The Balloonist (35 page)

In any case it was not, if the truth be told, an event that caused widespread reverberations in the artistic world like the premiere of
Ubu Roi
, and probably that was not what she or anybody else intended. There were brief advance notices in
Le Temps, Le Figaro, L'Écho de Paris, Le Gaulois.
I bought my ticket at an agency in rue de Rivoli and went alone in a cab, like a spy to an enemy camp. It was a rainy night, which was bad luck. In Avenue Montaigne, in front of the hall, there were only a few cabs, and a pair of gallants in evening cloaks finishing their cigars under the marquee before they threw them in the gutter and went in. Inside, at five minutes to nine—the thing was announced to begin at nine—the long oval hall was perhaps a third full. I took my seat, which was well toward the rear. High ceiling, walls hung in thick burgundy draperies with gold trim. Some boxes along the sides, partly concealed with the same red curtains. At one end was a raised dais with a concert Pleyel sitting on it like a large black insect. The place was full of that kind of hushed and yet magnified twitter common to large rooms where an event of some sort is soon to take place. I crossed my legs I and gravely examined the program as though I didn't know what it was, still playing the imbecile.

These five-franc
seats were occupied mainly by music students and other sorts of waifs from the Latin Quarter. One of them—very friendly, not to say insolent—even bent his elbow over the back of his seat to engage me in a conversation.

“Cette Hickman. Elle a du talent?”

“Parle pas francais. Suédois.”

Probably he didn't believe me, because he went right on talking. “It's because, you see, they gave Casimir and me the tickets free, at the Conservatory.”

“Ah, the Conservatory.” I erected a painful sentence in French. “I don't know. If she has attended. The Conservatory.” This convinced them that I was an imbecile, or a foreigner, which is the same thing, and they left me alone. After that they discussed the matter between themselves. “After all, one has never heard …” “D'accord, but if she did have talent …” “Certainly, but still …”

Entry of the accompanist, who sat down immediately, flapping the tails of his coat over the stool with an adroit professional gesture. Not very much of the chatter in the hall subsided, even when the houselights were dimmed. The student in the seat ahead of me (Gilles, as one gathered from the dialogue) explained to Casimir in a loud voice, “Non, idiot, c'est une américaine.”

Luisa appeared from one side and advanced to the centre of the dais. Her gown was black velvet, with a band of white lace at the throat. Her hair was arranged in the same simple knot in which I had first seen it, at the Musée Carnavalet, and she carried a few violets in a long white ribbon. The audience to some extent stopped their chattering and rattling of programs, and there was a patter of polite applause. The accompanist made a few chords, almost lost in the large hall, and she embarked on the first item of the program.

It was “Queen of the Night” from
The Magic Flute
of Mozart, which I would describe as a coloratura aria with ha-ha's. The voice seemed thin in so large a cubic space; the ceiling was ten metres over her head. I suspected that the aria was far too high for her in spite of the extraordinary range of
her voice. Still, I was not a music critic. There was one, however, sitting ten or twelve rows ahead of me where the seats changed prices. He was from
Le Gaulois
and Luisa had pointed him out to me once at a concert. Probably it was obligatory for him to come once the recital had been advertised in his paper. There were also various other recognizable characters from the Parisian musical world, even if they didn't perhaps represent its very cream: a Balkan pianist, the tenor Jean de Reszke, whom I had met once in Quai d'Orléans, and a wild-headed boy composer whose
Concerto for Larynx
had been the sensation, or scandal, of last winter's musical season. Luisa finished “Queen of the Night,” there was a sound from the hall like pattering rain, and she launched into the Bell Song from
Lakmé.

The audience seemed restive but not, at this point, in a violent or mutinous mood. After Schumann's “Frühlingsnacht” there was even a “Brava!” from a single voice. It might have been from Gilles or Casimir, but I couldn't be sure. At the intermission, however, there was a bad omen; the critic from
Le Gaulois
lurched up out of his seat and departed, exactly as Sarcey had done at the Théâtre de l'oeuvre, although probably for different reasons. Ahead of me Casimir yawned and stretched his arms. “Alors, Gilles. Tu penses?” ‘Je ne pense pas, je souffre.”

After the intermission Luisa appeared without the flowers, slightly paler than before. The accompanist rattled off his chords and she began with some Brahms lieder. For the first one, “Die Mainacht,” a note in the program warned, “O singer, if thou cannot dream, leave this song unsung.” In spite of this portent the lieder, in my humble and even ignorant opinion, were fairly successful. But when she returned to opera the path was not so smooth; even I could see the rocks she was tripping over. Luisa, the man from
Le Gaulois
has fled the scene; better follow him!

But she stuck it out. She had saved her real bravura piece, in fact, for the last. This was “Charmant Oiseau” from David's
Perle de Brésil
, a confection which required the help not only of the pianist but of a flautist, a plump young man clad like his fellow accompanist in a white tie and tailcoat, who began by licking his instrument as though he were not quite sure he cared for the taste. He and the pianist signaled each other with their eyebrows. They were ready. They turned to Luisa.

