall
order, isn t it?" sneered Ponitzky.

" Not for her," she answered, and then, in her
own heart, added, " nor for him."



CHAPTER XIV

T T was years since " L Africaine " had been
^ given, and the opera house was in a state of
excitement. It was conceded that the cast was
one of unusual strength, and Comparelli, the
genius of the baton, was to conduct. It was ru
mored that he was in a diabolical frame of mind.
All kinds of reasons were given to account for it,
but little Madeleine Piroux smiled contemptuously
when Ponitzky repeated some of them to her.

" They know nothing. Only Nagy can tell the
real reason."

" Then you mean that she has quite thrown him
over? The tenor wins. Parbleu ! I should
not like to sing the * Paradiso air to Compa-
relli s accompaniment to-night."

"Fool! You know that Comparelli conducts
better when he is in a vicious temper."

It was, indeed, to be a great performance, with

Nagy as Selika, Baroni as Vasco di Gama, Le-

191



192 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

maire, the great French barytone, as Nelusko,
Madeleine as Inez, the redoubtable Ponitzky him
self as Don Pedro, and the French bass, Caron,
as both the priests, Catholic and Brahmin. Tre-
montini was certain that he should have been the
Nelusko, but Comparelli sniffed him out of ex
istence.

Behind the scenes there was the customary
bustle. Psychological experts would have found
all varieties of deep and hidden emotions in the
bosoms of the singers as they smeared themselves
with cosmetics or gummed " imperials " upon
their lordly chins, but, as a plain matter of fact,
their real emotions were mainly those of the one
sort who were nervous about reappearing in old
roles long unpractised, and those of the other,
buoyantly confident of one more brilliant suc
cess.

The technical director, Carroll, swore softly,
because he hated the cheap, yet bothersome, stage
effects of " L Africaine." Storchi, the chorus
master, who was fat and short, exuded vast
streams of perspiration, as he rolled about among



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 193

his children, and scolded or besought, according
to what seemed to him to be the requirements of
the case. Manelli, the ballet master, cursed
Meyerbeer for the unterpsichorean character of
the ballet music, and vowed that his ensembles
would go for nothing, and that the public would
not know that it was not his fault.

One who had never been concerned in an
operatic revival would have been sure that nothing
would go right, that " il gran consiglio " would
never convene, that the high priest would be Cath
olic when he ought to be Brahmin, and sing " Ite,
missa est " in Madagascar, that the ship would
never be stormed, and that the manzanilla tree
would shed cocoanuts upon the stage. Yet the
inexorable operation of that extraordinary force
called " routine " brought order out of seeming
chaos, and the various parts of the complicated
machine started running in a comparatively smooth
manner.

But it was not a pleasant atmosphere behind
the scenes. The undercurrent of first-night irri
tation was unmistakable, and only some small im-



194 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

pulse was needed to bring about a childish outburst
of the " artistic temperament." Nothing hap
pened in the course of the first scene. The grand
council chanted its sonorous deliberations, and the
priestly Lemaire pontificated with his customary
display of low tones and wide-armed gesture. Le-
ander responded brilliantly to the familiar demand
of the noble Don as to why he wished so ardently
to plow unknown seas, and his high-flown proc
lamation of his ambition to incur immortality
moved the gallery, the standees, who understood
its meaning, and such box occupants as had so
far confessed their lack of social duties as to ap
pear early in their seats. Nagy, the most lissome,
flashing-eyed, sinuous, and seductive of savage
queens, had stood defiant in the presence of the
poor occidentals, upon whom she looked with con
tempt, and had given an indefinite promise of
greater wonders to come in the prison scene.

Philip Studley sat in his orchestra-chair from
the rising of the curtain, and endeavored manfully
to sense Nagy and all her doings as if she had
never ceased to be what she should have been



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 195

to him, merely a subject for discussion. He drew
a long breath of relief as he felt, after her en
trance, that it was not going to be so hard, after
all. He studied her with a coolness which, in
deed, quite astonished him. The footlights and
the orchestra pit made a deep and impassable
chasm between them. The costume and the
make-up placed a curtain of unreality there. He
could not regard this tufted savage as the throb
bing creature whom he had held in his arms. He
was under the spell of the illusion of the theater.
Even he, the professional chronicler of incidents,
could not wholly escape the working of that
strange fantasy. There was much applause after
the choral chantings of the first act. Philip went
out into the corridor and stretched himself. Be
hind the scenes the unpleasant smell of grease
paint increased. The singers hastened from the
stage to their dressing-rooms. Their painted
countenances glistened with streams of fluent per
spiration. Their musty costumes, also moistened,
assisted the paint in adding variations to the de
pressing theme of stage air. They were utterly



196 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

unpoetic persons. They were disillusions of the
most unhappy type. The most palpitating of all
matinee girls would have shrunk from the open
arms of the great Baroni. The most ardent
pursuer of stage beauties would have drawn back
from a close inspection of the incomparable Mile.
Bosanska.

" Pouf ! " exclaimed this same incomparable so
prano, as she rushed off the stage, where she had
waited after her exit out of curiosity to see the
end of the act; "pouf! The idiot of a Meyer
beer ! What an entrance for a prima donna ! "

You get your chance in the next act, don t
you?" said the stage manager, who was laugh
ing mildly at her vehemence. " The first act is
the tenor s, and it is pretty nearly the end of him,
too, isn t it?"

At this instant Nagy was out in the hallway
beyond the stage and leading to certain dressing-
rooms, and here she was almost swept from her
feet by the rush of Mrs. Harley Manners. In
those days only a very few favored persons had
the entree to the sacred regions behind the scenes.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 197

The newspaper men and the directors, composer s
agents, and some few similar dignitaries, were
on the door list of the portal between the stage
and the " front of the house," but one of Mrs.
Harley Manners specialties was to be where she
had no business, and she had a way of penetrating
the stage region even in the course of a first-night
performance.

" Oh, Mile. Bosanska," she exclaimed. " How
wonderful you are ! Your costume and your act
ing! Oh, I cannot tell you what I really feel.
You have reawakened for me the visions of
Cleopatra."

" But contain yourself, Madame. I have yet
done nothing. The first scene belongs to the
tenor. Save your raptures till after the next act.
Au revoir."

Nagy, who could be intolerably rude when she
wished to, undulated down the hallway, exhibiting
a very graceful back to the discomfited Mrs. Har
ley Manners, who vainly sought for Leandro in
order that she might say things to him or ask him
unanswerable questions. Nagy, however, knew



i 9 8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

that Leandro was still taking curtain calls, and
that he would find a way to dodge the omnipresent
woman.

When Nagy turned her rounded shoulders on
Mrs. Harley Manners, she found herself con
fronted by two directors of the opera company,
men in exquisitely perfect evening clothes, and fin
ished for social use till they positively shone with
" position." Nagy looked them both up and
down with undisguised admiration. She was a
lawless and ungovernable little creature, and she
had an inexpressible contempt for men whom she
regarded as mere appendages to large fortunes.
The various attempts of money magnates to win
the favor of Nagy had met with disastrous fail
ure. The creatures could not even begin to un
derstand her, but they adored her extraordinary
physical charms. And now these two stood be
fore her, smiling their elegant smiles and talking
their habitual prattle.

" Most charming, indeed, Mile. Bosanska,"
said one; "you are really marvelous in costume
and make-up."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 199

"Indeed, quite so," said the other: "and this
make-up becomes you, too."

" Oh, thank you so much," answered Nagy
demurely. u But I can return your compliments.
You are both quite perfect in your costume and
make-up, too. I m sure you must look interest
ing in your boxes, but I regret that I can t see you
from the stage."

And the impudent beauty turned the flawless
shoulders on them, too, and glided away down
the hall. Presently, when the discomfited di
rectors had passed out to the front of the house,
Leander came through the iron door leading from
the stage to the dressing-rooms, and found him
self gazing into the eyes of Madeleine Piroux.
She had waited to have one fleeting word with
him.

" You are in the best of voice, my friend. You
will have another triumph."

" And you, too, Mademoiselle. You are
looking your best and singing like a little
angel."

And he went on, leaving her smiling rather bit-



200 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

terly as she realized how much his praise might
mean to her if it only meant a little more to him.
From up on the second floor of the dressing-rooms
came the rumble of Lemaire s voice. He was not
satisfied with his recitatives in the first scene, and
was vocalizing to warm up. Ponitzky was roar
ing like a bull, and occasionally pausing to swear
in indescribable Polish. He had flatted badly in
the first scene. So had Caron, who was cough
ing and sputtering and cursing the remains of a
cold which he had thought was entirely gone.
Every one except Nagy and Leander was in a
tempestuous humor. But Leander found Nagy
waiting for him in front of his door. She smiled
softly and murmured :

" It will be very good to-night. I shall cer
tainly kiss you as you sleep in the prison."

" I hope you will not forget," responded Lean
der with ardor in his voice.

" I shall talk to you after the next act."

" Where?"

"Here. Do you find it objectionable? Are
you afraid of the scandal?"



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 201

"What, in an opera house? Is there any
thing else in one? "

He laughed, and she glided off to her dress
ing-room, which was further along the same hall.
Leander entered his room and sat down to wait
for the next act. He was well pleased. The
house was packed. He had been enthusiastically
received, much more so than Nagy, for many of
the subscribers failed to recognize her in the make
up of a queen of Meyerbeerian Madagascar. Peo
ple came and went in the passage outside of his
dressing-room, but they made no attempt to in
trude upon him. His dresser, long trained in
the cunning of opera houses, stood on guard at
the door while Leander lay back in his easy-chair,
closed his eyes, and permitted his whole body to
relax. It was his way of resting in the entr actes.
The dressing-room was not a reposeful retreat, and
it was necessary to close one s eyes. On one side
was a long shelf covered with bottles, boxes,
brushes, and other paraphernalia of " make-up."
Above this shelf hung a mirror, and on each side
of the mirror was a glaring electric light. On the



202 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

opposite side of the room was a full-length mirror
in which the tenor might observe his figure when
arrayed for the stage. There was a closet in one
corner, two or three hard-looking chairs, a ragged
rug on the floor, and rows of hooks for hanging
up clothing. There was none of that luxury
which the Sunday newspapers sometimes de
scribed.

As Leander lay limp in his one comfortable
chair, he suddenly chanced upon a resemblance be
tween the story of the opera and the entrance of
Nagy into his life. Selika followed Vasco di
Gama into a strange land, and afterward he went
with her to her own country, a kingdom over the
seas, enchanted, magical, mystic, almost fabulous,
where vivid colors filled the eye, and burning
thoughts the soul. Swimming in this flood of
tropical glory, Vasco di Gama forgot all but the
splendor of Selika s eyes.

" E del tuo ciglio o ciel il divorante ardor

Come di fiamma un raggio passo nel mio seno.

He hummed the music in a half-whisper and
smiled. Would it be so? Would Nagy be the



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 203

Selika of his life, and Helen the pale and uninter
esting Inez? He forgot for the moment that
Inez carried off Vasco, after all, while Selika, de
spairing, died under the manzanilla tree. But
Nagy would surely never do anything so weak as
that. Just then the dresser stood aside and per
mitted little Madeleine Piroux to put her head
into the room. She could not remain away.
There was a slow pain dragging at her gentle
heart, and yet she could not refrain from twisting
the knife in the wound. She had no hope that,
like Inez, whom she impersonated, she would find
her suspicions that he loved Selika to be ground
less.

" Are you rested, Baroni?" she asked softly.

" Yes, I m ready. But we re not called yet"

At that moment Nagy came slowly through the
hall, and paused just behind Madeleine.

" What a charming picture you make together,"
she murmured. " It is a grand pity that I must
separate you, is it not? "

Madeleine turned and gazed directly into
Nagy s eyes. She shrugged her pretty French



204 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

shoulders, and walked quietly away. Nagy low
ered her head and sent from under her brows a
strange glance from the wonderful green eyes.

"Foolish child, is she not?" she said to
Baroni.

" She s a nice little girl, Nagy; that s all, and
you you are a woman."

" Do not be alarmed, my dear Baroni. I am
not troubled. But it is bad for her. She would
sing better if she loved Ponitzky the great

pig."

The call boy appeared at this moment, and
summoned them for the prison scene. Leander
walked languidly down to the stage and stretched
himself upon the couch in the alcove, while Nagy
idly extended her hand to the property man to
receive the fan with which she was to soothe the
sleeping Vasco. It was in this scene that the
smoldering fires of Nagy s temperament sprang
to flame. The audience suddenly awakened to the
fact that there was a tremendous force of char
acter in the savage queen, and between her and
the crushed and fragile Inez, who found herself



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 205

enmeshed in the toils of fate, the tragic contrast
was moving.

The curtain fell amid a storm of plaudits.
Nagy and Madeleine went together before the
audience. Nagy led the little French soprano
most gracefully, and, when in the center of the
stage, calmly dropped the hand, turned her back
on Madeleine, and appropriated all the applause
to herself. She did not so much as bestow a frag
ment of a glance on either Baroni or Ponitzky,
who had rather humbly followed the two women,
and were now awkwardly standing at either side.
It was a characteristic opera-house scene, but only
a few reporters and other long-practised observers
detected the significance of it. In less than five
minutes half a dozen of the news-gatherers were
on the stage striving to find out whether there
was a " story " in the slighting of Mile. Piroux
by Mile. Bosanska, but they could get no facts.

" I quarrel with this angel! " exclaimed Nagy.
" She is an angel, is she not?"

This question was shot full in the face of the
uncomfortable Ponitzky, who gallantly answered:



20.6 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

u A real angel; indeed, our only angel, is it not
so,Nagy?"

And thereupon the big basso retired with a pro
found chuckle. The yellowest reporters per
sisted for a time, but finally abandoned the sub
ject, and hastened away to the press-room to write
it up anyhow. Nagy, true to her promise, went
to Leander s dressing-room to talk to him, as
neither of them had any change to make till after
the next scene. It was not long afterward that
Philip Studley passed through the door between
the auditorium and the stage. The impresario
had sent a message to him, asking for the priv
ilege of a few minutes conversation in his office,
which was in the rear part of the building. Philip
was not at all familiar with the region behind
the scenes, and he quite easily went astray. In
stead of passing down the corridor leading to the
offices, he turned into the hallway upon which the
dressing-rooms opened. It was at this un-
propitious instant that Leander s dresser, stand
ing on guard outside the door, spied a certain
chorus damsel in whom he took a particular in-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 207

terest, and he slipped a few paces down the
passageway to speak a word in her somewhat too
red ear. And thus it happened that when Philip
saw a door on his left hand partly open, and
thought it must be the one which he was seeking,
he walked into it, found himself in the dressing-
room of the tenor, and beheld that famous
artist holding Mile. Nagy Bosanska in a close
embrace.

For a few seconds there was a tense and un
comfortable silence. It was Nagy who first re
covered composure.

" This is, indeed, an unexpected honor, Mr.
Studley. May we inquire how we came to de
serve it? "

" I have very few words to say to either one
of you. I had no knowledge that this was yqur
trysting-place. I was trying to go to the office.
I lost my way. I do not apologize. You,
Mademoiselle, know quite well why I do not. I
am delighted to gain some insight into your true
nature. It is

" That s enough of that sort of talk," ex-



208 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

claimed Leander in a low tone; "if you ve any
thing to say that s to the point, say it and get
out; but omit Mile. Bosanska s name, do you un
derstand? "

" Perfectly. I presume you are authorized to
protect Mile. Bosanska? I congratulate you."

" My dear young friend, don t try to be sar
castic; it does not suit you at all. And my posi
tion in relation to Mile. Bosanska is none of your
damned business."

That, my dear Mr. Baroni, is pure assump
tion on your part. I regard as my business any
thing which is likely to affect the welfare of a
woman much superior to Mile. Bosanska, a woman
who has honored me with her friendship for
years, a woman

;( Who chances to be my wife. You certainly
do not lack for assurance. One might think you
the authorized protector of Mrs. Baroni."

Why, you cad! " said Philip hotly; " you are
willing to make innuendoes against your own wife,
but you demand that the position of Mile. Bo
sanska be not discussed. I am sorry to have



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 209

spoken to you at all. I have certainly lowered
myself by doing so."

" You get out of my room ! " cried Leander,
quite losing his temper and moving toward Philip.
But Nagy sprang before him and threw her arms
around his neck.

" Stop, stop," she said in a low tone, " you must
bear with this young man, my dear Baroni. His
emotions are in a state of much confusion. He
is not master of himself. He really is quite at
sea. He has been most unfortunate in his rela
tions with women, and he does not see clearly.
Of course he will go away."

" I see many things much more clearly than I
used to," said Philip; " I have had some instruc
tion from a profound mistress of the art of life."

" Oh, yes, I forgot for the moment," said Le
ander, suddenly beginning to laugh. u I remem
ber now. He aspired to the position which he
now so delicately charges me with occupying. But
* la commedia e finita, so far as you are con
cerned, my dear young friend."

" You speak truly," said Philip, who had partly



210 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

regained his composure. " I trust that in your
own case it will not be something worse than a
comedy. Good-evening."

The young man retired with an approach to
dignity, while Leander and Nagy stood looking
at each other inquiringly. Nagy slowly shook her
head.

4 You see, Leandro, he was quite impossible;
but I cannot help feeling sorry for him. He
seems always to be unsuccessful in love. Poor in
fant! It is so foolish of him to adore your
wife."

Leander stood in reflection for a few moments.

" I can t imagine Helen giving any serious con
sideration to a prig like that," he said.

" Would it matter greatly if she did? "

In his heart Leander felt that it did. He did
not relish the idea of Helen s finding comfort so
easily. But when he looked into Nagy s liquid
eyes and read what he saw there, he tossed aside
all reflection.

"Perhaps it wouldn t matter at all," he said;
u some time or other there is sure to be an ex-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 211

plosion, I suppose. Things can t go on this
way."

" And nothing else at all counts," murmured
Nagy, with her lips close to his cheek, " so long as
you and I are together, dear."

And then it seemed to be clear to Leander that
it would be better if the empty pretense of his
married life were to come to an end right away.
What business had Studley to act as if interposing
between him and Helen? Leander suddenly felt
that he was badly used, and he hugged the idea to
his heart.



