Pa was alone playing in the great studio, and came forward with delighted welcome: “Back again, my prima donna! Are you ready and eager for work once more?” Before her white wistfulness he paused. She stood looking around the room, at the busts of Mendelssohn and Beethoven; at the shrine to “Patti—the thing that happened once” in the far corner; at the photograph of Sembrich of the golden voice supreme, with loving greetings to Pa written across the face; the piles of music on the pianos——A sob arose to her lips. “Oh, Pa!” she said. “If you could only understand! Everything—has left me!” Days of waiting, of patient tears, brought a swift little rush of words: “I haven’t even a heart—any more.”
Pa took her hand gently and led her to a chair. Then he stood before her, stroking his short little beard, his old eyes very soft under his bent brows.
“Child—your heart may break—it’s the way of young hearts every once in a while—but there is one great soul that will remain true as long as you are true, and that is the soul of music. An older and wiser spirit than mine has said: ‘All passes; Art alone endures.’ With you, all else may pass, but the soul of music will unite itself with your own, always weaving its tendrils more closely into your being. Just now it may seem a cold comfort in your desolation—but it is a thing that ripens as the years go on—always faithful—always providing you are faithful.”
A quick little silence in the room. Joy lifted her head. “I want to, Pa—I want to turn to my music, so much—but how can I—do anything more with it—when I feel as if everything in my heart was burned and dead!”
He smiled. “Youth is tragic—every once in a while. Look you, Joy—you came this morning half determined to tell me you weren’t coming to me again—but you are. What would you do, else? Your impulse to love, let us say, has been awakened, then—diverted. Note, I do not say snuffed out, for that is an impossible thing. The impulse is still there—and if you turn it to music, spending it royally in terms of energy and power in work at your art, instead of in terms of love, you will be content, and you will become one of the greatest artists the world has known. You will interpret life to hundreds of thousands, through the transmutation of your life into work. ‘All passes; Art alone endures.’” He took a few quick turns about the room, then brought himself up with a jerk. “I do not want you to sing to-day; you have been with tears too recently; besides, I have a lesson. Go away, and think over what I have said. You will have some decisions to make. For if you come back to me, there will be no more half-toned effort such as the desultory summer work we have done.”
“Desultory summer work,” Joy gasped. “Why, I practised regularly——”
“Practice! An hour and a half a day. That is the most you can do with your voice. But there must be hours of silent study. No matter what one may say of Geraldine Farrar now, she was, is and will remain a very great artist. It does not drop on one like the gentle rain from Heaven, after a few years of hour-and-a-half practice. That girl worked ten hours a day in her years of study. Lilli Lehmann said she never had such a worker. You have the voice—yes. Now you require solfège, through harmony and counterpoint, French, Italian and German complete, other languages to pronounce—you are but at the threshold of your toil. Oh, when I see you before me, with practically everything to learn, the days don’t seem long enough—the years don’t seem long enough!” He quieted down and looked at her. A great deal had descended upon her at once, but she felt no sense of oppression at the program outlined; rather, she felt as if energy were pouring in upon her, energy to accomplish anything he said. She rose, inhaling a long breath as she did to sing on, feeling her ribs swell out, with the sense of power that it never failed to give her.
“It’s true, Pa—I did come in here half with the idea of leaving you. I didn’t know what I would do. But you have decided me. There’s no need of my thinking over what you said. I’ve decided now. You never told me all this before, about how I would have to work, because I wasn’t ready for it—isn’t that so? I am now—and thank you.”
His eyes glinted beneath his brows. “I’ll not let you decide here. Go away as I told you, and then come back. At Jerry’s, your atmosphere will not be so—musical, and you can make an unbiased decision.”
“No—I want to decide now—before I go back to Jerry’s——”