Memoirs of an American Prima Donna Part 21

That city interests me deeply, as yet the spiritual centre of the West, whose voice still influences the politics of Central Europe.

In May I shall be at the Paris Salon and cross over to London in the early part of June.

It snows every day in Vienna and I spend my time mostly with the old doctors of the University. Their talks on philosophy and science are indeed interesting, but somehow or other I don't feel the delight I had in your society in New York. Why?

July 12, 1887.

MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG:

I am very glad to hear that you are in Europe. My duties in London end this week and I have decided to start for Munich next morning, thence to Dresden and Berlin. I am thus looking forward to the great pleasure of meeting you again and gathering fragrance from your conversation. Mrs. Gilder wrote to me that you were not quite well since your tour in the West and my anxiety mingles with my hopes. The atmosphere of English civilisation weighs heavily on me and I am longing to be away. It seems that civilisation does not agree with a member of an Eastern barbaric tribe. My conception of music has been gradually changing. The Ninth Symphony has revolutionised it. Where is the future of music to be?

Many questions crowd on me and I am impatient to lay them before you at Carlsbad. Will you allow me to do so?

BERLIN. KAISERHAUF, July 24th.

MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG:

The Spirit of Unrest chases me northward. Dresden glided dimly before me. Holbein was a disappointment. The Sistine Madonna was divine beyond my expectation. I saw Raphael in his purity and was delighted. None of his pictures is so inspired as this. Still my thoughts wandered amid these grand creations. They flitted past in a shower of colours and shadows and I have drifted hither through the hazy forests of Heine and the troubled grey of Millet's twilight....

To me your friendship is the boat that bears me proudly home. I wait with pleasure any line you may send me there. Wishing every good to you, I remain yours respectfully.

KAISERHAUF, July 28th, 1887.

MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG:

Ten thousand thanks for your kind letter. My address in j.a.pan is Monbusho, Tokio, and if you will write to me there I shall be so happy! The task which I have imposed upon myself--the preserving of historical continuity and internal development, etc.,--has to work very slowly. I must be patient and cautious. Still I shall be delighted to confide to you from time to time how I am getting on with my dream if you will allow me to do so. You say that you have a hope of finding what you long for in Buddhism. Surely your lotus must be opening to the dawn. European philosophy has reached to a point where no advance is possible except through mysticism. Yet they ignore the hidden truths on limited scientific grounds. The Berlin University has thus been forced to return to Kant and begin afresh. They have destroyed but have no power to construct, and they never will if they refuse to _see_ more into themselves....

Hoping you the best and the brightest, I am

Yours faithfully,

OKAKURA KAKUDZO.

And so I come to one of all these who was really a "sincere admirer,"

and a faithful lover, although I never knew him. It is a difficult incident to write of, for I feel that it holds some of the deepest elements of sentiment and of tragedy with which I ever came in touch.

I was singing in Boston when a man sent me a message saying that he was connected with a newspaper and had something of great importance about which he wanted to see me. He furthermore said that he wished to see me alone. It was an extraordinary request and, at first, I refused. I suspected a subterfuge--a wager, or something humiliating of that sort.

But he persisted, sending yet another message to the effect that he had something to communicate to me which was of an essentially personal nature. Finally I consented to grant him the interview and, as he had requested, I saw him alone.

He was just back from the front where he had been war correspondent during the heart of the Civil War, and he told me that he had a letter to give to me from a soldier in his division who had been shot. The soldier was mortally wounded when the reporter found him. He was lying at the foot of a tree at the point of death, and the correspondent asked if he could take any last messages for him to friends or relatives. The soldier asked him to write down a message to take to a woman whom he had loved for four years, but who did not know of his love.

"Tell her," he said, speaking with great difficulty, "that I would not try even to meet her; but that I have loved her, before G.o.d, as well as any man ever loved a woman." He asked the reporter to feel inside his uniform for the woman's picture. "It is Miss Kellogg," he added, just before he died. "You--don't think that she will be offended if I send her this message--now--do you?"

He asked the correspondent to draw his sabre and cut off a lock of hair to send to me, and the reporter wrote down the message on the only sc.r.a.ps of paper at his disposal--torn bits scribbled over with reports of the enemy's movements, and the names of other dead soldiers whose people must be notified when the battle was over. And then the soldier--my soldier--died; and the correspondent left him the picture and came away.