CHAPTER XV

cause of complaint, once domiciled in the
tenor s soul, acted as such cherished ideas
generally do. It behaved like the genie who was
let out of the box and spread to such propor
tions that he obscured the heavens. True, this
particular evil one did not spoil Leander s Vasco
di Gama, but as soon as the final curtain had fallen
he developed with amazing rapidity.

Helen sat in her orchestra stall and watched
the performance with a dull pain at her heart.
She never went behind the scenes any more. She
disliked the atmosphere; she disliked the singers.
Their whole attitude toward what they called
their " art " discouraged her. And it hurt her
to think that Leander dwelt in this surrounding,
and that he was thoroughly contented in it. She
listened to the golden tones of his magnificent
voice, and smiled when the audience burst into



212



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 213

rapturous applause. She knew that Leander
thoroughly understood his instrument, and that
he played upon it with a master s technique. But
she also knew that in the perfect placing of his
tones, in the exquisite finish of his phrasing, and
in the elegant disposition of his nuances, lay for
Leander the whole of his art.

It was no triumphant evening for her when he
carried people off their feet by his delivery of the
" Paradiso." She hated the aria, because of its
claptrap devices and its superficially clever appeal
to the gallery. She wished that Leander would
sing real music. She could not refuse the tribute
of admiration to Nagy. Meyerbeer might be
only theatrical tinsel, but the gipsy s tempera
ment was real. She vitalized the empty measures
with real emotion. Helen recognized it, and said
to herself, " She is a greater artist than he." And
then she thought of the rumors she had heard
about his attentions to Nagy.

" No," she said to herself, " there can be
nothing substantial in any of it. Leander is too
self-centered to develop an infatuation for any



214 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

one but himself. I am not sure that it would not
be a good thing for him to conceive a passion for
the strange Hungarian. I cannot pierce his shell
of Self. If she should do so, he might discover
his own soul. For there is one to discover. I
have tried to awaken it in vain. And yet God
knows that I have given him what no other woman



can."



And as she sat thus thinking she was divinely
adorable. There was a sweet humidity in her
beautiful eyes, and a gentle flush on her delicate
cheek, as she recalled to herself the intensity of
some exquisite moments now unhappily long past.
She fervently desired to bring them back, but she
could not discover the way, for her kisses fell dead
upon Leander s lips, and her embraces lax upon
his breast.

She did not wait for him after the performance.
She had never made a practice of that. In the
early days of the season she had sometimes waited,
and they had ridden home together in her car,
Leander well pleased with himself and his even
ing s success, she trying to lead the conversation



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 215

away from the endless theme, but in vain. They
had both insensibly grown weary of it, and Lean-
der had begun to invent excuses for going home
alone. So she accepted the situation, and rode
away with some woman friend whom she had in
vited to the opera. On this night she went alone,
and, as the car turned into the Avenue, she gazed
listlessly out of the window at the wet and shining
street.

It had been raining, and the Avenue, though
crowded with whirring cars, had a dour and
depressing aspect. The shops were all dark, and
shadows fell from their gloomy fronts across the
bedraggled pavement. Here and there a
dwelling, still dignified among the impudent in
truders from the world of trade, shed a faint yel
low ray from the transom or, perhaps, even
showed illumination in some of its spacious win
dows. Pedestrians tramped heavily along the
sidewalks with bowed heads and hidden faces.
The fine, penetrating rain, which was swept in
from the grim Atlantic by a chill easterly wind,
searched every corner and cranny. Even in her



2i6 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

well-appointed car Helen felt the touch of its
dampness. She was glad when the vehicle rolled
up to the entrance of the great hotel, and she was
able to go to her comfortable apartment.

It was not just what she wished. If she had en
joyed her own way, she would have had a house
and servants, a real home. But Leander had
wished to live in a hotel. It was not worth while,
he thought, to take a house just for a season, and
she had desired to please him. So there they had
been, and as his demeanor toward her had
changed, so she had felt her solitude all the more.
She entered her drawing-room and, letting her
wraps fall into the ready arms of her maid, sank
into a corner of the sofa.

" Louise," she said, " you may bring me my
drink here."

The maid slipped noiselessly from the room,
and presently returned with some biscuits and a
little silver urn. Helen had early formed the
habit of having supper before retiring. She had
formerly waited always for Leander, but now his
movements after the opera were too uncertain.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 217

Sometimes he came directly home, but quite as
often he went to a restaurant or some club. On
this particular evening he reached the apartment
about an hour after Helen. He went directly to
their room. Helen was sitting by a small table,
clad in a silk-and-lace peignoir. She was prepared
for retiring, but she had felt sleepless and unready
to go to bed. She was nervous, she could not
tell why; but she seemed indefinitely to expect
something. So she sat in the bedroom trying
vainly to read. She and Leander occupied the
same room, for neither of them believed in that
singular form of marriage in which the husband
occasionally visits his wife s chamber, with an un
expected demand that she accept his embraces as
she might accept lightning from a clear sky. Le
ander and Helen had never discussed the matter,
but when he had arranged the renting of tHeir
apartment, he had chosen one in which each could
have a separate dressing-room, with their bedroom
between. Leander entered from his dressing-
room, and Helen quietly rose from her seat, went
over to him, put her arms around his neck, and



218 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

kissed him. He accepted the kiss passively, and
then said:

" Why haven t you gone to bed? "

" I am not at all sleepy, Leander; indeed, I am
much too wakeful."

" What s the matter with you? " he demanded.

" I don t know, I m sure. Nothing serious."

Leander passed into his dressing-room and
changed from his dress coat into a loose jacket.

u How did you like the performance?" he
asked when he returned.

" I thought it was very good, indeed," answered
Helen in a rather dull tone.

Leander looked at her suspiciously for a mo
ment. The expression in his eyes was not a pretty
one. Then he said in a keen tone :

" See anything of your particular friend Stud-
ley to-night? "

Helen glanced up, rather startled by the ques
tion and his manner, and this only served to deepen
his suspicions.

" Why, yes, Leander, of course. Philip al
ways comes and says a few words to me when I



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 219

am at the opera. He is one of my oldest and, I
think, my best friends."
" Is he, really?"

Leander s tone was bitter with sneering innu
endo. Helen, however, appeared not to notice
this.

" Yes, he has always been a good friend to me.
I wonder that you do not recall that you desired
me to see that this friendship did not wane. I
was not quite sure of your meaning at the time."

" And now you are. Is that what you mean ?
Well, let me tell you now that I no longer desire
that you keep this friendship warm. The fellow
is no friend of mine, and you know it."

" I certainly know nothing of the kind, Lee. I
am sure he admires you greatly."

"Is it evidence of his admiration that he ^ al
ways thinks he must write about me with a sort
of patronizing toleration? What does he know
of such an art as mine, anyhow? "

u Lee, how can I tell why he writes as he does?
It is not a subject which he and I can discuss. I
cannot question him about his criticisms of you,



220 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

and he never mentions the subject to me. I am
sure he tries to be as kind as he can."

Leander strode across the room, lighted a
cigarette, and flung himself into a chair. His face
was flushed, and his eyes had an unpleasant glitter.
He looked not unlike a spoiled child in a bad
humor. Helen dimly felt that his temper was
something of that sort, and she endeavored to be
indulgent. But she had not read him rightly.

" Did you," he suddenly asked, " see Studley
to-night before or after he was in my dressing-
room? "

" I did not know that he was in your room at
all."

" Oh, indeed. Well, he was there after the
prison scene. Did you see him before that? "

" No; I saw him when he was going out after
the ship scene."

" I don t believe you," said Leander sullenly.

" If you are going to indulge in talk of that
kind, Leander, I think our conversation had bet
ter end for to-night."

" Oh, you think so, do you? Well, our con-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 221

versation is not going to end just yet. I have
something more to say."

Helen, who had risen, resumed her seat. She
was striving bravely to be patient, for she felt
now that something serious underlay the mood of
her husband.

" Have you ever had any conversation," he
asked, " with your fine friend Studley about my
acquaintance with Mile. Bosanska? "

" Is there any reason why I should speak of it
to any one?" asked Helen calmly, as she gazed
frankly into his eyes.

Leander s temper rushed swiftly to the boiling-
point. He sprang from his chair, crossed the
room in three strides, and stood in front of her
in an attitude actually menacing. She wondered
vaguely what he was going to do to her. But he
contented himself with agitated speech and much
brandishing of the arms.

4 Your friend Studley came into my dressing-
room and found me in conversation with Mile. Bo
sanska. He had the impudence to make sar
castic comments, to intimate that I ought not to



222 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

be there with her, to insinuate that there was some
disloyalty to you in it. Now I want to tell you
right away that I won t stand anything of that
sort. I will not have any whippersnapper of a
newspaper man, just because he is in your confi
dence, coming into my room and "

Helen had risen and placed herself directly in
front of him. She had gently shaken her head in
mild protest as he spoke, and at length had
stretched out her two ivory arms and laid her
dainty hands on his shoulders. Then she inter
rupted the rush of his words.

" Lee, my dear, dear Lee, you mustn t say such
things to me. I have no knowledge of Philip s
movements, nor have I any control over them.
But you may be perfectly certain of one thing, my
dear, and that is that I would scorn to spy either
directly or indirectly on your actions. I have
never given the least thought to your friendship
for Mile. Bosanska except, except "

She hesitated. Her rigorous regard for truth
urged her to qualify her statement, yet she hardly
knew how.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 223

"Except what?" demanded Leander, seizing
her hands and roughly removing them from his
shoulders.

" Except that I have thought that maybe in
the end it might help you to discover your own
real self."

Helen s beautiful, soft eyes were lowered, and
tears gathered under their fringes. Her hands
drooped at her sides, and the rising and falling of
her small round bosom could be seen through the
filmy laces of her peignoir. Her curved crimson
lips were gently parted, and her pearly teeth shone
visible, while her breathing, almost sighing, was
clearly audible. She was so lovely and so de
sirable that if Leander had not been obsessed by
self, he would have clasped her in his arms and

kissed her upon the eyes. But he was driven by

>

forces which he did not comprehend.

" My real self, my real self! There we have
it," he exclaimed. " You have from the begin
ning tried to tell me that there is something wrong
with my character, that I don t understand the
meaning of my own art. And your devoted



224 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

friend, Philip Studley, your extremely devoted
friend, agrees with you to a jot. Now I want to
tell you once and for all, as I have told you be
fore, that neither you nor he know what you are
talking about. I know my business. You don t
know it. From the day we were married you
have failed to understand me. No, you needn t
speak. I know I ve told you that before, too.
But I don t intend to tell it again. You can t bring
yourself into the life of an artist at all. Mile.
Bosanska does know how to understand my art,
and if I choose to talk to her about it instead of
to you, you ve no one to blame but yourself."

Helen looked up sorrowfully, and the tears
glistened in the corners of her eyes.

" I do not quite know what all this means, Le-
ander; but if you can get from Mile. Bosanska
sympathy and understanding which I cannot give
you, I see no reason why you should not do so."

" That s right! " he cried; " tell me that if I m
not satisfied with you, I can go to the devil with
her. That s what you mean, of course. All
right, all right. Anyhow, this is the end of every-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 225

thing between you and me. We ll have no more
pretenses, anyhow. I ll leave you to yourself.
You can have this room, and I ll sleep in my dress
ing-room. Good-night."

He wheeled sharply around and rushed into his
dressing-room. He slammed the door behind
him, and the next second Helen heard the key
turn in the lock. She almost smiled in the midst
of her grief, for the act struck her as intensely
childish. And so, indeed, it was. All of Le-
ander s conduct had been childish, and wholly
consistent with the character of a spoiled opera
singer. But that did not render the trial easier
for the wife. She walked to her mirror, and,
standing in front of it, let the peignoir slip from
her shoulders. She gazed thoughtfully at the
ravishing image before her. She slowly shook her
head.

" It is not that, not that," she said to herself.
" I am more beautiful than she, and I give him a
grand passion which she cannot even imagine, for
I give him my whole life, my soul forever and
forever. But he does not know, he does not un-



226 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

derstand. And it is all because he does not yet
know his own soul. Suppose it wakes for her;
what then? "

And drawing her garment about her again, she
crossed the room and fell on her knees beside her
lonely bed, begging Heaven to uncoil the tangled
skein which was winding itself around her life.



CHAPTER XVI

^TT^HE season was at its end. The customary
-* " gala " performance of selected acts from
various operas had been given, not on a sub
scription night, of course, but as one of the numer
ous extras which had become features of the time
in opera world. This out of the way, the real
farewells took place. Neither Leander nor Nagy
had been implicated in the proceedings of the
" gala " performance. They were reserved for
the last matinee. They had been heard together
once more in " Carmen," and the intense se
ductiveness of the Hungarian s impersonation had
again wrought its unfailing effect, while Leander s
matchless delivery of the flower song had thrown
five hundred " matinee girls " into indescribable
raptures. Of course little Madeleine Piroux sang
Micaela, while Tremontini had the opportunity
of his career in Escamillo. And because Tre
montini sang, the Toreador Feramordi was in the

227



228 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

theater and keeping close watch on all his doings.
Ponitzky strolled into the house after the third
act, ready to take the little Piroux away with him.
Comparelli conducted and smiled wickedly up at
Nagy, whose defection from him was now com
mon knowledge behind the scenes.

After the matinee many of the singers gath
ered in the same little Italian restaurant. The
greasy atmosphere of the place gave them a pleas
ure which they could not have defined. They
slowly relaxed after the strain of the day. Po
nitzky lolled in his chair like a huge bear at play
and quizzically gazed at his mistress. He blew
cigarette smoke across the table, and in grumbling
bass tones said:

" Pity you re not engaged for South America,
my angel."

Madeleine returned his gaze steadily, and an
swered :

" I do not feel so. I m rather glad of it."

Ponitzky smiled an evil smile.

" It will be a most agreeable season for Baroni
and Nagy."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 229

The little French soprano shrugged her shoul
ders and looked around the room with an assump
tion of indifference.

" Ah," continued Ponitzky, " I see it matters
not at all to you. I was mistaken."

" Ponitzky," said Madeleine quietly, " you and
I have been together about long enough, I think.
I am of the opinion that you are not worth while.
I ceased to care for you long ago ; yet while you
were willing to treat me decently I was willing to
continue with you. But I am not obliged to
swallow your abuse."

She rose from the table, but Ponitzky put up
his hand and arrested her.

" Sit down," he said; " don t be a fool. But
you are right. It is wrong for me to taunt you.
I am really fond of you, Madeleine. Can you
blame me for being hurt when I know that,* if
you could have Baroni, you would leave me for
him to-morrow? But you know it is impossible.
Nagy has him in her claws."

Madeleine had resumed her seat. She smiled
faintly at the big basso.



230 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" Ponitzky," she said, " you haven t been un
kind to me, on the whole. And I m accustomed to
you. You are a habit, a bad one, but still not easy
to break. Only you must not try to hurt me. I
crave kindness. I have been alone in the world for
years. I have no relatives, no friends. I accepted
your companionship because I was so lonely. I am
content to remain with you, if you will be kind."

" Mon Dicu, little girl," said Ponitzky, lean
ing across the table toward her, " I m sorry. I
will never hurt you again. You are a good girl,
and I will try to make you happy."

" As for Baroni," she went on; " he is nothing
to me never can be. You can rest easy as to
that. And his wife will save him from Nagy."

" Well, not in Buenos Ayres at any rate."

" What do you mean? "

" She does not go."

Ponitzky smiled another evil smile. He could
not help them. He was saturated with the role
of Mephistopheles in which he had made his great
est success in three operas, Gounod s, Boito s, and
Berlioz s.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 231

" She does not go ! Then it is true, that which
I suspected. All is not well with them. But stop ;
how do you know this? "

" Why, ma vie, every one knows it. Stahlberg,
the transportation man, has engaged passage for
Baroni and his valet, but not for his wife."

" But that may not mean anything except that
she is to go by another steamer."

" He sails on the Vasari on the twentieth. She
does not go; be sure of that. Ask Tremontini,
or better, Feramordi. She is going."

Tremontini and his beloved contralto were sit
ting at the next table with Abadista and two or
three others.

u I hear," said Madeleine, leaning toward
them, " that you are going down on the same
steamer as Baroni and his wife."

" With Baroni, yes," replied Feramordi shortly,
" with his wife, no. She will not visit South
America. She remains in North America. The
climate is said to suit her much better."

There was a ripple of cheap laughter and
Madeleine turned away sore at heart, for she



2 3 2 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

realized that there must have been a rupture be
tween Leander and Helen, and she well knew that
the wife was worth a score of women such as the
fascinating Hungarian. The information was ac
curate. The breach which had opened on the
night of the " L Africaine " performance had
widened. The husband and wife had continued to
dwell apart, and Leander had determined to leave
her behind him when he went to the Argentine"
capital. Helen was not sure that this would not
be best for him. She still believed that he needed
the scarifying experience of some great spiritual
awakening, and she hoped that a temporary sep
aration would bring it about. For the idle com
ments of her acquaintances she cared nothing, but
she knew that these could be quieted by her asser
tion that she could not risk the Argentine climate.
But Helen did not know all that was in Baroni s
mind. If she had, she might perhaps have in
sisted on going with him.

It was understood when Leander sailed that
Helen was to join him in Europe, whither he



I III- SOUL OF A TKNOR 233

was to go directly from South America. If
letters from Buenos Ayres were brief and busi
ness-like, lie and Helen had agreed that at least
the outward appearance of marriage must con
tinue. In fact they had not actually spoken of
this in plain words, but nevertheless they under
stood each other. I le wrote to her when it was
necessary, but at no other time. She answered
him in the same way. They were merely drifting.
The South American engagement lasted till mid-
July and Helen passed much of the hot weather
out of New York. She took advantage of this
opportunity to visit her few relatives. She had
little in common with them, but the formalities
of life demanded that she show them some atten
tion. It was when she returned to New York
to prepare to go to Kurope that she obtained a
clearer insight into the situation. She received
a letter from Leander, which read thus:

" I do not see any reason why there should be
a continuation of an impossible relation between
us. The best thing for us to do is to continue



234 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

apart. You will be happier, I am sure, and so
will I. It was a mistake for you to marry an
artist, for the world in which he moves is not
your world and will never become so. You cannot
adjust yourself to its requirements and cannot
accustom yourself to its flexible conditions. I
have accepted certain engagements in Europe for
the next year and shall not sing in the United
States. I am satisfied that it will be far better for
my future success to remain absent for at least
one season. This will render it easy for you to
account for your being away from me. You can
say that you do not find yourself in good health in
St. Petersburg and other places where I am going
to sing, and that you prefer to have an established
residence instead of traveling about. Or possi
bly you will prefer to give some other reason
which does not occur to me. Settle it to suit your
self. At any rate, you will be better off away
from me."

