We met Spaniards, Norwegians, French, anything but Americans, of whom we knew but few—we learnt so much more through talking with people of other nationalities than our own. Paris is such a marvellous place for development. As my brother said, he never knew when some one whose opinion he must respect might not drop into the studio, and give his work a searching inspection. The atmosphere of having to keep constantly at your very best because of the rigid intellectual criticism you encounter at every turn, is most stimulating.
Rembrandt Bugatti was a great friend of my brother's, of whom I think he was really fond, and this was a priceless association for a young student. Bugatti was a genius, unrivalled by any other man of his age, and very few of any other age, and his tragic death is a great loss to the art world. His growing deafness and his acute sensitiveness must have made life impossible for him. His recollection of the happy years spent in Antwerp, when he and my brother were well-known figures there—wearing long, swinging, dark blue, Italian cavalry capes, smoking eternal pipes and working all day in the open air in the Zoo—compared to what the Germans have made of Belgium, proved too great a spiritual burden for him.
CHAPTER XXII
ROYAL HUMOUR
DURING that summer Baron S—— died in Munich. This of course was a great blow to me and I did not know what I could do about my contract. I went to Berlin to see Herr Harder, who told me I must gastieren according to contract in October, but as the new Intendant was not to come into office till November, no one could really engage me, especially as a very exacting new musical director was coming from Vienna later in the season, and they would both undoubtedly want to choose their own first contralto.
However, I went and sang under trying circumstances, with a very sore throat and a sinking heart. The colleagues thought I would be engaged, but I did not see who was to do it, and as it turned out I was right—and there was no one to do it. This depressed me extremely, but I resolved to return to Berlin, and devote the year to following up my previous recital. As a matter of fact, this apparent blow turned out to be all for the best, as so often happens, for otherwise I should have been caught in Germany at the beginning of the war, and my career upset, which happened to several other girls.
The concert field is a rich one in Europe and I had made a good beginning. I booked a tour in Holland, through the kindly offices of Bos, where I was as well received as I had been in Berlin. The critics wrote such eulogies that I almost blush to read them. People quite unknown to me would go from town to town to hear me, and I would see them at Rotterdam or Utrecht smiling up at me. I have never sung to such adorable audiences. They seem to understand all languages, and a "Claire de Lune" sung in French seems to please them as much as Schubert's magnificent "Allmacht."
The "coffee pause" half way down the program, was quite a shock to me the first night, but I soon grew to look for it, and enjoyed the smell of the strong smoking coffee the waiters used to carry round on trays to the audience. It was rather disturbing, however, to have to watch the waiters finish up the contents of the pots, at the back of the hall, while I began on the second half of the program. Evidently to them the coffee, and the audience, were of first importance, and the mere singer quite secondary; all of which is point of view.
My sister and I lived at The Hague, and Holland is so delightfully small that we could nearly always return there, after the evening's concert in another town. I went back in the spring for another series of recitals and felt that I was returning to old friends. I was offered a tour to Java, and would love to have undertaken it, but could not see my way clear just then.
In December I was in Berlin for a week or two, and Harder sent me word to come and sing for Mr. Percy Pitt of Covent Garden. The two contracts I had held so far had been closed with a minimum of delay and trouble, and now I was to make the biggest one of my career in the same simple way. I was not in the best of voice when I sang for Mr. Pitt, but I sang the Siegfried Erda, and was disgusted with myself for singing so badly. He asked me if I were ready to sing the list of leading rôles which he read to me, and on my answering in the affirmative engaged me on the spot; proving, to me at least, that successful or unsuccessful Vorsingen and even Gastspiele have very little to do with most engagements. In the case of a singer of any reputation at all, the Director has usually made up his mind pretty well beforehand what he is going to do. If he wants you he takes you, even if you have sung badly that particular time, and if he does not want you, nothing that I have heard of can make him engage you.