The scribbled message and the lock of hair he put into my hands, saying:

"He was very much worried lest you would think him presumptuous. I told him that I was sure you would not."

I was weeping as he spoke, and so he left me.

CHAPTER XXI

ON THE ROAD

Oh, those first tours! Not only was it exceedingly uncomfortable to travel in the South and West at that time, but it was decidedly risky as well. Highway robberies were numerous and, although I myself never happened to suffer at the hands of any desperadoes, I have often heard first-hand accounts from persons who had been robbed of everything they were carrying. While I was touring in Missouri, Jesse James and his men were operating in the same region and the celebrated highway man himself was once in the train with me. I slipped quietly through to catch a glimpse of him in the smoking-car. Two of his "aides" were with him and, although they were behaving themselves peacefully enough for the time being, I think that most of the pa.s.sengers were willing to give them a wide berth. During one concert trip of our company I saw something of a situation which might have developed dramatically. There was a "three card monte" gang working on the train. One of their number pretended to be a farmer and entirely innocent, so as to lure victims into the game.

I saw this particularly tough-looking individual disappear into the toilet room and come out made up as the farmer. It was like a play. I also saw him finger a pistol that he was carrying in his right hip pocket: and I experienced a somewhat blood-thirsty desire that there might be a genuine excitement in store for us, but the alarm spread and n.o.body was snared that trip.

As there were frequently no through trains on Sundays, we had sometimes to have special trains. I never quite understood the idea of not having through trains on Sundays, for surely other travellers besides unfortunate singers need occasionally to take journeys on the Sabbath.

But so it was. And once our "special" ran plump into a big strike of locomotive engineers at Dayton, Ohio. Our engine driver was held up by the strikers bivouacked in the railroad yards and we were stalled there for hours. At last an engineer from the East was found who consented to take our train through and there was much excitement while he was being armed with a couple of revolvers and plenty of ammunition, for the strikers had threatened to shoot down any "scab" who attempted to break the strike. We were all ordered to get down on the floor of the car to avoid the stones that might be thrown through the windows when we started; and when the train began to move slowly our situation was decidedly trying. We could hear a hail of shots being fired, as the engine gathered speed, but our volunteer engineer knew his business and had been authorised to drive the engine at top speed to get us out of the trouble, so soon the noise of shooting and the general uproar were left behind. The plucky strike-breaker was barely grazed, but I, personally, never cared to come any closer to lawlessness than I was then.

There were some bright spots on these disagreeable journeys. One day as I was coming out of a hall in Duluth where I had been rehearsing for the concert we were giving that evening, I ran into a man I knew, an Englishman whom I had not seen since I was in London.

"There!" he exclaimed, "I knew it was you!"

"Did you see the advertis.e.m.e.nt?" I asked.

"No," he returned, "I'm just off the yacht that's lying out there in the Lake. I'm out looking into some mining interests, you know. I heard your voice from the boat and I knew it must be you, so I thought I'd take a run on sh.o.r.e and look you up."

But such pleasant experiences were the exception. The South in general was in a particularly blind and dull condition just then. The people could not conceive of any amus.e.m.e.nt that was not intended literally to "amuse." They felt it inc.u.mbent to laugh at everything. My _cheval de bataille_ was the Polonaise from _Mignon_, at the end of which I had introduced some chromatic trills. It is a wonderful piece and required a great deal of genuine technique to master. A portion of the house would appreciate it, of course, but on one occasion a detestable young couple thought the trills were intended to be humorous. Whenever I sang a trill they would poke each other in the ribs and giggle and, when there was a series of the chromatic trills, they nearly burst. The chromatics introduced by me were never written. They went like this:

[Ill.u.s.tration: Musical notation.]

One disapproving unit in an audience can spoil a whole evening for a singer. I recall one concert when I was obsessed by a man in the front row. He would not even look at me. Possibly he considered that I was a spoiled creature and he did not wish to aid and abet the spoiling, or, perhaps, he was really bored and disgusted. At any rate, he kept his eyes fixed on a point high over my head and not with a beatific expression, either. He clearly did not think much of my work. Well--I sang my whole programme to that one man. And I was a failure. Charmed I ever so wisely, I could not really move him. But I _did_ make him uncomfortable! He wriggled and sat sidewise and clearly was uneasy. He must have felt that I was trying to win him over in spite of himself. I sometimes wonder if other singers do the same with obdurate auditors?