The letter fell from her trembling fingers. She
threw up her hands and covered her eyes. Her



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 235

head swam with thick heavy pulsations and she
had a feeling of suffocation. Her gentle bosom
heaved convulsively and her whole frame shook
with the agony of this blow, so cruelly and coldly
dealt. For there was no faintness in Helen s love.
It was the well-spring of her life, and Leander s
weaknesses had only served to arouse in her that
beautiful protective instinct of maternity which
is a part of every true woman s love for erring
man. For half an hour she lay back in her chair
unable to move or think. Her senses were
stunned, her faculties rendered inoperative. But
she was too strong to remain smitten into inactiv
ity. The splendid forces of her character slowly
gathered themselves and her dominant intellect
reassumed its control. She suddenly sprang from

the chair, with flashing eyes and hands clenched

>

till her nails turned white.

" It shall not be! " she exclaimed. " Now it
is between her and me. Well, so be it. But I
must think, I must think."

She went and stood by a window and gazed at
the slow-moving white clouds over the ugly house-



236 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

tops. Out of the long and deep reflection she
drew the outlines of her course of action. This
was to be a battle of woman s wits, not the wild
turmoil of unbridled emotions. And one of the
things Helen evolved was a letter to her husband.
In it she said:

" I am content to follow your wishes. I need
hardly tell you that I know the true reason of your
actions. But I feel only commiseration for you.
I shall certainly not sue for a divorce. It would
be foolish and it would do you, at least, no good.
You might be stupid enough to marry her, and
then you would soon be suing for a divorce your
self, for she will tire of you. You will not trouble
yourself to send me any of your earnings. You
know that I have plenty of money of my own,
and I am sure that in the circumstances you will
require all you can get. You know my permanent
address. If you have occasion to communicate
with me, please do so. Perhaps it would be as
well for you to send me a few newspaper clippings
from time to time in order that I may be able to



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 237
tell people where you are and all about your im



mense successes."



And this reference to his successes was the only
note of reproach in her carefully composed letter.
It was in London that Leander read it. He was
sitting in the Savoy restaurant with Nagy. The
familiar crowd of diners was around them and a
few recognized them and pointed them out. No
one, however, attracts attention for a long time
in the Savoy, for all the driftwood of the world
floats through it.

Interesting letter, mon ami?" murmured
Nagy.

" Rather," replied Leander. " It is refresh
ingly cool at any rate."

" From madame, I presume."

4 Yes," answered Leander shortly and with an
absent air, as he folded it and replaced it in his
pocket.

"Reproachful?"

" Not at all. That is what astonished me a
little."



238 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

"No hostilities?"

" No; she says she will not begin any action."

Nagy s green eyes seemed to turn inward and
she held deep communion with herself.

This woman will bear watching. She knows
things. But if she imagines that I am going to
discover Leander s soul for him in order that she
may bask in the sunlight of a great awakening
she does not understand Nagy Bosanska. And
she will not take action for the divorce. Then
she is afraid he might marry me and that he
would be lost to her for good and all. Why,
the silly woman still loves him and she
has hopes. He is mine and I mean to keep
him."

" What are you thinking in there behind those
eyes, Nagy? " asked Leander.

" The thoughts of a woman."

" That may mean a thousand things," said he,
smiling. " But you will tell me at least one of
them, will you not? "

" Yes; she is afraid that we might marry."

" Why, she says as much."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 239

" So I thought. But what is marriage to us?
How long will you love me, Leander? "

" As long as you make me, light of my life."

Already? You are learning fast, my friend.
You grow wiser by the minute. You see what
it means to dwell in the heart of Nagy Bosanska."

Leander hummed a line from " Lohengrin " :

" Dein Lieben sei mein stolz Gewahr. "

Nagy smiled and lifting her glass looked in
tently at him over the rim as she said in her
softest tone:

" The world is ours."



CHAPTER XVII

TN early August Helen sailed for Cherbourg.
-*- Her thoughts had been countless in the course
of the days which followed the announcement of
Leander s plans. Her bitter grief did not desert
her, but neither did that splendid resolution which
had formed itself into words on the eventful day.
It was to be a struggle for the soul of a man and
Helen had her plan of campaign. She was never
ignorant of the whereabouts of her recreant hus
band and his serpentine charmer. The operatic
world has no secret places. So long as Leander
and Nagy continued to sing, it mattered not
whether the husband wrote business letters to his
wife or not, she could always keep herself in
formed of their doings. She knew that in Sep
tember they would be in Berlin and so she deter
mined that Paris would be the center of her cam
paign of masterly inactivity. She had her own

ideas of Leander s deepest soul. She thought she

240



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 241

knew it much better than he did and she was
going to make an experiment in discovering it to
him. So one day in September Mrs. Harley Man
ners gasped for breath when she saw Helen pass
ing in state along the Avenue de Bois de Bou
logne in her car. Mrs. Harley Manners was
riding modestly in a taxicab, for she was in Paris
for only a few days on her way homeward from
a most exciting sojourn in St. Moritz. She was
accompanied on this occasion by Mile. Madeleine
Piroux, who was singing in a special season at
the Opera Comique.

" Am I dreaming? " asked Mrs. Manners, " or
was that Mrs. Baroni who just went by? "

* You are quite awake, my dear Mrs. Man
ners," answered Madeleine with a faint smile.
* You have but just arrived in Paris or you
would have heard of the coming of Mrs. Baroni."

"Is Mr. Baroni here?"

" Oh, no, he is singing in Berlin for the mo
ment. Later he goes to Copenhagen, Stockholm,
and St. Petersburg. It is to be a brilliant winter
season in Russia."



242 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

What! Doesn t he sing in New York this
coming winter? "

" Can it be that you do not know this? It is
impossible. It was doubtful even when he started
for South America, and while there he came to
his decision."

" I am out of the world," moaned Mrs. Man
ners. " But tell me about his wife."

>l It is given out that she does not wish to
travel all over Europe and that particularly the
climate of Russia is not for her. Accordingly
she remains here. She has taken a splendid house
in the Rue de la Faisanderie. She has a corps of
servants, two automobiles, and her special courier.
She has engaged a famous master of cuisine as
chef and a Swiss hotel proprietor as major domo.
It is said that she will establish a grand salon."

" But she cannot live alone in Paris and do
this."

" She is not alone. She has brought with her
a most estimable aunt, who is sixty, ugly, and
exceedingly correct, but who speaks the most mar
velous French."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 243

" I wonder," said Mrs. Harley Manners mus
ingly.

" You wonder what? "

" If she has an aunt. I never before heard of
this sudden aunt."

" Nor I, but must we hear of all aunts, you and
I? Besides, what matters it? In the world of
Paris, if Mrs. Baroni is brilliant and interesting
and brings the right people together in her house,
she will have no difficulty. All will be well.
Here one must be amusing, interesting, or aston
ishing. That is all. But she has the key to all
doors."

"Yes? What key is this, my dear Mile.
Piroux?"

" I do not know how it has happened, but there
can be no question that she is acquainted with the
necessary persons. She has the entree of the
houses of the old nobility and of the Republicans.
She has been seen already with the Minister of
Education and with the head of one of the oldest
Bourbon houses. They seemed to be friends of
hers. She is on the right path, be assured."



244 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Whereupon Mrs. Harley Manners decided that
she must at once try to arrange to start for New
York on a later steamer, and in the meanwhile she
must write a note to dear Mrs. Baroni asking
her to luncheon.

For some reason which she could never quite
fathom dear Mrs. Baroni was always otherwise
engaged, and Mrs. Harley Manners had to em
bark at Cherbourg without having expressed her
personal approval of Mrs. Baroni s new depar
ture in life. The last time the industrious seeker
after musical celebrities saw the tenor s wife she
was riding up the Avenue des Champs Elysees
with the American ambassador, a personage
whom Mrs. Harley Manners herself knew only
by sight. And it had been only the previous day
that she had beheld Mrs. Baroni in the act of
taking tea at the Paillard in the Pre Catalan with
a certain Archduke who was celebrated as a
physician. At the same table sat a distinguished
French painter and an Italian archaeologist.

Mrs. Harley Manners had succeeded in at
tracting the attention of the tenor s wife, and



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 245

had received a most gracious smile, which was
at the same instant a dismissal, so that she had
not dared to approach the eminent tea-table.
When the tenor s wife went up the noisy Champs
Elysees with the Ambassador she did not even see
Mrs. Harley Manners. So on the day before her
enforced departure for Cherbourg Mrs. Harley
Manners, abandoning all reserve, hastened to call
upon the charming Mile. Madeleine Piroux in her
piquant apartment in the Rue des Petits Pois.
Happily the soprano was at home with her faith
ful Ponitzky in attendance.

" It is most heartrending," declared Mrs. Har
ley Manners; " but I must positively sail the day
after to-morrow. My husband will not exist any
longer without me."

" Paris will miss you," said Madeleine. " Byt
it will not be long before most of us are back in
New York."

You will not come before November, I sup
pose."

" No, but it is only five weeks away. I shall
be almost on your heels."



246 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" And I at your feet," added Ponitzky.

" But in the meantime," Mrs. Harley Manners
hastened to say, " you will be good enough to
take pity on a poor benighted New Yorker, will
you not? Write to me, my dear Mile. Piroux,
and tell me all the news and gossip of this adora
ble Paris; say that you will."

Madeleine understood perfectly what was ex
pected of her, but she had not the slightest ob
jection to gratifying the wish of this volatile and
superficial woman, who after all had her use in
that dreary and prosaic New York, whither one
was pitilessly forced to go for so many months
to get the imperial dollar.

" Yes, of a certainty I shall write to you, my
dear Mrs. Manners, and you shall know every
thing that you can wish to know."

" You are assuredly the sweetest thing," said
Mrs. Manners, rushing forward and dabbing
kisses on Madeleine s carnation cheeks. " Good-
by, and as soon as you arrive in New York
remember that you and M. Ponitzky are to dine
with me at once, at once, remember."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 247

And she evanished still gushing like a mill-dam.
Madeleine smiled at Ponitzky.

" Droll creature, is she not? And most droll
when she tries to be like a Frenchwoman. It is
amusing."

But the little soprano remembered her promise,
and it was not long before all the Manners circle
in New York knew the wondrous stir which the
tenor s wife was creating in Paris, a stir which
was much larger by the time it reached New York
via Mrs. Manners. And when the various mem
bers of the opera company returned to Gotham
for their season they all had something to say
about Mrs. Baroni and her doings. As for the
tenor himself, they said little enough, for none of
them liked him. His free and frank manners had

always been offset by his unconcealable egotism.

*

Of course in a community of egotists each mem
ber finds a hostile force in each of the others, and
there is no other community of egotists so thor
oughly self-centered as an opera company.

It was gratifying to those who had friends in
New York to tell them about the remarkable



248 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

career which the American woman was making in
Parisian society. She had begun by showing her
self in public places in the company of people of
political, artistic, and scientific fame. The natural
outcome was that all Paris was soon telling about
her and the sporting set, which inevitably num
bered many of the old and idle aristocracy,
showed an inclination to take her up. But she
would have none of it. She clung to the intel
lectual aristocracy, which is, after all, the highest
aristocracy of France, and she found an entree
into certain houses of the old Faubourg where
only the cream of the world can go.

It is perfectly true that the Americans in Paris
were chagrined by the success of this woman,
wholly unplaced in American society. They mar
veled at her reception. If they had only pos
sessed the secret of the beginning they would have
marveled still more. Helen had reached Paris
armed with only two letters of introduction. That
which opened the world to her was written by
Dr. Silas Mabon, the distinguished chemist, and
it was addressed to one of the forty immortals,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 249

who chanced also to be the scion of one of the
oldest houses of France.

It was not long before the news of Helen s
new departure reached her husband. He and
Nagy had completed their Berlin engagement and
were singing a " guest " performance in " Car
men " in Dresden. They were sitting in a rather
gorgeous apartment on the first floor of the Hotel
Bellevue, an apartment in which yellow and blue
satin brocades vied with one another in riotous
German splendor. Leander had just received his
letters, forwarded from Paris, and among them
was one envelope which contained only clippings
from newspapers. These were paragraphs of so
cial news recording the doings of Mme. Leandro
Baroni, wife of the distinguished tenor, now trav
eling in Allemagne. He read them thoughtfully,
and, folding them up, was about to put them in
his pocket, when Nagy said:

" Press cuttings, my dear? Who is singing in
Paris at this time of the year? "

" Oh, these are not about singers," he answered
evasively.



250 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" You may as well tell me all about it now as
later, Leander. You know you are going to tell



me."



Leander gazed steadily at her for a few mo
ments. He seemed to be taking stock of her atti
tude toward him. It had come to be one of quiet
possession and assured control. He wondered
just how much further it would go. Then he
took up the clippings, unfolded them, and blowing
a thin spiral of blue smoke from his cigarette,
said:

These cuttings, my dear Nagy, are about my
wife."

" Mon Dieu; so she has become a public
woman, has she? What line has she gone in
for?"

" It seems that she has established a brilliant
salon in Paris, even at this untoward season of
the year. I fancy that when every one has re
turned, she is going to be something of a figure."

" Ah, a Recamier from Fifth Avenue. She
should make a success in at least one phase of the
character."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 251

" What do you mean? " asked he.

" Recamier s success was largely due to the fact
that her temperament prevented her from being
assailed by scandal. I suppose, too, that when
the right time comes that delightful little Studley
will be ready to play the role of Chateaubriand.
But she will not refuse him, as her predecessor
did."

Leander made no answer. He sat with his
eyes fixed upon some far distant scene which his
imagination had reconstructed for him. There
was a strange look in those eyes, the look of a man
who has discovered something and found it pain
ful. Nagy watched him for a few moments and
said to herself:

That was a mistake of mine. He remembers
the hours when the temperament was permittee! to
reveal itself. Those American women, they are
not so cold as they seem. They are the children
of their own Puritan ancestors and they must al
ways act like the Puritans. But they are not cold.
They are only slow, that is all. I must make him
forget."



252 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Nagy had already begun a process of education.
She found Leander an apt pupil. Faculties which
had merely lain dormant began to awaken and to
work vigorously. He had never known the poign
ant grip of beauty upon the soul. He had cher
ished the blind American habit of treating aesthetic
emotion as something of which one should be
ashamed. He had walked through miles of Eu
ropean picture galleries in his earlier days and
made flippant comments on masterpieces. He
had declared that cathedrals were nothing better
than exaggerated stone heaps. He had gathered
joyfully to himself some one s description of stat
ues as " stone dolls." He had regarded the Alps
as shade producers for luxurious hotels and the
Adriatic as a good bathing resort. But already,
under the tutelage of Nagy s brilliant mind and
palpitating love for the physically beautiful, he
was beginning to enjoy.

" Come," she said suddenly, " we are going to
motor out to Pillnitz and dine there. You shall
show me the beauties of the sunset on the Elbe
and I shall show you the soul of Nagy Bosanska."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 253

Lcander smiled. He laid a hand on her shoul
der and lightly kissed her hair.

You will show me your soul, Nagy? Do you
think you have kept much of it hidden from me
in these months we have been together? "

" My friend," she answered in a mournful
voice; " when I first took you to myself, you could
not have seen even the outline of a soul, even if
you and it had been alone in the world. You see
now perhaps the outline, but nothing more. Of
Nagy Bosanska you know only the beauty of her
body and the might of her love. But she is for
you still a Sphinx and you will never read her.
Yet you may perhaps know a little more than you
do now."

" Shall I ever know all, Nagy? "

" No ; when you know all, you will leave me. I
shall no longer enchain you."

" Nagy, you are very wise, but you are also a
fool. I shall adore you always."

Yet even as he said it his thoughts reverted to
his wife and her salon, and he wondered how she
had contrived to rise to the surface of that glitter-



254 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

ing sea of Paris. He wondered how she had
developed into a force. He did not dream that
it had all been accomplished out of a woman s
resolution to show her husband that she was
greater than his mistress. But Nagy had divined
it in an instant. The war was on. At Pillnitz
Nagy was determined to win her first victory.



CHAPTER XVIII

"TT OU cannot know the soul of Nagy Bo-

-* sanska," said the Hungarian.

She was watching the roseate tints of the de
clining day dancing in the ripples of the Elbe. She
sat opposite Leander at a table on which was the
finale of their dinner. She smoked her cigarette,
and a few solemn Hausfrau eyes looked upon
her with disapproval. Two American women,
with the title " tourist " stamped upon them,
gazed at her with vulgar curiosity and made re
marks about her in strident tones. Like most of
their kind, they fancied that no one else under
stood their language. Two or three Germans of
the better type spoke of her confidentially, and a
Polish Jew in the corner stared at her with dis
tended eyes. He was the only one who knew
her. But Nagy was accustomed to public atten
tion. She had merely taken the precaution to see
that no one was close enough to overhear her con-

255



256 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

versation with Baroni and she spoke to him in
Italian.

" I am not sure that I know this soul myself,
for it has soundless depths and elusive spaces.
But I know much more of it than you know of
yours. I have really lived, Baroni, not merely
painted a life out of my vain imaginings. I have
known joy and sorrow. I have eaten of the fruit
of the tree of knowledge and have known the dif
ference between good and evil. I have looked it
squarely in the face, my friend, and have not
blinded myself with a foolish picture, fashioned
after the conventions of those who dare not think.
I have lived the almost unknown life of an honest
woman, who lies to no one, not even herself. I
have done what I have done because it was my
pleasure to do it, and I have not had to comfort
myself with cowardly excuses. I have never sold
myself to any man, as your virtuous American
maidens do when they marry millionaires. I have
never been the mere slave of a man whom I hated,
as some pious women are because it is wicked to
obtain divorces. I have boldly lived the life that



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 257

nine-tenths of the women of this world would live
if they had the courage to shatter the barriers of
convention which men and priests have set up for
them. Goethe was a poet indeed when he wrote
* The woman soul leadeth us upward and on.
This is nonsense. Where, in every instance but
one in ten thousand, is the woman soul? Shamed,
crushed, trodden into the mire, every instinct of
sex and self-respect outraged by forced obedience
to some convention of a world utterly sensual and
utterly dishonest about it. The only true woman
is she who is free of all restrictions, who gives
herself as she will, when she will, where she will.
All others are shameless and nameless, my dear
friend. And the soul of Nagy Bosanska is not
the soul of one of those. It is clean and honest
and strong because it has always been free, be
cause it has looked good and evil squarely in the
eyes."

