The gesture was magnificent, and with the frowning brows and somber expression she was the Tragic Muse. If she could only get that into her voice!
“I’ve been at it two years, with Vignorol—you know him? I’ve learnt Italian and German, and nearly all the great mezzo rôles. And the polite ones say what you say, and the ones who don’t care about your feelings say ‘A good enough voice, but no temperament.’” She gave her body a vicious jerk and the stool twirled her round to me. “How in heaven’s name can I get temperament?”
“Well—er—time—and—er—experience and sorrow—” I had come up-stairs to give advice, but not on the best manner of acquiring temperament.
She cut me short.
“I’ve had experience, barrels of it. And time? I’m twenty-six now—am I to wait till I’m seventy? And sorrow? All my relations are dead—not that I care much, most of them I didn’t know and those I did I didn’t like. Shall I go and stand on the corner of Forty-second Street and Broadway and clamor for sorrow?”
“How in heaven’s name can I get temperament?”
“It’ll come without clamoring,” I said. Upon that subject I can speak with some authority.
“I wish it would hurry up. I want to arrive, I want to be a great prima donna. I will be a great prima donna. I will sing into that big dark auditorium and see those thousands of faces staring up at me and make those thousands of dull fat pigs of people sit up and come to life.”
She rose and walked to the window, pushed it up and picking up one of the oranges, threw it out.