X THE BIRTH OF AN ARTIST

The following night he was paddling on the Isar when he became aware that he approached the house of Margarethe Styr. It stood on a branch of the river that separated the Englischergarten from Schwabing, an old village now incorporated in the city of Munich. From the back projected a tower whose foundation was not in the garden, but in the bed of the stream. Her grounds were surrounded by a high wall, and on the day he had left his card he had seen nothing of the house but its baroque fa?ade; but more than one of his friends, when driving him in the park, had pointed out the tower and commented upon the lonely dwelling of the Styr. There was a story that Ludwig I had built this villa for a beautiful woman of Siena, intending to visit her by way of the Isar, which flowed not far from the palace walls. The lady, however, could not make up her mind to brave the rigours of the North, and it had become the property of a romantic young couple, whose grandchildren had sold it to the present King when the whim seized him to present a dwelling to the Styr.

Ordham did not rest on his oars, but used them more slowly perhaps as he raised his face, hoping for a glimpse of the great artist whom he still permitted himself to admire even if no longer consumed by a desire to know her. Just as the boat slipped past the tower such a shriek of horror rang from the lowest of its rooms, that Ordham, without hesitating a second, reached the shore with a stroke and swung himself through a window in the opposite curve. He expected to find Countess Tann struggling in the arms of a burglar, and was astonished to see her standing alone in the middle of the room, staring down through the window to which he had raised his eyes as the boat rounded the corner. He did not enter noiselessly, but it was fully a moment before she turned. Then she drew a spasmodic breath of relief.

“Of course—you! But when I saw that white face down in the water—your face down there did look so white—I thought it was—”

Although the room was nearly dark he could see that she made an effort to recover her natural poise, and she added: “Thank you for coming to my rescue. Of course you thought I was being murdered?”

“Or Kundry!” He was recovering from his own fright.

“Oh, don’t jest! I have had a terrible shock. You have no idea what your face down there brought back. I thought it was the ghost of a young man who once gave his life for me; and yet there is no reason why he should haunt me. I begged him to go.”

His complete silence expressed his right to hear the story, and in a moment it was evident that she would tell it. Her head was bent, her brows drawn, giving her eyes the expression of tragedy most familiar to him. The shock, no doubt, had set her sense of drama in action. He wondered if it were ever far from the surface of the artist that lived for his art, as this woman did.

“I will tell you,” she said at length. “Why not? You have come into my life in odd ways. As oddly you compel me to talk. I even wrote you long letters—and tore them up. I have told you that I was on the stage in America. I always had small parts, but I had some influence, nevertheless. Over there it is called ‘pull’—but you never use slang, do you? I scarcely ever went ‘on the road,’ as another phrase goes. But one summer, after I had been cultivating my voice for about three years with the old Wagnerian devotee I had discovered in New York, I quarrelled with a man I had come to hate, and, it being impossible that he should leave New York, I made up my mind to join a travelling company that would demand my services for months to come. It was not the salary of an actress that I needed in order to put the continent between us, but the protection of the company. Women in that great free country, to be admitted to hotels, or at least to remain in them, must be accompanied by some member of their family, by some man who at least pretends to be their husband, must be known (favourably known), must be shabbily respectable, or must have a raison d’être. An actress travelling with a company has always the right to live, no matter if she can do nothing but dust the furniture. So I went barnstorming, and, accustomed to luxury as I had grown, I was very uncomfortable, disgusted; no doubt, had I been less hardy, I should have fallen ill. If the adventure I am about to relate had not happened, I might not have—I might have returned to New York in a very different fashion. My voice might not have been enough. I cannot tell.

“We played across the continent to San Francisco, then up to Portland, Oregon, intending to return in the same leisurely manner by the northern route from Seattle. We took the steamer from Portland. It is an infamous piece of coast, called, indeed, the ‘graveyard of the Pacific,’ but the weather was fair, and as there are only twenty or thirty wrecks a year, everybody in that optimistic section of the country expects to be among the favoured. Before night one of those terrible winds of the North Pacific suddenly descended upon us. I had often crossed the Atlantic, but I had never heard such a wind, seen such waves. Only the old phrase, ‘mountains high,’ gives any impression the waves made upon me, at least. Nearly everybody was ill. I remained on deck, enjoying the storm, the roaring wind, the great green glassy waves with their soft white combs. There was no rain, and the sky, as we rolled about, seemed to shake out the folds of a spangled flag. I soon noticed an athletic young fellow trying to stride up and down the deck. He gave it up after a time, and, having helped me to my feet, after I had gone for the third time into the scuppers, we fell into conversation. He was a Harvard man, had been visiting relatives in San Francisco, and was on his way to British Columbia for some shooting before returning to his home in Boston. He confessed that he had cultivated sport to such an extent that he had neglected his studies, and intended to take a post-graduate course. I do not recall anything else that he said, but he looked so young, so strong, so clean and thoroughbred, that I liked him, as I have always liked the few of his type that I have met. After a time he advised me to go to my room and get some sleep. I bade him good-night; and although my small state-room was close and crowded, I soon fell asleep. I knew nothing more until we were on the rocks.”

She flung out those famous expressive hands of hers. “That awful scene of confusion! The sharp animal-like cries of the women! The hoarse yells and curses of the men! The frantic rush! The horrible darkness—for every light went out. Finally I found myself on deck—swept there, I suppose, by that fighting mass of people. But it was all unreal at first, like a scene in the theatre. I remember hearing the leading lady sob: ‘Oh, Gawd, I’ll never do it no more, I swear I won’t!’ and laughing.