Nagy paused and gazed again at the rosy lights
growing to a deeper crimson on the river below
them and Leander fell into a deep thought. A
vague unrest had been awakened within him, an



258 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

undefinable something which moved him, but
which he could neither place nor name. He
groped blindly till Nagy s voice again claimed his
attention.

" I remember a fragrant hollow in the palms
of the brown mountains. All around it rose the
sheer and rocky heights, like the outer walls of
the world; but it was filled with the laughter of
sweet waters, floored with a velvet of soft green
and roofed with the gentle shade of dark-limbed
trees. There we dwelt, my father and mother,
my brothers and sisters and I. My father went
often away and was long gone, but he always came
back with plenty. We stayed there for months,
but at length the gipsy spirit could rest no longer.
Then we tramped weary miles up and down the
great mountain passes. But we always found rest
ing places where we remained for months at a
time. I do not know whether it was this life that
fashioned my soul. I do know that I, too, tramp
up and down the passes of life, rest for a time in
green valleys, and then press forward again.

" Well, let all that go. The time came when



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 259

I joined in the open air festivals of my people.
I was the maddest of all the dancers. The wine
of the Czardas flowed in my veins. None so
languorous and melting in the lassu as Nagy, none
so swift and flame-like in the friss. And then I
began to play upon the cembalon and the guitar
and to sing. And soon it was said that in all
the Hohe Tatra there was no voice like that of
Nagy not Bosanska I had another name then.
" All went well enough till my father, eager to
get money, took us all to the borders of the Lake
of Csorba. It was there that Ferencz, a gipsy, fell
in love with me. I remember him because he was
the first who told me. I am sure now that there
were others before him, but I did not know then
what was the matter with them. I accepted
Ferencz s love without any question, because I
wanted it. It was mine and I took it. I know
now that it was the one great love that I have
ever had. I know now that I loved him. But I
was a fool then, because I was only a girl, and
girls know nothing about anything. Sometimes
girls really love, but they do not know it. Some-



260 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

times they think they love when they are only
excited by vanity. Men do not know love till they
are at least thirty. Women cannot even dream
what it is before they are twenty-five. And I am
only twenty-seven now. Then I was seventeen.
It is a thousand years since then, and I am im
mortal.

" Well, at Csorba are hotels, and though we
remained in the mountain above the lake, the
visitors found us out. At least one did. I was
singing and my voice was floating away out over
the lake. Suddenly a man broke through the
bushes. He stared at me. I stared at him. He
was not young and he was ugly, but his face had
power. I was afraid of him. He told me that
my voice was worth a fortune. Shall I tell you
all that he said? It is not worth while. I fell
under the spell of his power. I thought I loved
him. In a week he carried me away secretly to
Vienna to study, and also to be his mistress.
Ferencz shot himself at the door of my empty
tent. I did not know it then. I was still a girl.
I knew nothing. I only wished to enjoy, to revel



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 261

in the splendors of the new world which had
opened itself to me, and in the passion of this
man of strange power. The intendant of the first
opera house in which I was asked to sing made
love to me and I laughed at him. Then my mas
ter for that was what he was beat me. Yes,
Leander, you need not start like that. I, Nagy
Bosanska, have been beaten like a dog and have
cringed before a man. But he was a devil. He
wished me to sell myself. He said that only thus
could I succeed in the theater. That is why when
my education was completed and I could sing as
you have heard me and speak six languages and
had steeped my mind in poetry and art, I stole
out one black night alone and left Vienna. I did
not know what I was going to do. I meant only
to escape from that devil. And I did. I found

a train going southward over the Semmering. I

>

went to Venice and thence further southward and
at last I came to Palermo, and there I paused.
I sought an interview with the musical director.
I was beautiful. He received me. I could sing;
he listened. He made love to me. I laughed at



262 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

him. He was dazed and he engaged me. I
changed my name to Elena Tataria. I kept that
name while I remained in Palermo. It was after
I had left that city that I read in a newspaper of
the death of my former tyrant. Then my heart
no longer shook within me. I resumed my own
given name, Nagy, and added Bosanska, for I am
a Hungarian patriot, and I will have no name that
is not of my own soil."

Nagy paused once more. The sun had long
before passed below the hills. The lambent twi
light of the north was filling the sky. Here and
there lights winked in the windows of distant
houses. Boats moving on the river cast black
shadows. Waiters turned on electric lamps in the
darker corners of the terrace. Crowds sur
rounded Nagy and Leander, but the wise ober-
kellner saw that none came too close to them.
He had learned from the Polish Jew who Nagy
was and he foresaw trinkgeld in marks, not pfen-
nige. Leander ordered allasch for himself and
the soprano. Then she continued with her story.

" I shall not bury you under all the details of



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 263

my life. But this I will tell you. I have studied
myself. I am a thing of flame, as a true gipsy
should be. I am blown hither and thither by the
wind of circumstance. I sometimes smolder and
sometimes blaze, but I never die. I have sounded
all the depths of human passion and I have fath
omed the meaning of the human heart. And
always I have turned from it to Nature. You,
my dear Baroni, have never learned to be a part
of creation. You dwell by yourself, shut up
within the narrow walls of your own ego. You
are all-sufficient. That is why you are not an
artist."

Leander moved uneasily in his chair and
seemed about to speak, but Nagy checked him
with a gesture.

" Oh, Providence, vouchsafe me one day of
pure joy! Long has the echo of perfect felicity
been absent from my heart. When, oh when,
oh, Thou divine one, shall I feel it again in na
ture s temple and in man s? Never? Ah, that
would be too hard!

These extraordinary sentences flowed out in



264 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Nagy s deepest tones. Leander stared at her.

" Surely, Nagy, those words are not your
own," he said.

" No," she answered, reverently inclining her
beautiful head, " they are Beethoven s. Note,
Baroni, my friend, he unites nature s temple with
man s. Beethoven was an artist. He knew that
the education of a soul must be sought in the
study of nature and life. You have studied
neither. You have not even seen them. Your
eyes are turned inward. You see only Baroni,
and only the surface of that."

" You are rather hard on me, Nagy," he said
with a deprecatory smile. " I have seen you."

She laughed aloud.

" My dear Baroni, I have already told you that
you have seen nothing except my surface. I have
seen your soul. And I have taken a fancy to save
it. For it is in deep peril. The soul that sleep-
eth, it is lost. When I began to sing I sang as
you do, with my voice. I had no difficulty in
getting success that way. But I cared nothing for
success. I cared only for my own joy in living.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 265

I was battling always with a sorrow, like the
great master, Beethoven. Even I, the poor singer,
suffered the pangs of disenchantment. First of
all, I woke to know that I had thrown away the
priceless jewel of a real love, a love which would
have changed the whole nature of my life. If I
had become the wife of Ferencz, I would have
stayed in the mountains and would never have
learned the horrors of the world. I could never
have learned that men are satyrs and women De-
lilahs. I would have borne children and obeyed
my lord and master Ferencz and kissed his knees
for love. I would have dwelt in the pit of ig
norance, but I would have had the love of the
only man who ever saw my soul; for he did see
it. And we two would have grown together to
be as great as the old Pagan gods and the earth
would have been our garden. All that I threw
away because I was a girl and a fool when I saw
the vision of the world and all the wonder that
would be. But the soul of Nagy Bosanska was
not born to perish. Alone it has triumphed. It
has grown. I have lived. I am a power."



266 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Leander smiled one of his indulgent smiles. He
enjoyed hearing Nagy boast of this mysterious
power, although he could not comprehend what
she meant by it.

" It seems to me, Nagy," he said, " that I have
the advantage of you. I, too, am a power and
the world is at my feet and I suffer nothing."

" By solemn vision and bright silver dream
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.
The fountains of divine philosophy
Fled not his thirsting lips: and all of great
Or good or lovely which the lovely past
In truth or fable consecrates he felt
And knew. "

Nagy chanted the lines in flute-like tones and
fixed a Delphic gaze on Leander as she did so.

" What on earth is that, Nagy? " he asked.

" Some lines from a poem by one of your Eng
lish poets, Shelley by name. Read * Alastor, Ba-
roni. And better still, read Byron s * Manfred. 7
I am both. Both should have been women. Men
do not feel as they felt."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 267

" Nagy, you talk wonderfully. You ought to
write a novel."

" Novels are written by babblers, and read by
children. But life is not a fairy tale. And now
I tell you once more that you will awaken. Give
me your hand and cross my palm with silver. The
gipsy will read your fortune."

" Oh, come, Nagy, that s all nonsense, you
know," he said, laughing.

" Scoff not at that which you do not understand.
Do as I bid you."

Still laughing, he drew a mark from his pocket
and placed it in her palm. She looked swiftly
at his hand and then gazed intently into his
eyes.

" I see a storm. The strength that is sufficient
unto itself will be shattered, but out of the wreck
will rise another strength, which will be as great
as the faith of a child, and it will rule. I, Na gy
Bosanska, the gipsy, have spoken."

There was a moment of intense silence between
them, while Leander felt vaguely the throbbings
of some strange power within him. Then Nagy



268 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

leaned back in her chair and burst into a low ripple
of exquisite laughter.

" Come," she said; "let us go. You are still
a fool, my friend."

They rode back through the soft, starry Sep
tember night almost without a word. Nagy, pro
found, Delphic Nagy, permitted her spell to work.
She knew that the revelation which she had
made had powerfully affected her lover. He was
sunk in thought. Ever and anon he glanced fur
tively at her and in the glance were passion, adora
tion, wonder, worship. Nagy read the swift
glances in the dim light of the stars. She knew
that she had drawn him closer to her with a new
and fervent interest. She was certain that the
victory was hers. His feeble curiosity in regard
to his wife would vanish. He would go forward
to St. Petersburg, not back to Paris.

******

Helen waited in vain for some sign that her
campaign in the French capital had yielded her a
victory. When she read of the continued public
successes of Leander and Nagy, she knew that she



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 269

had lost. But later she fell a prey to a consuming
hunger to see her husband s face, to hear his voice
once more. And when the time had come, she
traveled southward.



CHAPTER XIX

\ WINTER S snows cover the workings of
-* *- many strange forces of nature. Among
other things which can develop in the dark months
are the impulses of a human heart. Leander and
Nagy sang together in Berlin and then traveled
northward into the land of the Little Father. The
splendors of St. Petersburg were new to them,
but they conquered that capital just as they had
conquered others before they saw it. The bril
liant and amiable Russians made much of them.
They went to Moscow and stood in the low-
vaulted chapel where Ivan the Terrible had sat
in the dark corner and marked his victims and
where Napoleon had afterward slept. They
heard the wondrous music of the great choir in
the Church of the Annunciation. They saturated
themselves in the marvels of the Tartar city.

And perhaps it was here that something began

to develop within Leander. He knew not what it

270



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 271

was, but for some reason the words of Nagy
began to have a new meaning for him. He was
continually lost in amazement at the breadth and
depth of her learning. In St. Petersburg she
spoke to the people in the streets in their own
language. In the Cathedral of St. Isaak she told
Leander the significance of the text of a mass. In
Moscow she explained to him the Oriental archi
tecture. She went out into the country with him
and she told him what the peasants were saying
and doing. Belated once in a driving snow, she
directed their driver to stop at a small inn by the
roadside and entered without hesitation a grimy,
smoky room, peopled by low-browed, sulky-look
ing peasants. It was plain that they resented the
presence of the two aristocrats. Leander did not
like the appearance of things, but Nagy smiled
and addressed the peasants.

She called them little brothers and asked them
if they knew a certain fable of Kryloff about a
swallow and the wolves who fed it when it was
hungry. They declared that they did not. They
knew all the fables of Kryloff, but they had not



272 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

heard this one. Thereupon Nagy told it to them
and they figuratively took her to their hearts,
called her little mother, and vowed she should
have all that was in the house. And so she and
Leander were feasted. And afterward she asked
for a balalaika and when they brought it to her,
she played her own accompaniment while she sang
them a wondrous song about the Kamarinsky
peasant. When she and Leander drove away, the
peasants shouted blessings after them.

" How comes it that you knew one of their
own fables which they themselves did not know? "
asked Leander after the inn was far behind
them.

" Oh, sweet innocent, there is no such fable.
I invented it for our need."

" And you know the fables of Kryloff so inti
mately that you can imitate them well enough to
deceive Russian peasants! Nagy, you re a
wizard."

And so day after day the influence of this
unique nature worked upon Leander and insensi
bly he began to respond to it. It was in Moscow,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 273

too, that he began to perceive that his mind had
focused itself upon a strange, if somewhat intan
gible notion, to wit, that there was something in
the public estimation of Nagy different from that
in which he was held.

At first he rejected the thought as preposterous.
Then he temporarily comforted himself with the
reflection that people naturally bestowed more at
tention on a beautiful and seductive woman than
on a man. This theory quieted his mind for
a long time. He said to himself:

" Of course Nagy does sing admirably, but it
is not so much her singing as her temperament
and her beauty that set the house afire."

But in the course of a few weeks Leander found
that this comfort also was denied him, for he
had a strange and indefinable feeling in his own
breast when Nagy rose to some of her most tem
pestuous outpours of dramatic expression. Le
ander would not admit it in words, but he was
swayed by the artistic force of the woman. And
then he suddenly asked himself a pertinent ques
tion :



274 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

u I have been singing with Nagy a long time.
How is it that I never felt this before? "

And that question he could not answer, for he
had not yet learned enough about self-analysis to
perceive that it was his own slow and secret spirit
ual growth which enabled him to see things hith
erto hidden from him. Nagy s work was begin
ning to bear fruit. The sleeping soul was
approaching its hour of awakening. And so
through all the winter months the work went on.
The germs of spiritual force, which had so long
been dormant in Leander, began to vitalize under
the snows of a Russian winter. The tenor began
to have new and strange moods. At times he
would shut himself up in solitary reflection.
These periods were short at first, but gradually
grew longer. But each of them was followed by
a mood of tumultuous energy. The waves were
rising in the stormy spirit.

When the Russian engagement had ended the
two singers journeyed slowly southward. It was
in April that they appeared as guests in a few
performances at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 275

Leander s restlessness had grown and Nagy was
studying him closely. Sometimes he plunged into
wildest passion, as if seeking to steep his soul in
oblivion. Again he became cool and restrained
in demeanor. Nagy, like Venus in " Tannhauser,"
strove to weave anew the spell of her enchant
ments. And he, like Tannhauser, would from
time to time seize his spiritual harp and sing her
praises. But the ice was becoming thin and Nagy
had a faint cold fear at her heart, for even as
Venus deeply loved Tannhauser, so she had come
to love Leander.

Their first appearance together was made in
Tosca." Here, of course, the great glory of
the evening fell to the soprano, but there was a
singular burst of emotion through the house at
the opening of the third act. Leander sang the
recitatives apathetically, but when he came to the
cantabile, the first words, " Oh, dolci baci, o Ian-
guide carezze," seemed to open some secret spring
in his soul. For the first time in his entire op
eratic career he did something more than sing the
air with tonal perfection and exquisitely finished



276 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

nuance. He published its meaning. He became
really eloquent. The house rang with plaudits.
He seemed unable to comprehend the reason. He
sank back into his former apathy and finished his
role mechanically. He nearly ruined the duet
with Nagy by reason of his icy coldness. The
Neapolitans almost shouted " Bah " at him. If
he had not been Baroni, they would surely have
done so, but they forgave him because his phrasing
was perfect.

Leander went back to the hotel after the per
formance quite tired out. " Tosca " had wearied
him. Two nights later he was to sing Don Jose
to Nagy s Carmen. The very thought of it al
most sickened him. He wondered if he might
not be suddenly indisposed. Then in an instant
his egotism began to push itself forward. Why
should he not sing? Nagy had been enjoying all
the success. As Don Jose he was at his best. He
would sing. He would triumph over Nagy, espe
cially in the last act. He would show her that he,
too, could have temperament when it was neces
sary. He smiled as he thought of the splendors



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 277

of his voice and style in the flower song. Yes,
in Don Jose he would teach his mistress a lesson.

He was early at the theater. He did not see
the assembling of the audience. The Piazza San
Ferdinando and the Strada San Carlo were
crowded with equipages and pedestrians. The
nobility and the proletariat jostled one another
in the streets. The boxes and the galleries were
packed. The fame of the interpretations of the
two forestieri had spread through the town, de
spite the honorable endeavors of the local musical
journals to convince every one that only Italians
could disclose the real contents of Bizet s work.

The first act went with a fine vitality. Leander
had an excellent companion in the Italian Micaela
and the duet was beautifully sung. The applause
was tumultuous. Nagy gained no more for her

Habanera. She was happy, for she rejoiced in

>

Leander s success. He told her that he rejoiced
in hers. He lied. He had a canker at heart,
something that he could not explain. The curtain
rose on the second act. More people had entered
the house. Certain persons of distinction who



278 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

always went late had come to occupy their boxes.
The dance was intoxicating. Nagy flung herself
into its closing measures with all the sinuous grace
and abandon given to her by her gipsy nature. To
her it was but another form of the friss of the
Czardas. The Escamillo was a shouting Italian,
who tore the Toreador song to tatters to the in
expressible delight of the gallery. Everything
went with a swing till Nagy had hurled the inevi
table chair up the stage and pitched the accouter- -
ments of the discomfited Don Jose at him, bidding
him to begone. And then Leander poised himself
for the triumph of the flower song. Nagy sank
into a seat and he bent over her as he let the
opening measures flow from his throat in those
entrancing tones which had mastered two conti
nents. And at this moment he looked past Nagy
into the lower box on the right of the stage and
full into the eyes of his wife.