Surely they must, for it is a sort of fetish of the profession that there is always one person present who is by far the most difficult to charm. In that clever play _The Concert_ the pianist tells the young woman in love with him that he was first interested in her when he saw her in the audience because she did not cry. He played his best in order to moisten her eyes and, when he saw a tear roll down her cheek, he knew that he had triumphed as an artist. Our audiences were frequently inert and indiscriminating. One night an usher brought me a programme from some one in the audience with a suggestion scribbled on the margin:

"Can't you sing something devilish for a change?"

I believe they really wanted a song and dance, or a tight-rope exhibition. We had a baritone who sang well "The Evening Star" from _Tannhauser_ and his performance frequently ended in a chill silence with a bit of half-hearted clapping. He had a sense of humour and he used to come off the stage and say:

"That didn't go very well! Do you think I'd better do my bicycle act next?"

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen

From a photograph]

Times change and standards with them. The towns where they yearned for bicycle acts and "something devilish" are to-day centres of musical taste and cultivation. I never think of the change of standards without being reminded of an old tale of my father's which is curious in itself, although I cannot vouch for it nor verify it. He said that somewhere in Germany there was a bell in a church tower which, when it was first hung, many years before, was pitched in the key of _C_ and which was found to ring, in the nineteenth century, according to our present pitch, at about our _B_ flat. The musical scientists said that the change was not in the bell but in our own standard of pitch, which had been gradually raised by the manufacturers of pianos who pitched them higher and higher to get a more brilliant tone.

My throat was very sensitive in those days. I took cold easily and used, besides, to be subject to severe nervous headaches. Yet I always managed to sing. Indeed, I have never had much sympathy with capricious _prime donne_ who consider themselves and their own physical feelings before their obligation to the public that has paid to hear them. While, of course, in fairness to herself, a singer must somewhat consider her own interests, I do believe that she cannot be too conscientious in this connection. In _Carmen_ one night I broke my collar bone in the fall in the last act. I was still determined to do my part and went out, after it had been set, and bought material to match my costumes so that the sling the surgeon had ordered should not be noticed. And, for once fortunately, my audiences were either not exacting or not observing, for, apparently, no comment was ever made on the fact that I could not use my right arm. I could not help questioning whether my gestures were usually so wooden that an arm, more or less, was not perceptible! Our experiences in general with physicians on the road were lamentable. As a result my mother carried a regular medicine chest about with her and all of my fellow-artists used to come to her when anything was the matter with them.

Another hardship that we all had to endure was the being on exhibition.

It is one of the penalties of fame. Special trains were most unusual, and so were _prime donne_, and crowds used to gather on the station platforms wherever we stopped, waiting to catch a glimpse of us as we pa.s.sed through.

And the food! Some of our trials in regard to food--or, rather, the lack of it--were very trying. Voices are very dependent on the digestion; hence the need of, at least, eatable food, however simple it may be. On one trip we really nearly starved to death for, of course, there were no dining-cars and the train did not stop at any station long enough to forage for a square meal. Finally, in desperation, I told one of the men in the company that, if he would get some "crude material" at the next stop and bring it in, I would cook it. So he succeeded in securing a huge bundle of raw chops, a loaf of bread and some b.u.t.ter. There was a big stove at one end of the car and on its coals I broiled the chops, made tea and toast, and we all feasted. Indeed, it seemed a feast after ten hours with nothing at all! Another time I got off our "special" to hunt luncheon and was left behind. I raced wildly to catch the train but could not make it. After a while the company discovered that they had lost me on the way and backed up to get me. Speaking of food, I shall never forget the battle royal I once had with a hotel manager on the road in regard to my coloured maid, Eliza. She was a very nice and entirely presentable girl and he would not let her have even a cup of tea in the dining-room. We had had a long, hard journey, and she was quite as tired as the rest of us. So, when I found her still waiting after I had lunched, I made a few pertinent remarks to the effect that her presence at the table was much to be preferred to the men who had eaten there without table manners, uncouth, feeding themselves with their knives.