you?”
“Why, right here this minute there are such beautiful girls! Look over there at that one with the yellow dress, and that one, coming through the door—”
“Not like you. You’re different from them all. There’s wonder in your face. You’re alive. Most of these people wear a mask. They’re tired of everything.”
Tired of everything? How could that be? You would need to live a hundred years to see everything you wanted to see, and then that wouldn’t be enough.
The orchestra struck up a charming, spritely dance. “How I love the sound of violins!” she cried.
“You’ve never been at the opera, have you, Anna?”
“No, never.”
“My mother has a ticket for the matinee tomorrow, butWe’re all going to my great-aunt Julia’s funeral. I’m going to ask her to give it to you.”
The music questions and insists. It asks
Where?
and answers
Here!
Asks
When?
and answers
Now!
She leans forward in her seat. Two large ladies in the row ahead have dared to whisper. She taps one on the shoulder, mighty in her outrage.
“Will you be quiet, madam?”
Ashamed, they stop talking and she leans back again. The music swells and rises. The angelic voice of Isolde soars above it. All grief, all longing, all joy are in that radiant song. Tristan replies: the shimmering voices twine and fuse into one.
It is all here: the girl-child’s ignorant dream of love and the passion of the woman. It is all here: flowers, sunlight, stars, rapture and death.
I know, I know, she thinks.
She does not move. Her hands are clasped.
It ends. The storm rests and the tension breaks. The final chords sound quietly and die.
Her eyes are wet; she cannot find her handkerchief. The tears fall on her collar. The great curtain falls and the marvelous beings who have pretended to be Tristan and Isolde come before it, bowing and smiling. Applause clatters, people stand to clap. In the rear young men are calling: “Bravo! Bravo!” People are twisting into their coat sleeves. And Anna sits there, unwilling to return from the Breton coast and the summer sea, from dying Tristan, the clasping arms—
The lady in the next seat is curious. “You liked it?”
“I—pardon?”
“I asked whether you liked it?”
“It was—it was heaven! I never imagined there could be—”
“Yes, it was a very fine performance.” The lady agrees, nodding pleasantly, and steps out into the aisle.
* * *
In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Werner paid a condolence call and Mrs. Monaghan went to the basement to iron her Sunday shirtwaist. Anna climbed the stairs to her room. When she came to the landing at the floor below it seemed entirely natural that he should be waiting for her there.
She clung to him. The wall at her back, which was all that held up her weak legs, was warm and firm. The man was warm and firm, but soft, too; his mouth, wandering over her neck and face, was soft. Finding her mouth it fitted there with a long, long sigh.
Her eyes shut; things spun in a luminous dark.
He broke away. “You’re so lovely, Anna! I can’t tell you how beautiful you are.”
She was dazed, re-entering the light. Gently, he guided her to the last flight of stairs. She thought, between fright and glory, that he was going upstairs with her.
“We must—you must go upstairs,” he said gently, and went to his room.
She stood for a long time looking at herself in the mirror. She raised her nightgown. Statues in the museum had breasts like hers. At Cousin Ruth’s she had seen women undressed; some had enormous, shapeless mounds; some sagged into long, flattened tubes; others had almost no breasts at all. She took the pins out of her hair, letting it slant across her forehead and fall over her shoulders. The hair felt warm on her bare shoulders. Music sounded in her head, a lovely flow, Isolde’s song. He would not have kissed her like that if he did not love her. Now surely a great change had come into her life. A greater change was coming. Now
“Why, right here this minute there are such beautiful girls! Look over there at that one with the yellow dress, and that one, coming through the door—”
“Not like you. You’re different from them all. There’s wonder in your face. You’re alive. Most of these people wear a mask. They’re tired of everything.”
Tired of everything? How could that be? You would need to live a hundred years to see everything you wanted to see, and then that wouldn’t be enough.
The orchestra struck up a charming, spritely dance. “How I love the sound of violins!” she cried.
“You’ve never been at the opera, have you, Anna?”
“No, never.”
“My mother has a ticket for the matinee tomorrow, butWe’re all going to my great-aunt Julia’s funeral. I’m going to ask her to give it to you.”
The music questions and insists. It asks
Where?
and answers
Here!
Asks
When?
and answers
Now!
She leans forward in her seat. Two large ladies in the row ahead have dared to whisper. She taps one on the shoulder, mighty in her outrage.
“Will you be quiet, madam?”
Ashamed, they stop talking and she leans back again. The music swells and rises. The angelic voice of Isolde soars above it. All grief, all longing, all joy are in that radiant song. Tristan replies: the shimmering voices twine and fuse into one.
It is all here: the girl-child’s ignorant dream of love and the passion of the woman. It is all here: flowers, sunlight, stars, rapture and death.
I know, I know, she thinks.
She does not move. Her hands are clasped.
It ends. The storm rests and the tension breaks. The final chords sound quietly and die.
Her eyes are wet; she cannot find her handkerchief. The tears fall on her collar. The great curtain falls and the marvelous beings who have pretended to be Tristan and Isolde come before it, bowing and smiling. Applause clatters, people stand to clap. In the rear young men are calling: “Bravo! Bravo!” People are twisting into their coat sleeves. And Anna sits there, unwilling to return from the Breton coast and the summer sea, from dying Tristan, the clasping arms—
The lady in the next seat is curious. “You liked it?”
“I—pardon?”
“I asked whether you liked it?”
“It was—it was heaven! I never imagined there could be—”
“Yes, it was a very fine performance.” The lady agrees, nodding pleasantly, and steps out into the aisle.
* * *
In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Werner paid a condolence call and Mrs. Monaghan went to the basement to iron her Sunday shirtwaist. Anna climbed the stairs to her room. When she came to the landing at the floor below it seemed entirely natural that he should be waiting for her there.
She clung to him. The wall at her back, which was all that held up her weak legs, was warm and firm. The man was warm and firm, but soft, too; his mouth, wandering over her neck and face, was soft. Finding her mouth it fitted there with a long, long sigh.
Her eyes shut; things spun in a luminous dark.
He broke away. “You’re so lovely, Anna! I can’t tell you how beautiful you are.”
She was dazed, re-entering the light. Gently, he guided her to the last flight of stairs. She thought, between fright and glory, that he was going upstairs with her.
“We must—you must go upstairs,” he said gently, and went to his room.
She stood for a long time looking at herself in the mirror. She raised her nightgown. Statues in the museum had breasts like hers. At Cousin Ruth’s she had seen women undressed; some had enormous, shapeless mounds; some sagged into long, flattened tubes; others had almost no breasts at all. She took the pins out of her hair, letting it slant across her forehead and fall over her shoulders. The hair felt warm on her bare shoulders. Music sounded in her head, a lovely flow, Isolde’s song. He would not have kissed her like that if he did not love her. Now surely a great change had come into her life. A greater change was coming. Now
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