The phrase which he was singing broke in two
in the middle. He felt his breath rush from him
in a sharp, convulsive gasp. He made a desperate
effort to regain control of it. A fiery red cloud



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 279

rushed before his eyes. He threw his hands over
them. He hurled his diaphragm upward with all
the strength of his will. No sound came. He
heard strange indefinable noises in the house.
They sounded like hisses and execrations. There
is no audience in the world so swift to proclaim
its opinions as that of San Carlo. Leander
straightened himself up. He dragged his gaze
away from that marvelous, proud, beautiful face,
which had burst upon him like a vision from para
dise. The next instant the fiery red cloud blinded
him and blackness followed it. He fell prone
upon the stage in a faint.

Wild confusion followed. The curtain was
rung down and Nagy strove with her own lovely
hands to gather him into her arms. Men hurried
upon the stage and the tenor was carried to his
dressing-room. A physician was summoned. A
quick examination showed that nothing serious
had befallen the singer. A touch of vertigo, that
was all, the physician declared. Oh, yes, he would
assuredly be able to finish the performance. Le
ander, who had recovered his consciousness by



280 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

this time, looked up and smiled. Something of
the bulldog feeling of college days came back to
him. He murmured:

" I shall finish. No fear that I shall not."
Nagy bent over him with cooing words, but he
quietly waved her away. The stage manager went
before the curtain and told the audience that the
great Signer Baroni had unfortunately been at
tacked by vertigo, but that in a few minutes, a very
few minutes, he would be able to continue the,
performance. If the highly honorable signoras
and signers would kindly be patient, it would be
well. Meanwhile Leander had whispered to his
valet to clear the room. The physician had done
all that he could, but there were still several per
sons in the little space. Leander wished to be
alone. Every one went out except Nagy. She
of course remained. Leander sat up and took a
drink of brandy. Then he gazed at Nagy with
a long, thoughtful gaze. She returned the look
with melting eyes. Leander studied the eyes as
if they were some strange freak of nature which
had never before come within the sphere of his



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 281

experience. Nagy was suddenly conscious of a
cold feeling at heart. Leander rose.

" Come," he said, " let us go and finish the act.
We have played our little tragedy out to the end.
Now we must play that for which the audience is
waiting."

They returned to the stage. The curtain was
raised again. The audience applauded wildly.
The orchestra resumed at the beginning of the
flower song. And this time Leander sang it to the
end, but as he had never sung it before in all his
remarkable career. Not once during the delivery
of the song did he look into the eyes of Nagy,
but always past them into that box on the right of
the stage. And there was something poignant in
the quality of his tone, something which seemed
new. When he sang the last words, " Lo schiavo
suo, Carmen, mi fe," he was still looking past
Nagy into that box. Helen sat erect and jus-t* a
trifle pale. When Leander had fallen, she had
turned swiftly to the Duchess of Fiesole, whose
guest she was, and said some words. An at
tendant had been despatched to the stage with an



282 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

inquiry and the answer had been reassuring. The
act ended in a storm of applause. Leander ap
peared with Nagy time and time again to receive
the approval of the audience, but he would not
look into her face. Nor did he look into the box.
Now that the lights were turned up, he stared with
a fixed gaze into the center of the house. When
the recalls had ended, the tenor dropped the hand
of his associate, turned his back upon her, and
walked quickly to his dressing-room to change his
costume for the third act. But Nagy was close
upon his heels. Panting and flushed, she made
a swift sign to the valet, who slipped from the
room, and left her alone with Leander.

4 You are a master to-night, my friend," she
said.

Leander, who had not noted her movements,
wheeled and confronted her with glowing eyes.

" You devil from hell," he said in tense, low
tones; " it was you who led me away from my
faith."

" Your faith, my dear Baroni? Really, that is
something of which I never heard before."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 283

If you value your life, don t try sarcasm with



me."



There was something in his eyes that made
Nagy for the first time shrink from him. But
the flaming little gipsy had not bowed her spirit
before a man s since she trembled before the man
of power who beat her. She bravely smiled up
into Leander s face and murmured:

" Mon ami, I mean no sarcasm. I love
you."

" You love me! You!"

" Yes, I. Dare you hint that I do not? I have
taught you to see your own soul."

" My soul ! Great God ! " he cried. " I have
a soul and where is it? What have I done with
it?"

" You are ungrateful, my dear Leander. Do
you regret that you are now wiser? When I took
you to my heart you were a block, a dolt, a blind,
dumb thing that knew only itself. You have made
some progress, but you are still only at the bor
ders of discovery. You are as a little puppy that
has just opened its eyes and seen the glare of the



284 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

sun. You are dazzled by new thoughts. You



are-



" Silence, you Jezebel! I am what I am, and
much of that is what you have made me. You
prate to me of soul. But you have wound round
me the damnable bonds of sense. You have made
of me a slave of desire. You have steeped me in
the passion of the flesh. But at last I see myself
as I am. I am ashamed to the heart s core. I cry
for liberty. I will have it! "

( Tannhauser, Act I, scene i, " said Nagy
bitterly. * You wish to go back to your pale and
holy Elizabeth, my "

" Damn you! " he cried; " don t you dare to
speak of her. She is not for us to discuss. I am
shut out of her life and well you know it. You
have done that. But I shall be out of yours, too."

Nagy gazed at him intently. Could it be that
in awakening his soul, which was so assuredly
stirring to life, she had robbed herself of his
passion? No, he was not ready for that. She
raised her face with a great yearning upon it and
said:



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 285

" Baroni, I love you. You have no right to
speak to me as you do. If I took you, remember
that I also gave myself."

" As you had done a dozen times before," he
interrupted bitterly.

" Generous words, are they not? But I for
give. I shall not give you up."

" Go, go ! " he cried; " you cannot keep me."

He thrust her from the room and slammed the
door behind her. With feverish fingers he tore
open his garments and began to change his cos
tume for the third act. His dresser, finding that
the soprano had departed, returned to help him.
He began the act in a mood of perfect composure.
He was dimly conscious of that strange new power
which he had lately felt within him, but he could
not grasp it, he could not define it, he could not
control it. He only knew that something above
and beyond him was urging him, he knew not
whither. Until he found himself facing Nagy in
the last scene of the act he was coldly imperative
in his treatment of the role. His struggle with
Escamillo had in it something of contempt. But



286 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

when he once more saw Nagy, this time in the
habiliments of a gipsy which sat upon her with
native grace and deviltry, his wrath again rose
within him. The people on the stage started in
astonishment at the new timbre which his tones
assumed when he delivered the line:

" Ah! bada a te, Carmen, stanco son di soffrir.

Still Nagy lived in her role and her pitying
glance at Micaela was equaled by her affectation
of scorn of Don Jose. But the torrent within
Leander burst its bonds when he rushed down the
stage and seized Carmen by the throat, forcing
her to the ground and thundering in her ears the
words :

" E forzare tisapro

A subir la sorte ingrata
Che due vite insiem lego.

He shook Nagy as if she were a leaf and almost
flattened her face against the boards of the stage.
She cried out in choked tones with the pain he
inflicted. The people on the stage started for-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 287

ward, for they saw there was something more
than acting. They understood that an intense
tragedy of real life was exhibited in its last
agonized scene. They dimly felt that here was
something greater than the familiar liaison of the
opera house. There was something strange and
potent and appalling in the relation between this
Hungarian, who came of a race of lawless men
and women, and this American, who was an illeg
itimate son of a nation of money grubbers. The
house was aroused to extravagant demonstrations.
Across the footlights it looked like a brilliantly
realistic piece of acting and the audience was as
tonished at the vigor of the hitherto cold Amer
icano.

But Nagy was not deceived. Crushed, dishev
eled, breathless, she knew that her dominion over
him was gone forever. She had tried to show
him his soul and he had begun to see the light.



CHAPTER XX

TT THEN the curtain had fallen on the final
^ scene of the most remarkable performance
of " Carmen " within the memory of Neapolitans
Leander tore off the rags of the costume, and
breathing a profound sigh, said:

" That was my last Don Jose. I shall never be
able to sing the accursed part again."

He left the theater quickly and alone. Nagy
might find her own way to the hotel or to Avernus.
He wished only that he might never again look
into the baleful green eyes or scent the seductive
perfume of her raven hair. She had a horrible
mastery of his senses. He knew it, and yet he felt
that the hour of his liberation had come. Nagy
had spoken much of souls. She dreamed of a
love in which the perfect agony of physical pas
sion would be united to that celestial mingling of
spiritual natures which poets sang. Leander knew

now that this was the only real love, that this

288



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 289

was the greatest thing in the world, the thing
which raised men to heights beyond those occu
pied even by angels. And he knew, too, that he
was unfit for it, that he had been as Tannhauser,
wallowing in the miry depths of sensuality. Free
dom, freedom ! That he must have. And yet he
hesitated to face Nagy alone in their apartments
at the hotel.

The night was soft and mild and a young April
moon swam in the whitecapped billows of an in
digo sky. It was warm and grateful air that sang
sweetly out of the hills. Leander hailed a cab,
an open one, and told the cocchiere to drive him
out to the Trattoria Pallino. Leander had no
fear about entering the strictly Italian resorts at
night. He knew the people, their language, and
their customs. And on this night he wished to
be where none of his adulators would discover
him.

A score of people were in the place when he
entered. He was not recognized. He sat in a
half-dark corner and ate his supper silently.
Thought hounded him, keen, cutting, aching



2 9 o THE SOUL OF A TENOR

thought. He saw again the pure lines of that
noble face which had gazed at him out of the
Fiesole box. He realized how he had brought
shame and sorrow upon Helen. He knew that she
had given him a love more splendid than anything
which could ever enter the much-vaunted " soul
of Nagy Bosanska." He knew that she had be
stowed upon him a grand passion which his un
developed spirit had not known how to compre
hend. But now it was too late. He had placed
between her and himself an impassable gulf. She
had said that she would take no action, but that
was only the resolution of the first hours of her
desertion. Doubtless the time would come when
she would be eager to obtain her freedom. Per
haps she might find consolation in that newspaper
fool. He seemed to be a great friend of hers.

Well, whatever she did, it would be right. He,
Leander, certainly had no more claim upon her.
She had not been able to enter into his artistic
sphere and he had not grasped the beauty and
bliss of her self-effacement in the love she gave
him. It was well as it was. He would continue



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 291

to go his way and she would go hers. And then
he broke down and hid his face in his hands. For
he knew that in spite of everything he still loved
her, and would have given his soul to have her
again at his side. He lifted his head, for he was
dimly aware that the Italians were watching him
furtively. He called the waiter.

" Ho mal di testa," he said; " il mio conto."
He paid his bill, and, with a polite u Buona
sera " to the assembly, left the place. He rode
slowly back to his hotel. He hoped that Nagy
had by this time retired and would be sound
asleep. He stole into his own room, which was
separated from hers by a small salon. He sat
down and smoked a cigarette. Thought still bur
dened him. He knew not what he ought to do.
His mind was in a confusion. His spirit was
shaken to its center. He undressed and got into
his pajamas, turned out the lights, and stood look
ing out into the moonlit night. He could see the
dim outlines of Ischia away out on the sea line
at his right and the rugged back of Capri looming
on the left. Here and there a shadowy sail



292 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

showed where the night fisherman was at his toil.

" Out yonder peace, peace," murmured the
tenor, as he leaned against the casement.

He heard a sound as of a gentle sigh near him,
and, turning, saw the figure of Nagy in the center
of his room. He stared at her and caught his
breath. Then he said in a low, hard tone:

" Go back to your own room."

" Not till I have said a word to you. My
friend, you were very brutal with me on the stage
to-night, but I forgive you, for you were an
noyed."

He remained silent, gazing at her coldly. She
could feel the chill of it.

" You are unhappy, are you not? But you did
not mean all those things which you said to me at
the theater to-night. You called me a devil. You
said that I had put your soul in torment. You
were vexed; but you did not mean all that."

" I meant every word and every act," he said
in the same hard tone.

Nagy shivered. The conviction which had
come upon her at the end of the third act of the



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 293

opera that she had lost her power over him as
sailed her with renewed force. But she would
make one more struggle. She stretched her arms
out toward him and moved slowly forward, with
the sinuous undulations of her beautiful form only
half hidden by the slight drapery which she had
thrown around it, and laid her hands upon his
shoulders. Then she drew herself to him till she
was so close that her breath fanned his cheek,
while she murmured:

" Leander, my love, my love, if I have given
you any suffering, let me try to atone for it. You
must, you must. It is my right. It is the right of
my great love for you."

The tenor stood quite moveless and his hands
remained folded behind his back. He looked at
her calmly and steadily, though within him there
still rose from time to time faint waves of that
old thirst of the blood, which had consumed trie
dry dust of his brain and transformed the once
gentle current of his veins into fire. But he moved
not an inch toward her. He regarded her ivory
arms and her swelling bosom with unflickering



294 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

eyes. He knew perfectly now that what he had
felt for her was not a real love.

" Go back to your own room, Nagy. You are
fighting against the inevitable. I cannot speak to
you as I would, but it is your due that I should
at least try."

He paused a moment as if gathering his forces
for the last blow, and then in the same low, cold,
hard voice he continued:

" I believe that you speak the truth when you
tell me that you have loved me. I am shamed
by my own knowledge. You have not made me
suffer, Nagy, but I must make you. I must con
fess that I have never given you what you have
given me. I have taken, like a man, all that you
laid before me. You have done for me more
than any one did before you. You told me many,
many wonderful truths. I was asleep. You
awakened me. You have led me through mar
velous paths, into splendid heights. But now I
am in the valley and the way is not plain. But
one thing I do know, and that one thing I must
tell you. It is the only honest thing I have done,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 295

Nagy, when I tell you that I have never given you
what you have given me. I have loved your
beauty, I have gone mad with your passion, but
I have only been a primal savage man, Nagy, and
it is all over. I am sorry; I wish I were worthy
of you, but I am not. You are a thousand times
better than I am. I tell you only the ugly truth
when I say that now I have nothing at all to give
you. Everything is ended. I have no longer the
right to look upon your beauty. Go back to your



own room."



With an incredibly swift movement she glided
backward several feet and gathered her draperies
about her as if they closed the world between
him and her. She stood a moment like an antique
statue. Then with a dry sob she wheeled and
passed into her own chamber. Leander slowly
turned once more to the window, leaned against
the casement, and looked out upon the night and
the sea.

" Out yonder peace, peace," he said.

Before the next evening the news had spread
through Naples that Signor Baroni s indisposition



296 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

of the previous night had proved to be sufficient
after all to put an end to his activities. He would
sing no more that season. In fact it was said that
he had already left the city on a steamer of the
Servizi Marittimi bound for Constantinople and
Odessa.



CHAPTER XXI

, really, it is quite too much for any one
to endure," declared Mrs. Harley Man
ners, as she purred in her seat at the first general
rehearsal of the season. You know, I have al
ways disliked having a Monday night box, for
that society set will not tolerate any of the great
artistic works. But, of course, you know, what
is one to do? It was always the night on which
that adorable Baroni sang, and one just simply
had to hear him, you understand. So I have
always had my Monday night box, and so, don t
you see, they keep it for me from season to sea
son, and what am I to do? I naturally have to
take it. But I can t endure that society set. They
are such stupid people. They have no real culture
and no ideals at all."

Philip Studley listened to her with commendable
patience. Mrs. Manners had passed through

many experiences since the memorable autumn

297



298 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

when she had returned from Paris, dazed at the
sudden blaze of Mrs. Baroni s glory. Less than
a week after she had reached home, her husband
had quietly curled up in his morning bath and
passed out of existence by the quick route of
heart disease. Mrs. Harley Manners found her
self a not altogether inconsolable widow, with a
substantial fortune entirely under her own control.
A year had passed. Mrs. Harley Manners had
threaded her way discreetly, but with some agil
ity, through the various phases of mourning, and
had emerged a gentle dove of exquisitely gradu
ated black and white. At the opening of the sea
son there were even hints in certain not too con
spicuous corners of her costume that crimson roses
would soon bloom again.

" I am sorry to hear such bad accounts of the
society set from you," said Philip. " But, of
course, it is no news. Your statements only agree
with what others have told me, and what I have
picked up myself from a few unexpected meet
ings. But you see, we social pariahs rather laugh
at the attitude of these money lords and ladies.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 299

They have no social position except what they
buy. And they can t buy their way into all the
worlds, you know. Did you ever notice how sel
dom an American heiress catches a German
noble?"

Mrs. Manners sat up and stared. No, she cer
tainly had not thought of that.

u But American society people are received in
the finest houses in France," she said.

Yes, received," said Philip, with meaning;
" but they never lead, as they do in London."

Your friend, Mrs. Baroni, seems to me to be
a good deal of a leader in Paris."

" Mrs. Baroni was never in society here. She
belongs to a set which looks upon our so-called
society with quiet contempt. I never saw any of
them at her house in Paris."

Why, have you been in Paris? When? "

>

" I was there for a short time last spring, just
after Mrs. Baroni returnee! to Paris from Italy.
She was not very well for a few days. She gave
some brilliant entertainments, to all of which she
did me the honor to invite me. Then un-



300 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

expectedly she closed her Paris residence, and
went to the north. Now she has returned to New
York."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Harley
Manners. " I am certainly out of the world. I
did not know any of this at all. I must call on her
at once."

" I am afraid you will find some difficulty in
seeing her. She is keeping herself in the greatest
seclusion."

" Is she not in good health? "

" Oh, yes, perfect. But while her husband is
singing in the East, she does not feel like going
out."

Mrs. Harley Manners ruminated. It was a
very lame explanation, she thought. But murder
and social gossip will out, as she well knew, and so
she had only to wait. When the rehearsal had
moved its wearisome progress as far as the be
ginning of the second act, Philip quietly departed.
He had an engagement of which he had naturally
made no mention to the vivacious Mrs. Harley
Manners. He was to meet Helen at the Holland



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 301

House for luncheon. She was waiting for him
when he arrived.

" Philip," said she when they had finished their
first course, " I want you to tell me where Mile.
Bosanska is stopping."

" My dear Helen, did you ask me to luncheon
only to make that important inquiry? You
could easily have found that out at the opera
house."

" I do not desire to have any one know that I
have made the inquiry. That is why I make it of
you."