“Then I saw that the atmosphere was impenetrable. I learned afterward that the captain had entered those terrible straits in a dense fog. And then I heard the grinding and pounding of the ship on the rocks, the roar and hiss of breakers. The signal gun scattered the shrieks that never stopped for a second. The ship gave a violent lurch. I saw a green wall rushing through the fog and flung myself face downward, throwing my arms about a smokestack. When the wave had receded and I recovered my breath, I found myself alone and saw dark objects tossing on the water.

“There were no more screams, but there were other sounds—I cannot describe them! Suddenly I felt myself lifted up and a voice said: ‘Come quickly. There will be another wave. And we are sinking.’ I recognized the voice of the young Bostonian. He half carried me to the top of the pilot-house, where a few others were huddled. The fog lifted. I could see still others clinging to the higher parts of the boat, but nearly every one had been washed overboard. By this time lights were flashing all along the shore, and we expected every moment that boats would put out to our rescue. But the seas were running at a frightful rate. I heard later that more than one boat was launched, but unable to fight the energy of those heaving mountains.

“One end of the steamer was below water. The other was pounding horribly; we merely waited for her to free herself and plunge to the bottom. More than once she slipped—twisted—When morning came the pilot-house was but a few feet above water. My young friend lashed me to a mast. How I climbed it with him I cannot tell you, but I did, and was firmly tied. He stood on a rung just below me and held my hand. He had already wrapped his coat about me. There was no more rope, even for him. I saw the others washed away, one by one. They went in silence. At first I implored him not to leave me to die alone, and he promised that he would not. But finally I begged him to try to swim to the shore. He was so strong, and we now could see people running up and down, a boat launching, even fancied we heard cries of encouragement. Surely they would manage to pick him up even although they might not reach the ship. But he would not. He said that a man could die only once, and that he should be ashamed to call himself an American if he deserted a woman in an hour like that.

“It will always be incredible to me that they did not make a more persistent effort to save us than they did. And his life was worth saving! The day passed. We saw a steam tug, evidently telegraphed for; but after hanging about for an hour it went away again without making any attempt to approach us. Another night passed. The gale did not diminish for an instant. I was stiff, frozen, hungry, a mere bundle of automatic nerves. Will, memories, reason, all that make the individual, might have gone to find a grave for my tortured body. But I was safe so long as the ship gripped the rock. With him it was a different matter. He was strong and young, but he was not a god, and he was not lashed to the mast. He spoke to me from time to time, but his hold on my hand relaxed more than once, and I knew that he was in agony.

“I fell asleep. When I awakened, in a moment or two, no doubt, I called to him in terror, for, had he too slept, he must have fallen and been washed away. He answered me in a moment, and then I roused myself from my lethargy and talked constantly. He held out till morning. Almost with the dawn I saw a glittering green mountain, that seemed to smoke like a volcano, rise above the ship, bend down, slip under my friend, roar again and recede, holding triumphantly aloft that straight young figure. For the first time in my life I forgot myself and wept for the fate of another. Then I set my teeth in the face of that demoniacal storm and swore that I would not be conquered. I had survived Life. I would defy the mere elements. I thought of my voice, the voice my master had begged me, literally on his knees, to consecrate to the greatest r?les ever written. Sometimes he had thrilled me with an appetite for fame, independence, but intermittently; perhaps because, although I had read those r?les again and again, I had never heard them, above all never known the ecstasy of singing them (he made me grind at tone production, scales, difficult exercises); perhaps because I was by no means giving my life to music alone. But now, abruptly, the artist awoke to life. Alone in that raging waste of water, with death tugging at my very feet and screaming in my ears, I was born into the religion of art, received the sign that I had been chosen to worship at that shrine, to be blest, to be lifted to its highest places—I—I—of all women! I saw far beyond those hungry waters. I no longer regretted my friend. What mattered it—the death of one mere mortal? I heard the cries of the Valkyrs as they rode across the sky on their winged horses. The black clouds rolled apart and I saw Wotan on his throne in Walhalla, the daughters of Erda, my sisters, about him . . . they besought him. . . . I could see the streaming of their hair, the flashing of their helmets and shields, as they ran back and forth, leaned over the ramparts to encourage me with their cries: ‘Hi—ya—ha! Ho—yo—to—ho!’ I was Brünhilde on her rock. The waves were fire. Ah!” Styr flung her arms upward, her body backward, swaying from side to side. “I shall never have such exquisite delusions again. Never! Never! For one hour—or was it one moment?—I was a goddess. It was no delusion! I was Brünhilde, awaking from a sleep, not of a generation, but of the centuries that had gone since she rode into the funeral pyre. I try to recall that ecstasy on the stage. Some of it comes back, but not all! Not all! I have a fancy that Death will bring it in his hand when he comes again.”

She dropped her arms, and her groping hand closed over the back of a chair. “I remember nothing of the rescue. I awoke in bed. They told me that I had slept for two days and nights, that I had been lashed to the mast for forty hours, alone for ten. They asked my name. I gave the first insignificant combination that entered my head. Charitable people advanced the money for my return to New York. I had money of my own there, for I had made profitable investments, when the whim for playing with gold instead of spending it had seized me. I revealed myself to no one but my banker and my singing teacher, and lived in obscure lodgings until I was pronounced fit to go to Bayreuth and ask The Master to listen to my voice. So far as any one else that had ever heard of me knew, I was dead, dead with the rest of that miserable company. And I was dead—for must not one die to be born again?”