The Way of Ambition

by Robert Hichens

"You have given me what I needed!" she heard it saying. "Look!"

And she saw the crowd!

Then sometimes she shut her eyes. She wanted to feel the crowd, those masses of souls in masses of bodies for which she had done so much. Always surely they had been keeping the ring for Claude and for her. And it seemed to her that, unseen, they had circled the Isle in the far-off Algerian garden where she first spoke of her love and desire for Claude, that they had ever since been attending upon her life. Had they not muttered about the white house that held the worker? Had they not stared at the one who sat waiting by the fountain? Had they not seen the arrival of Jacob Crayford? Had they not assisted at those long colloquies when the opera which was for them was changed? Absurdly, she felt as if they had. And now, very soon, it would be for them to speak. And striving to shut her eyes more firmly, or pressing her fingers upon them, Charmian saw moving hands, a forest of them below, circles above circles of them, and in the distance of the gods a mist of them. And she saw the shining of thousands of eyes, in which were mirrored strangely, almost mystically, souls that Claude's music, conceived in patience and labor, had moved and that wished to tell him so.

She saw the crowd! And she saw it returning to listen again. And she remembered, with the extraordinary vitality of an ardent woman, who was still little more than a girl, how she had sat opposite to the white-faced, red-haired heroine on the first night of Jacques Sennier's Paradis Terrestre; how she had watched her, imaginatively entered into her mind, become one with her. That night Claude had written his letter to her, Charmian. The force in her, had entered into him, had inspired him to do what he did that night, had inspired him to do what he had since done always near to her. And soon, very soon, the white-faced, red-haired woman would be watching her.

Then something that was almost like an intoxication of the senses, something that, though it was born in the mind, seemed intimately physical, came upon, rushed over Charmian. It was the intoxication of an acute ambition which believed itself close to fulfilment. Life seemed very wonderful to her. Scarcely could she imagine anything more wonderful than life holding the gift she asked for, the gift something in her demanded. And she connected love with ambition, even with notoriety. She conceived of a satisfied ambition drawing two human beings together, cementing their hearts together, merging their souls in one.

"How I shall love Claude triumphant!" she thought exultantly, even passionately, as if she were thinking of a man new made, more lovable by a big measure than he had been before. And she saw love triumphant with wings of flame mounting into the regions of desire, drawing her soul up.

"Claude's triumph will develop me," she thought. "Through it I shall become the utmost of which I am capable. I am one of those women who can only thrive in the atmosphere of glory."

Claude triumphant, and made triumphant by her! She cherished that imagination. She became possessed by it.

Everything conspired to keep that imagination alive and powerful within her. Crayford was an enthusiast for the opera, and infected all those who belonged to him, who were connected with his magnificent theater, with his own enthusiasm. The scene-painter, who had, almost with genius, prepared exquisite Eastern pictures, was an enthusiast foreseeing that he would gain in the opera the triumph of his career. The machinist was "fairly wild" about the opera. Had he not invented the marvellous locust effect, which was to be a new sensation? Mr. Mulworth, by dint of working with fury and sitting up all night, had become fanatical about the opera. He existed only for it. No thought of any other thing could find a resting-place in his mind. His "production" was going to be a masterpiece such as had never before been known in the history of the stage. Nothing had been forgotten. He had brought the East to New York. It was inconceivable by him that New York could reject it. He spoke about the music, but he meant his "production." The man was a marvel in his own line, and such a worker as can rarely be found anywhere. He believed the opera was going to mark an epoch in the history of the lyric stage. And he said so, almost wildly, in late hours of the night to Charmian.

Then there was Alston, who was to have his first great chance in the opera, and who grew more fervently believing with each rehearsal.