" My dear Helen, of course. She is not at
her old apartment this season. You will find her
in a new one on the other side of town. I heard
of it myself only yesterday from our man who
covers the musical news."

And Philip told her the number and street.

" I am going to call on her," said Helen in a
calm tone.

" I beg your pardon, Helen, but you ought
not to do that, you know."

" On the contrary, it is the very thing I must



302 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

do. I do not know where Leander is, and his
agent here will not tell me. He firmly but po
litely declares that his instructions are to give no
information to any one, not even me."

"Well, I m blessed! But do you think Mile.
Bosanska knows? Was there not a story of a
quarrel between them in Naples? "

There undoubtedly was a quarrel, and he left
the city, but she followed him within a week. I
am sure she knows where he is, and I think I
have a right to know."

; Do you write to him ? "

"I have written to him; there are important
business matters; I have sent letters to his Paris
address. I have had no answers."

" But what good can come of your going to
Mile. Bosanska? Let me go for you. Oh, no,
I forgot. She would laugh at me. Can t you
send, or, better, why not write? "

" I am going to see her, to look her in the face,
to talk to her."

Philip gazed with some astonishment at Helen.
There was a ring of power in her voice. She had



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 303

risen as if to meet an emergency. That same
afternoon she arrived at Mile. Bosanska s apart
ment. The maid told her that the singer was
lying down, and could see no one.

" Go and tell your mistress that I shall wait
till she gets up," said Helen, and the maid hur
riedly went. Presently she returned and bade
Helen enter the salon and be seated. In a few
minutes Nagy, clad in a loose peignoir, en
tered.

" Madame," she said, " I need hardly apologize
for appearing in this costume. You could not
have expected to wait till I made a toilet."

" I am satisfied to see you as you are, Mile.
Bosanska," said Helen. " I am here to ask you
a pointed question, a very strange and humiliating
question, but I must do it. Where is my hus
band?"

Nagy started as if she had been struck full in
the face.

" My God ! " she cried with anguish unmistak
able in her tone, " I do not know ! "

"You do not know?"



304 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" No. Do you suppose that I would lie to
you now? I do not know where he is. I know
that he is lost to me, and that I still love
him."

Helen rose from her seat, pale and trembling.
* You do not hesitate to tell me, his wife, that
you love him? "

; Why should I ? You know that he and I have
been together; but surely you did not think me a
thing of the gutter ! You may be a proud woman, .
Madame, but your pride is no greater than mine.
I gave myself because of the joy I found in giv
ing."

Helen walked across the room, endeavoring to
grip herself well before answering. When she
felt that she could speak steadily, she returned and
faced Nagy.

" You and I, I fear, cannot stand upon the
same ground in this matter. I am willing to be
lieve that, as you say, you gave yourself for the
sheer joy of giving. So did I. Perhaps that
has not occurred to you."

" Oh, yes; I believe you think you love."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 305

Helen smiled, and for a few moments remained
silent in order that Nagy might, perhaps, gather
the full significance of her next words.

" Can you or any other woman do more than
think she loves ? Are you any surer of your love
than I am of mine, because you know that when
you gave yourself to my husband, you knew it was
not for life?"

There was a keen and stinging significance in
the last clause as Helen uttered it in her clear cool
tones, and Nagy s face flushed.

" How do you know that? I did not think of
it! I just gave myself without any thought ex
cept that I loved him, that I wanted him, that I
wanted passionately to belong to him, and that I
knew that he needed me."

" And, Mile. Bosanska, when I gave myself to
him at the altar, and pledged myself before God
and man to cling to him in life and in death, tabe
one with him through all that this world might
bring to us, I did it wholly and utterly because I
loved him, because I wanted him, because I wanted
passionately to belong to him, because I knew



3 o6 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

that he needed me. And when I gave, I gave my
self to be one woman for one man, never to be
touched by another, to be sacred to him, body and
soul, to be sealed to him by a love which I knew
was to die only when I die."

Nagy stood quite motionless. Her face re
vealed astonishment. She had not thought that
the calmly poised patrician American could have
such feeling.

* You American women cannot understand such
a passion as mine," she said defiantly.

" That is where you are mistaken, Mile. Bo-
sanska. You yourself are a marvelously delicate
and responsive human instrument, but you make
the error of thinking that other instruments are
not responsive, because they do not disclose every
thing. But accept my word for one thing, that
the love which I cherish for my husband contains
everything which makes love noble and sacred.
There is no such thing as a great love without
a great passion. Do you understand me? "

* Yes, Madame, I have more respect for you
than I had. But how is it that if you had this



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 307

splendid passion you could not awaken your hus
band s soul?"

Helen turned away. This, indeed, had been
the question of her own life. How had she
failed? She could not answer. Nagy laughed
aloud and threw herself upon a couch, sitting
proudly as if she were a queen.

* That was reserved for me, Madame. I found
what was hidden from you."

"How, how?" Helen asked the question
eagerly before she had time to reflect.

" That ought, perhaps, to be my secret, ought it
not?" said Nagy maliciously.

" I grant you that. And I am going even
further, Mile. Bosanska. I am going to tell you
that if the quickening of his soul is to be pre
served by the influence of your love, I shall ac
cept a continuance of the situation which began
when he went to South America with you."

Nagy lowered her eyes. She was trying to shut
herself up within her own spirit in order to fathom
the precise significance of this attitude on the part
of Helen. It would never have occurred to Nagy



3 o8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

to give Leander up to another woman for his
own sake. Presently she shrugged her shoulders
and rose from the couch.

" You are a fool," she said in her customary
blunt way to Helen, u but you are a great woman.
But it is all too late. I have told you that I do
not know where he is."

" Am I, then, to understand that your relations
with him are really broken off for all time?"

" You must have known it. You saw him,
faint on the stage in Naples."

" Yes, he had an attack of vertigo. It was
nothing."

Nagy stared at her as one who could not be
lieve her own senses.

" Madame, your husband fainted because he saw
your face in a box. He repulsed me from that
instant. He refused to remain with me. He fled
from Naples. He was as a man awakened from
a dream. He was no longer under my sway.
His spirit, which I had aroused from its slumber,
had grown too strong for me to control. But he
dared not look you in the face. He fled from



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 309

both of us. I do not know where he has gone.
But of one thing I am sure, and that is that he is
not happy."

" He repulsed you?"

" He spurned me not in hot anger, but in cool
thought. He even thanked me for what I had
done for him."

Nagy s bitterness in saying these last words
was intense. Helen was lost in astonishment.
Leander had broken with the Hungarian. Then
the quarrel was because he had looked into her own
face. He was shamed, yes, that was it. But
that was not enough to account for everything.
However ashamed he might be, he would not have
abandoned Nagy for that reason. They would
have gone together. They could always sing to
gether. There was not an opera house in all
Europe which would not welcome them. Helen
stood silent in profound reflection. Then a light
slowly dawned in her eyes. She looked at Nagy,
who was watching her through those half-closed
lids. She walked up to the Hungarian and
grasped her by the arm.



3 io THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" He has ceased to love you? " she whispered.

" I will tell you what no other woman could
have influenced me to tell. I will tell you, because
you shall see that you have been a blind fool, a
senseless creature, holding in the hollow of your
hand a great, sleeping heart, and not knowing
what to do with it. Leander never loved me.
He told me that, and then fled."

Helen released the gipsy s arm and threw her
hands over her own eyes.

" I am not too late, I am not too late. He
does not love her."

She uncovered her face, and for a moment the
two women stood gazing searchingly at one an
other. Then Helen held out her hand.

" Au revoir, Mile. Bosanska. Perhaps, after
all, I am your debtor."

Nagy ignored the hand.

" Au revoir, Madame," she said. " Try to
make more of your opportunities."

And Helen departed, still ignorant of Leander s
whereabouts, but with a new feeling of sweet hope
in her heart.



CHAPTER XXII

\ MAN of tall stature, bronzed by exposure
* *- to the summer sun, was standing in deep
contemplation on the ragged summit of the Ten-
gerszem-Csucs. From his eyrie more than eight
thousand feet high he gazed silently upon the stu
pendous panorama spread below him. Little
shining lakes, laughing streamlets, noble pines,
mighty rocks, and broad expanses of billowing
grass made the imposing picture. The man was
clad in a walking-garb, for he had tramped many
miles through the enchanted region, filled with
gipsy lore. He had pondered on many things.
His beard had grown straggly, and his eyes had
sunk under his cleanly marked brows. Now he
had climbed up from the shore of the Lake* of
Csorba, refusing the help of a guide, and was rest
ing while he held commune with his soul.

A great change had come over him. The
smiling, confident, uplifted face of Leandro Baroni

3"



312 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

had taken on a new expression. The proud chal
lenge of his eyes was gone. In its place there
was a great introspectiveness. He was as one to
whom the whole exterior world contributed new
ideas. He himself was hardly conscious of the
extent of his development. He nursed a secret
sorrow, of which the chief basis was self-accusa
tion. But of the effect of that sorrow upon his
own personality he was not wholly aware.

When he had fled from Naples he had gone
into the seclusion of a little town, Salo by name,
on the west shore of the matchless Lago di Garda.
There he had stayed under the strange spell of a
crushing numbness. He had felt as one stricken
by a heavy physical blow. But the enchantment
of the vineyards and the sunny days had slowly
melted him. He had turned his face to the north.
A fussy little steamboat, squat, puffing, grimy, and
crowded with grimy, squat men and women, had
carried him to Riva, and thence a rocking and
bounding little railway train, stifling with its own
smoke, to Mori. With hardly any definite aim,
he moved still to the north, but the wistful call of



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 313

Bozen halted him. And there the eloquence of
the mountains for the first time reached his soul.
He went up in the inclined railway to Oberbozen.
He had no clear purpose in going, but the oratory
of the portier at the Kaiserkrone fairly drove him
to the journey. And there he saw Rosengarten,
that grand prince of Dolomites, with its crown of
auburn flaming into rose-red in the rays of the
sinking sun. He sat on the terrace of the little
hotel and gazed at the picture. He had seen
mountains often, but only with the external vision.
They had been pleasant to look at, effective vari
ations in rock and snow, but had said nothing to
him. Now a strange influence worked upon him,
and he became absorbed. A waiter hovered
around him, and with a start he realized that he
was doing something unheard of, occupying a
seat in a restaurant and asking for nothing. He
ordered coffee, and when it had been placed before
him, he forgot it.

"What is it?" he asked himself. "Why
should that massive shoulder of the earth, spring
ing square against the liquid sky, move me with



314 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

an emotion? What is the emotion? Why have
I never known it before? What has happened to
me?"

He watched the colors turn dull on Rosengarten.
He stayed at the little hotel to take his dinner,
and it was on the last train that he went down to
Bozen again, and back to the Kaiserkrone.

The Herr has enjoyed the visit, not true?"
said the portier. " It was well that I spoke of it,
was it not? "

" I shall remember your excellent advice when
I am leaving," said Leander.

The next day he started for Vienna. He had a
conviction that in the Austrian capital in the sum
mer he could escape the eyes of acquaintances.
He had allowed his beard to grow, and he had
become richly sunburned. He dressed himself
inconspicuously. He took lodgings in an obscure
hotel garni, and ate in restaurants not frequented
by the tourists or the people of the musical world.
He spent his time chiefly in the libraries and art
galleries, and endeavored to recover habits of
study laid aside since university days, but it was



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 315

not easy. The mind, accustomed to facile methods,
balked at honest labor. But the strange new
force, which was at work within him, drove him
mercilessly. He shut his teeth and bowed him
self over his tasks. He was trying for the first
time in his life to grasp the meaning of Art. He
was trying to find out what were the real purposes
and principles of it. He gathered to himself all
that seemed likely to throw light upon it, from
Plato to Nietzsche. He slowly regained the
elasticity of his mind. Then he read omnivo-
rously and swiftly. And slowly the scales fell
from his eyes.

" I have been blind and deaf, and I had better
have been also dumb," he said to himself. " I
have thought myself great when I was but a child s
rattle. I have had fine titles for my doings. I
must first of all learn to swallow the words of
Zarathustra : * Let thy virtue be too high for the
familiarity of names; if thou hast to speak of it,
be not afraid to stammer. Ah, even that is not
enough. First I must try to acquire some virtue.
Where? How?"



3 i6 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

And so it came about that the restless desire
of his spirit sent him once more into the moun
tains, and, as if by instinct, he wandered into the
Hohe Tatra, and to the border of that lake beside
which Nagy s first lover had shot himself at the
door of her empty tent. Here he came finally
upon a revelation of the meaning of Nagy Bo-
sanska in his life. Upon this he pondered again
and again, and as he stood upon the summit of
the Tengerszem-Csucs, he was thinking of that
marvelous woman.

" Oh, the wonder of it all," he thought; " the
wonder of it! How was it that she and I sang
together season after season, and yet the firewood
lay cold upon the hearth-stones of life? Then
without warning the torch was applied, and this
great and glorious spirit gave its immortal flame
to mine? Nagy said that Goethe was nothing but
a poet when he wrote that the woman soul lead-
eth us upward and on, but he spoke eternal truth.
And now I know that without her, she whom most
of the silly creatures of a blind world would call
the incarnation of Kipling s Vampire, I never



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 317

could know and never could understand. It was
Nagy who boasted that she would awaken my
soul. I was a blind man, and suddenly the sun
fell upon my sight. And I saw a vision. I saw
the face of the one woman. It smote me to the
earth. It was Nagy who had led me to the height
from which* I could see. I have lived in a dream.
Helen, my wife, was right when she told me that I
was possessed of self. And the furnace fires of
an earthly passion have burned away this dross
from my soul. God forgive me; I am as a thistle
blown by the wind. But the future shall be dif
ferent."

And he went down to Csorba s shore again, and
there he met Karl Zichy. It was the next after
noon, and Leander was musing in the depths of
the woods. Without thought he began to sing, at
first softly, and then more loudly. He sang from
memory and imperfectly " Wie bist du meine
Konigin." He seated himself upon the trunk of a
fallen tree, and fell again into thought. He did
not hear a light footstep near him, and looked up
in surprise when a low voice addressed him.



3i8 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" Pardon me, but was it not you I heard sing
ing?"

Leander saw before him a short spare old man
with a seamed face, and deep, searching eyes, set
under a broad high forehead. It was a face
which indicated power and thought. Leander was
less ready to repulse his fellow men than he had
been. He answered gently, but with some re
serve:

You are right; I did venture to sing. I
thought I should not disturb any one here."

" I should not say that I was disturbed, but
rather interested. You were singing Brahms, but
pardon me not quite correctly."

* You are right," responded Leander with a
smile. " I have never studied the song. I was
only trying to recall it from memory. I once
heard a woman sing it marvelously."

" I have never heard any lieder singer deliver
it marvelously."

This was not a lieder singer, and she would
not sing it in public. She sang Brahms only in
private. She was an opera singer."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 319

" There have been two great opera singers who
could also sing Brahms," said the little old man;
" Sembrich and Lehmann."

" I do not mean either. I speak of Nagy Bo-
sanska, the Hungarian soprano."

" You know our Nagy Bosanska? " said the old
man. His glance kindled and his head was
proudly lifted.

" I have heard her sing Wie bist du meine
Konigin. "

" Pardon me. You interest me much. Will
you allow me an old man s privilege? I am
called Karl Zichy. I was a protege of our great
Hungarian conductor, Seidl. I have lived much
in the atmosphere of Bayreuth, where the name
of Brahms is not spoken. But I have also lived
much in Vienna. I am that strange thing, a musi
cian whose two gods are Wagner and Brahms.
Possibly you will bear with me further if I>say
to you that you have a wonderful voice, and that
you sang like a singer."

" I am a singer," said Leander slowly and
heavily; "just that and nothing more."



320 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

"Pardon me yet once again; but if you know
this, you are already something more."

" I stand on the borders of knowledge, that is
all."

Leander relapsed into silence, and seemed to
have lost himself again in his musing. But pres
ently he looked up and saw that Zichy was still
standing there, regarding him closely.

* You have said that you grew up in the atmos
phere of Bayreuth," said Leander. " Would you,
be willing to discuss some Wagnerian subjects with
me?"

Willingly, since you are interested in them."

They dined together that evening, and in the
reflective period of the after-dinner cigar Le
ander said:

" Mr. Zichy, I am hiding here under my real
name, Lee Barrett. It may be, however, that
you will not know my stage name. It is Leandro
Baroni."

Zichy smiled, and, leaning forward, studied
the tenor s face closely.

" I have heard you sing twice, Mr. Barrett,"



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 321

said he; " but you do not resemble the Romeo or
the Don Jose whom I saw."

" I ask you now," continued Leander, " whether
your engagements are pressing for the present."

" I have none at all."

Then will you take me as a pupil? I wish to
study the great dramas and the great German
songs. I find in you the mind which can lead



mine."



Zichy gazed at him thoughtfully for several
seconds.

" It will be a great opportunity," he said softly.
" Mr. Barrett, I will enter into a contract with
you gladly. I believe that you can become very
great."

" I do not wish to be great any more," said
Leander, shaking his head; " I have suffered too
much of that greatness. I desire now to be an
artist. I have come to see that the creator is he
who is great, not the interpreter. But I have
learned that I have a solemn duty to perform, and
that this voice was given to me for the purpose
of performing it. I have been unfaithful to my



322 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

trust, Mr. Zichy. But it is not too late. And a
woman has shown me the way to the truth. She
offered me the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and
I did eat."

Zichy made no comment on this speech. He
was too old and too wise to ask for confidences.
He was well aware that in good time he would
learn the history of Leander s spiritual life. So
on the next day the two men started for Buda-
Pesth, where they were to pass the winter in se
clusion and study. Day by day Leander s respect
for the aged Hungarian grew. Zichy was not
merely a musician, but a philosopher and a
scholar. He opened up to Leander the whole
meaning of the Wagnerian drama. Before the
winter had passed the tenor had read the great
epics upon which Wagner built, and saturated
himself with their poetic spirit. But his most rapt
hours were those in which Zichy labored with
him over the masterpieces of Schubert, Brahms,
and the other great song writers. He felt that
in them he would find basic truth. One day in
January, while they were sitting by the piano,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 323

Leander suddenly bowed his head as though
ashamed to look squarely at Zichy, and said:

" I used to try to sing Lohengrin. *

Zichy made no answer, but waited for Leander
to go on.

