She had not sung it for a long time, and it came back like an old friendship. When she finished, Harsanyi sprang from his chair and dropped lightly upon his toes, a kind of entre-chat that he sometimes executed when he formed a sudden resolution, or when he was about to follow a pure intuition, against reason. His wife said that when he gave that spring he was shot from the bow of his ancestors, and now when he left his chair in that manner she knew he was intensely interested. He went quickly to the piano.
“Sing that again. There is nothing the matter with your low voice, my girl. I will play for you. Let your voice out.” Without looking at her he began the accompaniment. Thea drew back her shoulders, relaxed them instinctively, and sang.
When she finished the aria, Harsanyi beckoned her nearer. “Sing ah—ah for me, as I indicate.” He kept his right hand on the keyboard and put his left to her throat, placing the tips of his delicate fingers over her larynx. “Again,—until your breath is gone.—Trill between the two tones, always; good! Again; excellent!—Now up,—stay there. E and F. Not so good, is it? F is always a hard one.—Now, try the half-tone.—That’s right, nothing difficult about it.—Now, pianissimo, ah—ah. Now, swell it, ah—ah.—Again, follow my hand.—Now, carry it down.—Anybody ever tell you anything about your breathing?”
“Mr. Larsen says I have an unusually long breath,” Thea replied with spirit.
Harsanyi smiled. “So you have, so you have. That was what I meant. Now, once more; carry it up and then down, ah—ah.” He put his hand back to her throat and sat with his head bent, his one eye closed. He loved to hear a big voice throb in a relaxed, natural throat, and he was thinking that no one had ever felt this voice vibrate before. It was like a wild bird that had flown into his studio on Middleton Street from goodness knew how far! No one knew that it had come, or even that it existed; least of all the strange, crude girl in whose throat it beat its passionate wings. What a simple thing it was, he reflected; why had he never guessed it before? Everything about her indicated it,—the big mouth, the wide jaw and chin, the strong white teeth, the deep laugh. The machine was so simple and strong, seemed to be so easily operated. She sang from the bottom of herself. Her breath came from down where her laugh came from, the deep laugh which Mrs. Harsanyi had once called “the laugh of the people.” A relaxed throat, a voice that lay on the breath, that had never been forced off the breath; it rose and fell in the air-column like the little balls which are put to shine in the jet of a fountain. The voice did not thin as it went up; the upper tones were as full and rich as the lower, produced in the same way and as unconsciously, only with deeper breath.
At last Harsanyi threw back his head and rose. “You must be tired, Miss Kronborg.”
When she replied, she startled him; he had forgotten how hard and full of burs her speaking voice was. “No,” she said, “singing never tires me.”
Harsanyi pushed back his hair with a nervous hand. “I don’t know much about the voice, but I shall take liberties and teach you some good songs. I think you have a very interesting voice.”
“I’m glad if you like it. Good-night, Mr. Harsanyi.” Thea went with Mrs. Harsanyi to get her wraps.
When Mrs. Harsanyi came back to her husband, she found him walking restlessly up and down the room.