The Charming Bird
took wing. Luisa was pursuing it in her way and the flautist in his. The more cumbersome piano brought up the rear, like a carriage of ladies following the hunt. The main game of the thing involved Luisa making a little series of trills or la-la's that—for instance—went up and down in the shape of a tent, whereupon the flautist would attempt as well as he could to imitate this contour. Then she would make her la-la's in a slightly different way, perhaps going up but not down, leaving the coming down to the next match between voice and instrument.

This folly of setting herself against the precision of a metallic and finely honed instrument was her undoing. By herself she might have prevailed, or at least concluded the evening in some sort of an armistice. But this small tubular machine was remorseless. It followed her every voice-step, and when she faltered even slightly it pounced on her. Soon she was faltering more than slightly. The audience began taking an interest in the proceedings on the dais, for the first time in the evening. Husbands who were asleep were woken up, and the students grinned and nudged each other.

The flautist did
his best. He was on her side; after all she was paying him. But he too was helpless against the fine precision of his instrument. There was no way out for him; he had to play the notes in tune. The audience, which before had only tittered, now permitted itself an outright ripple of laughter. Luisa made another of the tent-shaped cadenzas, and this time the flute, in spite of the best efforts of its operator to control it, said distinctly, “I went this way, but you went that.” Luisa's voice was as it had always been: charmingly lyrical when she wished it to be lyrical, coloratura when she wished it to be coloratura, varying precisely in timbre and tone according to her will. It was only in pitch that it refused to obey her. That little force that drove it slightly up when it should have gone down, slightly down when it should have held level, was the demon of her emotions, a phenomenon I knew well from other incidents quite different in circumstances. It was the nature of her voice to rise when she was excited, to lower when she wished to convey a tone of threat. Now she was in the grip of both these forces. The flute could not have followed her even if it had been Mozart's magic one, neither could any system of notation. The more the flute reproached her the more excited she became, and the more threatening. She ended in a debacle, three notes from the tonic, in a head-voice, stopped in midair by a catch or a sob.

The applause was immediate. I had always known that Parisian audiences were pitiless and now I saw it for myself. Some clapped their hands so hard they were unable to laugh, and others laughed until they were unable to clap their hands. They rose to their feet. I with them—otherwise how could I see anything? There were only a few whistles to indicate disapprobation. Drowning them out, many bravas. Luisa's pallor was phenomenal, a medical curiosity, like a patch of brightly illuminated snow.

“A new
diva!”

“Melba, it's time to retire!”

“Brava!”

“Bis! bis!”

“Charmant Oiseau! Encore!”

“Bis! bis! bis! bis!”

This chant took over the hall. Casimir and Gilles had their due part in it. I might have rapped them over the head, but I had no weapon. I ought to have brought a riding crop. Besides, by this time they had disappeared. The porter, as was customary, was waiting at the rear of the hall with a number of elaborate bouquets, including a horseshoe of carnations and lilies of the valley. These ornaments were appropriated by Casimir and Gilles, assisted by their fellow students. The porter was pushed over backward onto a chair. Luisa, who had come to her senses by this time, attempted to escape to the right. (The flautist and pianist, who should have been her natural protectors, had long since disappeared.) But she was cut off by a volley of flowers, and turning to the left saw her escape barred that way too. The horseshoe of carnations sailed through the air and struck her on the ankles.

“Bis! bis!”

“Fly again, Charmant Oiseau!”

“Brava!”

“Diva! diva! To the Opéra!”

The more respectable of the spectators, myself included, quitted the field at this point. In a box near the dais I caught a glimpse of the aunt, formidable, stoic, her chin tremoring as usual but no more than usual. Then I slipped out through a side aisle onto the street. For all I knew, the students actually carried out their promise, or threat, to attach themselves to Luisa's carriage and drag her to the Opéra. Why should I intervene? I knew nothing of music.

The rain had stopped; a faint breeze was rustling in the trees along the avenue and the pavements were almost dry. There were no cabs in sight and I decided to walk back to my lodgings by way of the Pont de L'Alma and the quays. It was a good distance and took me almost an hour, but it was
a mild evening and the damp, faintly moving air was refreshing. When I arrived in rue de Rennes it was only a little after eleven, and the concièrge was still awake over her coffee and her copy of Le Panorama. When she was awake no one unknown to the house could ascend the stair, and when she went to bed she locked the street door with a rusty old key. I mounted the five flights, let myself in and latched the door behind me, removed my coat and hat, and put some leftover coffee on the stove to warm. Then I got out an Admiralty pilot chart of the Arctic Ocean and stretched it across the table. For some time I had been meaning to make notes on the probable winds for this region in the month of July. Now, as always when I went out to a concert or somewhere else in the evening, I was wakeful and in a mood to work for a few hours before I went to bed.