" And I was applauded enthusiastically for my
delivery of the narrative in the last scene. Zichy,
I think if one sang that rightly there would be no
applause, only a great silence, as there is after the
first act of * Parsifal. "

" Perhaps, my dear Baroni, you expect too
much of a facile public. But one, at any rate,
should try to sing it that way."

When I sang it I was always thinking of my
own success. Zichy, a woman told me that I was
the slave of my ego, and I spurned her for it.
But every day, every hour now I see more clearly
that she was right in everything she told me, and
that I was a blind fool, with my face against the
mirror of my own conceit."

* This woman of whom you have spoken to me
was a great one. How is it that you left her? "

" I have spoken to you of two women. One



3 2 4 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

was my wife. The other was a glorious artist,
a breathing incarnation of passion and self-forget-
fulness, a flame of temperament, a pealing voice
of universal expression."

" And it was, of course, this second woman who
gave you of the fruit of the tree of knowledge."

" Which the other woman had offered me also,
but from her I would not take it, because she was
too great for me to understand. The artist taught
me to comprehend, and now I know that I shall
never reach even the feet of my wife."

Leander arose and tramped restlessly up and
down the room, while Zichy sat by the piano and
watched him. But presently an idea came to the
aged musician, and he began to play softly the
music prefatory to the narrative of Lohengrin.
Leander stopped short in his walk, and at the
proper instant began to sing softly:

"In fernem Land, unnahbar euren Schritten,
Liegt eine Burg, die Monsalvat genannt." 1

As he continued he sang with more tone, but
always with a feeling of reverence, of aloofness



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 325

from his surroundings. When he came to the
end, Zichy dropped his hands from the piano and
said:

" I am sure that is not the way you used to
sing it."

" I do not think so; I hope not; I am not cer
tain of myself."

; We shall study it, and you shall learn to sing
it always that way," said Zichy, and then Le-
ander knew that he had at last found the meaning
of the scene. And presently Zichy spoke again:

" I am sorry that your voice is a little too high
for Tannhauser."

"I am glad," said Leander; "I do not wish
to sing the part. I am Tannhauser."

It was in the month of June that the two
men left Buda-Pesth and traveled westward.



CHAPTER XXIII

F I ^HERE was nothing new to Leander in
* Munich, yet everything was strange. He
had walked through both Pinakotheks and the
Glyptothek, and had loitered in the Schalk gal
lery in the unregenerate days when his thought
was centered upon his own voice, but now, in the
company of Zichy, he retrod the old paths, and at
every step made discoveries. They spent two
weeks in the Bavarian capital, and in that time
Leander continued to expand. Not only did his
intellect stretch itself and gather strength, but his
heart continued to open and make room for the
human side of life. And as it did so, he under
stood better and better the measureless breadth
and depth of the hearts of two women. After
the two weeks in Munich he and Zichy went to
Interlaken and saturated themselves with the early
summer splendors of the Jungfrau. Leander had

removed his beard and restored himself as nearly

326



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 327

as possible to his former appearance. But still he
escaped meeting acquaintances. And it was in In-
terlaken that a letter from his Paris agent found
him.

" Zichy," he said; " I shall go back."

"To New York?"

Yes, the Metropolitan is calling me still, and
this time I shall not refuse. You will go with
me?"

Yes, if you desire it. I have never been in
America."

" I desire it, and I need you. We have still
much to study together."

In mid- July they were in Zermatt. And here
Leander was seized with a great hunger to walk to
the Gornergrat.

u My dear friend, this is not for me," said
Zichy with a smile. " You will give me leave to
go in the train."

" We shall meet at the Riffelalp," said Lean
der; " I shall abandon the walk there and ride
with you."

For once there was no curtain of jealous mist



328 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

to shut the glories of the mountains from the sight
of men. Leander set off early in the morning in
a magnificent blaze of sheer sunshine. A brilliant
pyramid of ivory, the frowning Matterhorn, bold
est and strongest of peaks, stood out a dazzling
spire against a sapphire sky and the Riffelalp
Hotel hung clear and close in the transparent air
on the heights above the village. Leander strode
away, filled with the joy of living. The spiritual
depression which had hung upon him for so long
a time had left him. In that pure and holy atmos
phere the mean dross of life shrank away. He
sang in his soul as he climbed the slopes to the
Riffelalp, which he reached before the middle of
the day. The train followed close upon his heels,
and Zichy dismounted. Then, when he had spied
Leander, they secured seats together, and went
onward to the Gornergrat. They stood in the
very eyrie of peak and glacier. And as they stood,
another man moved along the levels just behind
them. They took no notice of him, for tourists
were always plenty at the Gornergrat.

But this man saw Leander and started. It was



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 329

Philip Studley, who had arrived in Zermatt the
previous night, and had hastened to the Gorner-
grat with the first morrow. He was astonished
to see Leander, and still more so when he noted
the indescribable, but unmistakable alteration in
the expression of his face. He hesitated, debat
ing whether he should advance and make his
presence known. He decided that it would be
wiser not to do so. He felt that, after all, he
had no right to thrust himself upon the tenor s
privacy. But he could not help watching the
singer, and the conviction grew upon him that a
deep change of some sort had taken place. He
saw the venerable man with Leander speak to him,
and he observed that the singer bent his head and
listened with a deeply thoughtful air. Then he
saw Leander catch up the thread of the conversa
tion and stretch out his arm in a noble and com
manding gesture. It was evident that the tenbr
spoke of the majestic scene upon which he and
his companion were gazing, and it was equally
plain that the younger man s eloquence was not
without its weight for the older one. At the very



330 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

moment, when Philip was most absorbed in watch
ing the two, Leander was quoting Zichy:

" Spirit of Nature, here!

In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple. "

" Whose lines are those? " asked the old Hun
garian.

" An English poet s, Shelley by name. A Hun
garian gipsy taught me to read him."

And Zichy knew that he was thinking again of
Nagy Bosanska. Philip watched the two till they
were ready to descend again to Zermatt. He kept
himself out of their range of observation, and en
tered the train without being seen by them. He
permitted them to leave the terminus in advance
of himself, and took his way to his hotel without
being discovered. In the evening he sat in his
room, reflecting on the change which he had noted
in the tenor. He attributed it to the sobering ef
fect of experience, but inevitably failed to meas
ure it at its true value. While he was thus en-



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 331

gaged in thought, there came to him the voice of
a man singing softly, and he recognized the rich
mezza voce of Baroni. He could not identify
the song, because he could not hear enough of it.
But he was certain that the singer was not far
away. His curiosity was sufficient to cause him
to try to hear more. He went to the window and
listened a moment, endeavoring to determine the
direction from ^vhich the tones came. He found
that the tenor and his companion were sitting on
a small balcony just below his window. He leaned
out, feeling that, even if that singular sense which
detects the propinquity of another person, moved
either of them to look up, he would not be recog
nized in the dim light. The singing had now
ceased, and the men were conversing in low tones.
Presently Baroni s companion raised his voice
enough to permit Philip to hear a sentence.

" You ought to give recitals. Your interpreta
tions of Brahms should not be lost to the world."

" There is one who can interpret him far better
than I," replied the tenor.

And then their voices sank again, so that Philip



332 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

could not distinguish their words. But he under
stood immediately that Leander spoke of Nagy.
And he smiled a rather grim smile as he recalled
his own endeavor to impress upon her the im
portance of her lieder singing. A few moments
passed in silence, and then Leander began again
to sing softly. The music drifted upward to
Philip s ears, and his memory easily supplied the
words, which were dear to him :

"<Wie bist du meine Konigin,
Durch sanfte Giite wonnevoll!
Du lach le nur Lenzdufte weh n
Durch mein Gemtite wonnevoll. "

His memory brought back to him the deep
passion of Nagy s delivery, and he found him
self noting with amazement in the tenor s sup
pressed delivery a similar intensity, a wealth of
color and nuance, which he had never heard in
Leander s singing on the stage. He shook his
head.

" A marvelous woman, that gipsy soprano," he
said to himself. " She has found the gateway
to his musical soul and opened it. What if, in



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 333

doing so, she has changed the whole man? My
dear Helen ! It may be that he will yet come to
see her true worth."

The next morning he learned that Leander
and his companion had gone down to Visp on their
way to the West. And later in the same day he
read in a London newspaper in the hotel reading-
room that the tenor had accepted a new con
tract with the Metropolitan Opera House.



CHAPTER XXIV

t" I "A HE Italian restaurant was reeking with its
accustomed collection of odors. The wait
ers were sweating and the eaters were coiling
spaghetti around their forks with the callous in
difference of long habit. There was the familiar
intermingling of persons belonging to two worlds
the artistic and the inartistic. There were long
haired painters with broad, limp neckties and ex
ceedingly loose coats. There were lean and pallid
magazine specialists, whose eager faces seemed to
be peering into every corner in search of some
thing to expose. But the most conspicuous per
sons were the little company of opera singers, of
whom Madeleine Piroux and Ponitzky were the
stars, while Tremontini and La Feramordi, sup
ported by the judicious Abadista, believed that
they were the real luminaries.

" Clever of our able impresario to hold off the

334



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 335

reappearance of Baroni till Wednesday night, was
it not?" remarked Tremontini.

" It seems so," said Ponitzky. " Every one
wishes to hear him again, but, of course, the Mon
day night houses are all sold out anyhow."

" But," interposed Madeleine, " that is not the
reason at all."

" Ah," exclaimed Feramordi sarcastically,
" then you tell it to us."

" I am going to," responded the adorable
French soprano calmly; " it seems that he wished
Baroni to sing Lohengrin on the opening night,
but that Baroni was bent on making his reappear
ance in a new role, Tristan."

" Oh, well, of course he had to give him his
way," said Ponitzky.

" Yes," said Tremontini, " but what on earth
has possessed Baroni to take up German roles?
Is his voice failing, do you suppose? "

" Why, he always sang Lohengrin and Wal-
ther," said Abadista.

" Yes, he sang them in all three languages, but
they are sung by every tenor in these days. But



336 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

when you come to Tristan and the Siegfrieds, it
is a somewhat different matter, isn t it?" said
Tremontini. * You know they tried once to get
me to study that diabolical Alberich, but I drew
the line at that. Wolfram von Eschenbach was
quite enough for me."

" And where the deuce was Baroni all the time,
anyhow? " asked Ponitzky.

Well, no one seems to know. I have heard
that he was in the Far East," said Abadista, who
prided himself on knowing everything; " but there
is no telling. Only one thing is certain, and that
is that he disappeared from the surface of Europe
and did not sing for more than a year."

" It was after his break with our divine Nagy,
was it not?" asked Feramordi. "Really, she
must have had a ruinous effect upon him."

" I wonder," murmured Madeleine.

" Have you been at any Tristan rehearsals? "
inquired Ponitzky of Abadista.

" Yes," he answered; "but Baroni does not
sing. He merely mumbles. There seems to be a
good understanding between him and Kraft."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 337

"Well," declared Feramordi, "the whole
thing is impossible. Baroni has the most beau
tiful tenor voice in the world, that is granted, and
he has a perfect technique; but he has no soul
and no intelligence. His Faust and Romeo were
always pretty, but nothing else, and his Don Jose
was ridiculous. Such a man cannot even suspect
what is in Tristan."

" I wonder," murmured Madeleine again.

The astonishment of the opera singers over the
announcement that Baroni would make his re
appearance as Tristan was truly professional. It
had its compensations, based upon a sweet and
secret trust that all would be ill. Perhaps only
Madeleine cherished a belief in the tenor. The
others patiently and serenely awaited the hour of
his downfall. They knew well that, as La Fera
mordi had said, Baroni s voice and exquisite tonal
technique would carry him far, but they also knew
that these would not carry him through the third
act of the great Wagnerian love drama. He
might manage to delude an audience in the first
two; but in the third there could be no deception.



338 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

But what the opera singers felt in regard to the
new departure was a trifle compared to what others
felt. The opera-going public was deeply annoyed.
For some years it had cherished the belief that
here, at least, was one singer who would not be
afflicted with the Wagner insanity, who would con
tinue to make frequent the presentation of
" Faust," " Romeo et Juliette," " Carmen," and
" Ai da." Yet now, after having robbed them of
his presence for two years, he returned with the
announcement that he, too, was going to become
a " Wagnerian interpreter." It was almost too
much to bear. But still one really had to hear
him, and, of course, it would be interesting to see
him in a new costume, and with a beard yes, peo
ple said that he would wear a beard in Tristan.
Fancy Baroni trying to look like a sort of wild
Norseman. Wasn t Tristan a Norseman? Any
how, he sailed in a ship such as Norsemen used.

Helen, the wife, sat at home and pondered.
She was troubled to her heart s core. She had
believed that Leander s return to New York meant
that he was returning to her; but as yet he had



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 339

made no sign. The publication of the news that
he was to reappear as Tristan had moved her.
She felt that it had a significance. She hazarded
the guess that it was Leander s purpose to disclose
in the beginning of his renewed labors at the
Metropolitan that he had put away childish things,
that he had found something more in his art than
the glorification of Self. She dared even to think
that, with the subjugation of his egotism to his
art would come a renewal of his feeling for her,
or, rather, that he might at any rate be willing
to face duty. And so she sat and waited and
waited, but nothing happened. Leander did not
communicate with her directly or indirectly. But
she was determined to be present at the perform
ance of " Tristan und Isolde. "

At the last rehearsal of the drama, Mrs. Har-
ley Manners was among those present. She
bustled from seat to seat in her customary brislc
style, prattling vivaciously and saying all sorts of
priceless nothings. It was not till after the first
act, however, that she spied Philip Studley, who
was rising from his seat to go out.



340 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

" What! " she said; " going away so soon? "
Yes," he answered; " I thought that, perhaps,
I might get a line on the performance from this
rehearsal, so that I could get something up in ad
vance, but Mr. Baroni is merely walking through
the part, and not giving any clew to his impersona
tion."

" Oh, do you think that? " she said suddenly,
almost breathless with a new idea; "I thought
that he was doing it just as he intends to on
Wednesday evening."

" No, I am positive that it will not be any
thing of this sort. Mr. Baroni has not been idle
in the two years he has been away, especially the
last year. He has been studying. I happen to
know that. You will see that he has ideas."

" You amaze me," declared Mrs. Harley Man
ners. " I know that he sings divinely, but I sup
posed that it was impossible for him to sing this
part. Indeed, only one man has ever sung it, you
know."

" Yes, I know," replied Philip, smiling; " but I
think we are going to hear the second."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 341

" I am delighted. Of course, I am going to
be here. You know, I never miss a performance
of Tristan und Isolde, and with Mme. Olbaum
as Isolde and Mme. Massliebchen as Brangane,
not to speak of Herr Zollecoffer as Kurvenal, it
is sure to be an interesting evening, even if Baroni
is too well, too nice."

Nagy Bosanska went to no rehearsals. She had
nodded her beautiful head and smiled out of her
sea-green eyes, when she read that Baroni would
sing Tristan. She sat in the soft light of her
apartment and communed with herself.

" And so the prophecy of Nagy Bosanska, the
gipsy, is brought to its fulfilment by Nagy Bo
sanska, the woman."

She leaned back and laughed a little, and then
there were tears in her eyes.

" The splendid Baroni ! He was such a child
when I took him away from his fool of a wife.
And now he is a man, and he and I could rule the
world together, but I have lost my power. And
he will go back to the good domestic love, and be
an honest breadwinner for his family. Ah, but I



342 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

talk nonsense. I know that I lie. I lie to salve
my own wound. Baroni will be great. The
gipsy has said it, and it is true."

Nagy had not come through it all unscathed.
Fierce and fiery as her nature was, she was, in
spite of herself, a woman. She had been sent into
the world a born polygamist, and she had learned
to look that hard fact squarely in the eyes. But
the inspection was not altogether pleasing to her.
She knew that the waning and leaping of the
immortal flame within her, waning and leaping
even as the flame on Hunding s hearth-stone, were
more splendid than the soft glow of the farthing
rushlight which guided so many excellent women
from the altar to the grave ; but, none the less, she
had reached the period when she felt that life s
wanderlust should be over. She would have liked
to settle down to a somewhat wayward imitation
of domestic existence, a finale of life composed in
an adagio, but appassionato. Leander might have
been the companion of this happy state. But here
for once her insight had failed her.

She had dreamed that she would mould him to



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 343

her own ends, and he had risen to her level only
to obtain a wider and keener view of his own per
sonality. She had taught him her runes, even as
Brunnhilde taught Siegfried, and the result was
that he left her. She had lost track of him in
the year following their separation. If she had
known that he had visited the Lake of Csorba and
digested there the spiritual food which she had
given him, she would have understood still better
the impossibility of any future between them. For
Nagy had the wisdom of a serpent, and she would
have interpreted rightly that pilgrimage of Lean-
der to the spot where her own strange life had
begun. And if she had known all that, she would
have interpreted much more accurately the new de
parture in his public career. She had prophesied
that he would become great; but she did not know
how much of humility he had acquired, how much
of the simple faith of intellectual honesty.

As for Leander himself, he attended the neces
sary rehearsals and remained away from the
opera house as much as possible. He went for
long walks, and at other times buried himself in



344 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

study. Part of each day was spent at the piano
with Zichy by his side. Sometimes they pored
over passages in the score, striving to correlate
them correctly with the drama as a whole, and
again they read page after page in the prose writ
ings of the master. All of this they had done
over and over again in Europe, but there was
scarcely a day in which Leander did not find more
intimate revelations of the profound meaning of
Wagner. And to convey that to his audience was
his whole aim.

At any rate, he thought it was. Deep down in
his heart there was an undefined purpose, which
he would not have dared to fashion into words.
He did not venture even to confront it, but rather
strove to deceive himself as to its very existence.
But every night when he was alone in his room,
before going to bed he gazed long and intently
at a small portrait of a woman which he carried
in his pocket during the day. And, as he gazed,
a great tenderness and worship would come into
his eyes, and sometimes even a moisture.

When the eventful Wednesday evening arrived



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 345

the opera house was packed. Even the standing
room behind the orchestra rail was crowded. It
was a curious assemblage, but perfectly character
istic. Two-thirds of the people in the house were
there to hear Baroni in a new role. Even the in
disputable fact that he was going to sing in one of
those long, dreary Wagner music dramas, in which
he would not be able to lean over the footlights
and hurl a high B flat at the gallery, even that tre
mendous and dispiriting fact did not suffice to keep
the old Baroni enthusiasts at home. The other
third of the audience was composed of all sorts
and conditions of men and women, among whom
was a fair sprinkling of real lovers of Wagner s
immortal hymn of love.

Helen sat in the orchestra circle on the left,
and not far from the stage. She had chosen a
seat where she herself would be inconspicuous, but
from which she could watch Leander s faee.
While the orchestra was playing the tumultuous
prelude, she began to wish that she had not come.
Tremors, first hot and then cold, pursued one an
other through her limbs. At moments she felt



346 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

faint, and her head swam. She began to realize
all that this new departure might mean in its
effect on Baroni s future success, and she was seized
with a great fear. She clasped her hands in her
lap so tightly that it pained her. She shut her
teeth with grim determination. She must, she
must know what this thing meant. Why had Le-
ander essayed Tristan? And that was what she
had to know.

The curtain rose, and the song of the sailor
floated down from aloft. Helen did not even
hear it. All her senses were crowded into a fierce
eagerness for the first sight of Leander. She
leaned forward in her seat, waiting for the cry of
Isolde for air, when Brangane would draw back
the curtains of the tent and disclose the stern
of the ship. And as she leaned forward a woman
sitting in an upper box on the opposite side of the
house also leaned forward and saw her. It was
Nagy. And the bold gipsy, too, was pale and
eager, and she, too, was holding herself in a
mighty grip ; for she throbbed with nervous anxiety
for the man she had loved, and to whom she was



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 347

still drawn by a subtle power. She saw Helen, and
caught her breath with a quick short sigh. She
divined all that the wife was feeling. Helen did
not see Nagy. Her eyes were fixed immovably
on the stage. At length the organ tones of Mme.
Olbaum pealed the cry for air, and the curtains
glided back, showing the poop deck. Leander
was an imposing figure as he stood on the plat
form. Motionless and portentous he was with
his towering height and his broad shoulders. And
his eyes had a wonderful look. Webster said to
himself that they were like the eyes of Niemann.

" Looks well, doesn t he? " whispered the man
behind Helen. " I didn t suppose that senti
mental fellow could get himself up like that."

Helen stared at her husband, and a hot mist
came over her eyes. She had not seen him for
nearly two years, and in an instant she detected
a change. She knew that it was a larger man
hood that confronted her. With all her soul she
listened when the Kurvenal said, " Botschaft von
Isolde," and Leander opened his lips for the first
words, "Was ist s? Isolde?" His tones were



348 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

equable, thin, cutting, his poise untroubled, his
gaze unmoved. He was the incarnation of trained
coldness. An imperceptible chill went through
the house. It was the first grip of the new Tris
tan. Helen thrilled to her heart s core, for she
recognized power. When the tent curtains were
closed again upon the riotous outbreak of Kur-
venal, she sank back with a slight feeling of
fatigue. Leander had preserved that deadly and
imperious coldness throughout the first scene.
Even his golden voice had taken on a ring of steel.
Helen hardly heard the great scene between Isolde
and Brangane. She waited for the entrance of
Tristan. At length he came, slowly, almost
majestically, striding between the opened curtains
of the tent, while under Kraft s magic the orchestra
sang the tremendous measures of the entrance mu
sic. What had happened to Leandro Baroni?
People all over the house were beginning to realize
that this incursion into a new field was not some
thing to create the idle chatter of a passing hour.
Baroni looked every inch the mighty hero of the
antique epic. But still that steely voice continued,



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 349

the expression of the spirit mightily controlled.
Presently, however, came a profound, but subtle,

change.

" War Morold dir so werth,

Nun wieder nimm das Schwert,

Und fiihr es sicher und fest

Dass du nicht dir s entfallen lasst.

In these lines the color of the voice changed,
and there was for the first time a shadow of
vibrato. The iron Tristan had been moved. It
was a little touch of something like genius. Those
who could discern it sat up straight in their seats.
Was this the old-time Baroni? Still more did the
tenor open up the turmoil of the knight s heart
when he accepted the proffered cup and prepared
to drink what he believed to be a draught of death.
And then followed the pantomimic agony of love s
outbreak, the shattering of the bonds of honor.
And with the long deep-breathed sigh of " Isolde,"
Baroni suddenly let loose the whole richness of*his
vocal color, and chanted in one word something of
the eternal mystery of passion which he had
learned. Helen almost cried out when she heard
that utterance. It was not the old self-conscious



350 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Leander, but a new creation, an artist lost in
the splendor of his art.

Still, the audience did not grasp the full mean
ing of it. The message of this Tristan was yet
to be spread through all the house. With the
second act there came an impression such as the
Metropolitan had not known in years. Helen
herself almost forgot for a moment that it was
Leander to whom she was listening. The delivery
of the duet, " O sink hernieder," by him and
Mme. Olbaum, was something never to be forgot
ten, but it was not then that this Tristan affected
his hearers most. This was not far removed from
the style of triumph which the great Baroni had
so often enjoyed. But after the entrance of King
Mark and the false Melot, then there was an ut
terance of such heartrending pathos, such a
probing of the very bottom of the human soul,
that men and women in various parts of the house
were visibly moved. It came with that agoniz
ing speech beginning:

" Wohin nun Tristan scheidet
Willst du, Isold , ihm folgen? "



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 351

Helen shook in her chair and struggled with all
the resources of her will to master the mighty
waves of emotion which welled up within her.
She knew that there were people not far away who
recognized her, and she would not have had them
detect her feelings. She turned as pale as death,
and when the curtain had fallen she went out into
the corridor, and then out into the lobby, where
she inhaled long breaths of cold air. Meanwhile
the house was seething. Men and women were
applauding, and the name of " Baroni, Baroni,"
rang through the place. But Leander s attitude
was one of dignified modesty. His deference to
the superb Olbaum, who had given the audience
an Isolde fit to stand beside his Tristan, was
marked. Finally the acclamations ceased, and
people poured out into the corridors. There was
a great buzzing of comment.

" Good thing for that fellow Baroni to* go
abroad and study a couple of years, wasn t it?"
said one of the wise ones; "wonder where he
worked."

" I hear he picked up some old beggar from



352 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

Bayreuth who used to be with Wagner," said the
other, " and this old chap has coached him up in
all this sort of thing."

; Well, a rattling good job, too, isn t it? You
know he almost makes the devilish stuff inter
esting."

Helen managed to slip back into her seat, while
the wise ones were talking to one another in the
corridor. And then came the last act. And with
it came the deluge. What Leander had done be-,
fore was plainly seen to be preparation for this.
Gaunt, hollow-cheeked, heavy-eyed, he lay upon
the couch of pain and poured out the misery of his
soul in such poignant accents of grief and despair
as that hardened auditorium had never heard be
fore. And when at last he sprang to his feet in
the delirious vision of the ship, and tore the
bandage from his wound, one vast sigh and shud
der swept through the house. The piercing agony
of his tones was almost more than the audience
could endure. Helen fell back in her seat, and
made no attempt to hide the tears which streamed
down her cheeks. And then the death and the



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 353

sublime Pax vobiscum of Isolde, sung majestically
by the great Olbaum. Men and women with one
accord said, as they left the theater, that it was the
greatest performance of the drama ever heard in
New York, and that Baroni had proved himself
to be the foremost heroic tenor in the world.

" Zichy," said Leander, when they were alone
after the performance, " do you think they felt it,
that they were moved by the drama ? "

" My dear boy," said Zichy, swallowing hard
and blinking his eyes, " I know they did. I wish
the Master could have lived for this night."

" You think he would have been pleased? "

" He would have given his right hand to get
such a Tristan."

For answer Leander suddenly dropped into a
chair and shook with dry sobs.

" What is it, my dear friend? What is it? "

The tenor looked up with a fathomless sorcow
in his expression.

" Zichy," he said, " I saw my wife s face for an
instant to-night. My God! What have I done
with my life? "



CHAPTER XXV

F I ^HE morning after the performance Leander
-*- awoke with a dull, listless feeling. After
all, what did this spiritual progress bring him?
He was fully aware that he had risen. He had
thrilled through every fiber of his being on the
previous night with the consciousness that he was
at last a true servant of his art. But this morn
ing he lay in his bed wondering if, after all, it was
worth while. For, knowing that he had done
something uplifting, that he had poured out all
that was best in his resurrected soul, he still felt
that his life was floating upon the wayward tide
of a great helplessness. When he had risen and
breakfasted, he sent for Zichy, who came, bringing
the morning papers.

" Good-morning, my dear boy," said the old
man; "you are acclaimed, indeed, to-day."

Leander put it all aside with a weary wave of
the hand.

354



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 355

" What does it matter? " he murmured.

Zichy gazed at him thoughtfully. The aged
musician understood the real cause of the tenor s
trouble.

; Why do you not go to her? " he said softly.

" She would not receive me," answered Lean-
der. " I have closed her doors against myself."

And that was all that Zichy could persuade him
to say on the subject. It was a pity that the tenor
could not see into his wife s new apartment in Cen
tral Park West. Unlike him, she had risen with
the dawn of a glorious light in her eyes. She felt
that something new and beautiful had come into
her life. Leander was separated from her, but
he had found himself. She knew that the old ar
rogant egotism had been quelled. In no other
way could Leander have ascended the starry
heights of art. While he was a worshiper of his
own glory, he was only an opera singer. But now
he was a master. What was to happen next?
Helen had not slept well. She had tossed rest
lessly on her Led, and she was not ashamed to
confess to herself that the cause of her restless-



356 THE SOUL OF A TEXOR

ness was a passionate yeanling for the man she
loved. When she had dressed for the morning,
her first impulse was to sit down and write hirn
a note, telling him how glad she was. But her sec
ond thoughts drew her away from any act which
Leander might interpret as an advance on her
part. It would be a mistake. He would not wish
her to humble herself. If he still cared for her,
if the obliteration of Self had revealed to him the
real value of her love, he would seek her again.

At noon Philip Studley called on her. She had
no need to ask him what he thought of the in
terpretation. She had already drunk in his col
umn of warm praise. Philip, keen to note every
shade of expression in her tender eyes, saw the
unrest.

" Helen," he said, " you have not reached your
goal."

" What do you mean? "

* You need him, my dear girl, and I am going
to add that he needs you. He will never be com
plete till he has rest in his heart, and it is surely
not there now."



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 357

Helen looked thoughtfully at Philip and
said:

" How can I be sure of that? "

" Tell me once and for all. Helen, have you
any feeling now about his past relations with Mile.
Bosanska?"

"Yes," she answered slowly and deliberately;
" his intimacy with her was one of the greatest
things that ever happened to him. It aroused
his real temperament."

" Then there should be really nothing in the
way of a reconciliation."

11 How can I tell? " she said wearily; " I do not
know whether he really desires one. Perhaps he
will find spiritual repose better alone."

Philip took his departure soon after that. He
went to his club to luncheon, and there, after some
deliberation, he came to a determination, and he
wrote a brief note to Baroni. In it he said :

" You will pardon me if I take two liberties.
First, I am going to add my personal congratula
tions to my professional comment on your genu-



358 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

ine Tristan of last night. Second, I am going to
speak as the oldest and most intimate friend of
your wife. She will be at home at five o clock.
She is not happy."

Leander read this note with a flood of con
fused emotions. For a moment he was disposed to
resent the officiousness, as it seemed to him, of
Philip, but with his new attitude of mind he soon
realized that the man was, indeed, very close to
Helen, and that for her sake he had a right to go
far, if he thought it necessary for her welfare.
Then a wild tumult spread through all his veins.
He would see her, he would look once more into
her eyes. Yes, he would do this at least, even if
she again banished him from her sweet presence.
She should at any rate know that he had at last
learned to know her worth.

Helen was sitting in her boudoir, vainly trying
to compose her mind. She had a strange sense of
something big impending, and she was filled with
tremors. But she knew not what it was that was
coming to her. When the bell rang at five



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 359

o clock, she heaved a long sigh and half uttered
a wish that people would leave her to her
self. The next minute a servant entered and
said:

" Madam, it is a gentleman really a gentle
man and tall and handsome. But he will not
give a card or a name. He says only to tell you
that he wishes to speak to you."

Helen rose and dismissed the wondering girl.
For a moment she stood questioning the possibil
ities, but swiftly the certainty came to her that
no one would approach her thus except Leander.
With an effort she steadied herself, and presently,
with all her forces well within her grip, she
entered her drawing-room and saw her hus
band standing by the mantel. Both of them hes
itated and trembled a little. Neither knew just
what to do, but Helen gathered herself together.
She smiled kindly and held out her hand. Lean
der took it softly in his own, which was as hot as
fire.

" I am glad to see you, Leander," she said in
a low tone. She was almost afraid to trust her



360 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

voice. " I was at the opera last night, and "

" I saw you," he said huskily.

" I am astonished at that," she continued
calmly, " for I thought there was too little light
in the house. It was a great performance."

u It is a great masterpiece," he said; " no per
formance can reach it."

Helen s heart gave a quick throb. It was un
speakable delight to her to hear Leander use such
words.

" I have learned something, I hope," continued
Leander, " since I left y New York."

"You have gained, indeed, very greatly," she
answered.

" I have had several teachers," responded Le
ander. " First of all, the woman with whom I
was. Helen, I should be less than a man if I
denied my debt to her. She first showed me how
small and mean I was, and led me to the gateway
of Art."

" I shall thank her for it as long as I live,"
answered Helen, her voice sinking to a tremulous
whisper.



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 361

Leander sprang to his feet. A flame of eager
light had rushed into his eyes.

" You still care?" he exclaimed, "you still
care enough for that? "

For a moment there was a silence between
them, and then Leander fell upon his knees before
her, and buried his face in his hands upon her
lap. There, with his eyes hidden, he spoke rap
idly and brokenly:

" Helen, I do not ask you to forgive me, be
cause you will not wish me to do that, if you still
have some affection for me. But I do ask you to
let me come back to my place at your side, if not
in your whole life. Let me strive to show you
how I honor and reverence you, how I have
learned to understand that in the early days of
our marriage you were entirely right in every
particular. I was, indeed, the incarnation of self,
and because I was that I charged you with in
ability to comprehend me, to enter into my artistic
life. I know now that I had not any artistic
life, and that the only artist in our house was
you, who thought great and beautiful thoughts,



362 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

and who would have led me to noble heights if I
had not been a blind and obstinate fool. I had
the paradise of a man s soul beside me, and I
turned my back upon it and fled. I never knew
how the change was worked in my soul, but that
strange creature gradually awakened my spirit.
And when it was fully aroused, I looked into the
theater one night at Naples and saw your face.
And then I knew that I had thrust myself out of
paradise and that there was only one thing left
for me in this world, to try to atone. I feared
that you would never permit me to speak to you
again, but you have done so, and you tell me you
still care. I am not worthy to touch your hand,
my dear, but you will let me live near you and try
to show you that I do understand better? "

She did not answer, but he felt her form shak
ing. He slowly raised his head and gazed
into her eyes. She gave him a sad look in
return.

"You will not?" he said.

" I cannot take you on those terms."

She spoke slowly, and Leander bowed his head



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 363

again. He thought she would say more, but she
was silent. Suddenly a great light broke upon
him, and he looked up.

" Helen," he exclaimed, " I love you. Dear
heart, do you not know that I have learned it?
Do you not see that the supreme crown of all my
revelation has been the full understanding of that?
Oh, my dear, my dear, if you will but take up
again the heart that never knew itself, it will be
hereafter a shrine for your image."

Then she laid her two beautiful arms around
his neck and drew his head to a pillow upon her
heaving breast.

" Leander," she said in a voice which vibrated
with passion, " have you never known that you
are my idol? What do I want of atonement? I
care nothing that another woman showed you the
secrets of your own soul. I care for nothing but
to lie in your arms, to be held close, close, close to
your heart, to feel the eternal fire of your love
glowing upon me, and glorifying me, to be yours,
my husband, yours in flesh and spirit, to grow
wholly one with you, to walk hand in hand with



364 THE SOUL OF A TENOR

you down the path of life to the gate of death,
and, by God s will, to be with you in eternity."

And then he lifted his head and uttered a great
cry.

" Helen, Helen, my wife ! "

Their lips met in a kiss, a long, clinging kiss,
such as Siegfried imprinted upon the lips of
Briinnhilde when he woke her from the sleep of a
goddess and led her to the triumph of woman
hood.



On the following morning Leander was
obliged to visit the office of the impresario. An
humble appeal over the telephone had reached
him. The great man spoke very gently, and the
tenor tried to answer even more gently. Helen
went with him, for she seemed unwilling to take
her now glorified eyes off his face for a moment.
When they were ushered into the bureau of the
impresario, they found it unoccupied, except for
one figure seated in a shadowy corner. The figure
rose and revealed the great green eyes of Nagy



THE SOUL OF A TENOR 365

Bosanska, which regarded the pair searchingly
for several moments.

" I perceive," she said at length, " that the
prophecy of the gipsy has been fulfilled."

" I have been told," responded Helen in a
gentle tone, " of that prophecy, and I believe its
fulfilment came about because in the end the
gipsy s witchcraft was so beneficent."

The two women gazed intently at one another
for a moment, and the quiet, steady confidence
of Helen s eyes was triumphant. Nagy s bril
liant green orbs trembled as she said slowly:

" He will be a king among men, for you are
a greater woman than I am."

The impresario entered and told Leander that
he wished to give one of those seductive " special "
performances, the opera to be (l Carmen," with a

star cast, including Nagy and the tenor. Leander

*

looked at his wife, who smiled.

" I shall always be honored to sing with Mile.
Bosanska," he said; "I owe to her all that I
know of the real meaning of Art."

And when Mrs. Harley Manners heard about this forthcoming performance, she said to Philip

Studley:

" Now I know that I am growing old. I
thought everything was at an end between him
and the Hungarian. I don t know anything, and
I don t understand what I do know. But it s a
shame that they don t give it on Monday. You
see, I ve always had my box on Monday night,
and they keep it for me from season to season;
so what can I do? "