When at last, by repeatedly looking at his watch, the Dean made it clear that Professor Pfeiffer must close his interrogation, Dr. Francesco Berger took over, and was so genial, so anxious to put Schnak at her ease, suggested so often that he approved of what had been done, that he almost upset the applecart. His colleagues wished Berger would not overdo it. When their time came to ask questions, they were brief and merciful.
It was George Cooper, who had dozed through much of the examination, who asked: “I notice that you have used some keys at important moments in the opera that would not perhaps have suggested themselves first to most composers. A flat major, and C flat major, and E flat major—why those? Any special reason?”
“They were ETAH’s favourites,” said Schnak. “He had a theory about keys and their special characters, and what they suggested.”
“ETAH? Who is ETAH?” said Professor Pfeiffer.
“Sorry. E.T.A. Hoffmann; I’ve got into the way of thinking of him as ETAH,” said Schnak.
“You mean you identify yourself with him?”
“Well, working from his notes and trying to get into his mind—”
Professor Pfeiffer said nothing but made a derisive noise in his nose. But then—“These theories of key characterization were very much a thing of Hoffmann’s time,” he said. “Romantic nonsense, of course.”
“Nonsense or not, I think we ought to hear a little more about it,” said Cooper. “What did he think about those keys?”
“Well—he wrote about A flat major: ‘Those chords carry me into the country of eternal longing.’ And about C flat major: ‘It grasps my heart with glowing claws’; he called it ‘the bleak ghost with red, sparkling eyes’. And he used E flat major a lot with horns; he called it ‘longing and sweet sounds.’ ”
“Hoffmann was a drug-taker, wasn’t he?” said Professor Pfeiffer.
“I don’t think so. He boozed a lot and sometimes he came near to having the horrors.”
“I’m not surprised, if he could talk that sort of rubbish about the character of keys,” said Pfeiffer, and was ready to drop the subject. But not Schnak.
“But if that’s the way he thought, oughtn’t I to respect it? If I’m to finish his opera, I mean?” she said, and Professor Diddear made a noise in his nose, as if to suggest that Professor Pfeiffer had been caught napping.
“I suppose you explain your excessive use of extraneous modulation as coming from Hoffmann’s adulation of Beethoven?”
“Hoffmann adored Beethoven and Beethoven thought a lot of Hoffmann.”
“I suppose that is so,” said the great musicologist. “You should remember, young lady, what Berlioz thought about Hoffmann: a writer who imagined himself to be a composer. But you have chosen to devote a great deal of work to this minor figure, and that is why we are here.”
“Perhaps to suggest that Berlioz could have been wrong,” said Dr. Gunilla; “he made a fool of himself often enough, as critics always do.”
She knew that Dr. Pfeiffer had written an essay about Berlioz which accorded Berlioz about seventy marks out of a hundred, which was as far as the Professor was inclined to go. If she could use Berlioz as a stick with which to beat Pfeiffer, so be it.
It was one o’clock.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I remind you that our work this morning is only a part of this unusual examination,” said the Dean. “We assemble again at two in the theatre, for a private performance of this opera, conducted by Miss Schnakenburg, on which a portion of your decision must necessarily rest. Proof of the pudding, you know. Meanwhile the Cornish Foundation has invited us to lunch, and we are already late.”
Professor Pfeiffer did not like lunching as a guest of the Cornish Foundation. “Are they not involved?” he asked the Dean. “Is the candidate not their protégée? I do not like to use such a term, but is this an attempt to buy us?”
“I think it’s just decent hospitality,” said the Dean, “and, as you know, hospitality is a co-operative thing. The Romans very wisely used the same word for ‘host’ and ‘guest’.” Pfeiffer did not understand, and shook his head.
The luncheon took place at the best restaurant in Stratford—the small one down by the river—and Arthur and Maria did everything they could to make the examiners happy. Easy work with Berger, Cooper, Diddear, and Penny Raven. Easy work with the Dean, and even with Professor Adelaide O’Sullivan, who was only a bigot about tobacco. Professor Pfeiffer, however, and Dr. Dahl-Soot had thrown aside the decorum of the examination room and were going at it, hammer and tongs.
“I totally disagree with this procedure of witnessing a performance of this work,” said the Professor. “It brings in elements extraneous to what we are to decide.”
“You don’t care if it can be seen as effective on the stage?”
“I care only if it is effective on the page. I agree with the late Ernest Newman: a great score is more finely realized when one reads it in the tranquillity of one’s study than when one sits in a crowd and endures the ineptitudes of orchestra and singers.”
“You mean you can do it better in your head than a hundred accomplished artists can do it for you?”
“I can read a score.”
“Better than, say von Karajan? Than Haitink? Than Colin Davis?”
“I do not follow the purpose of your line of questioning.”
“I am just trying to find out how great a man you are so that I can treat you with appropriate reverence. I can read a score, too. Am pretty well known for it, in fact. But it’s still better when I raise the baton and a hundred and twenty artists set about their work. I am not an opera company in myself.”
“So? Well—make of it what you will, but I rather think I am. No, I never drink wine. A glass of Perrier, if you please.”
What Professor Pfeiffer did not drink was certainly compensated for by what the others drank. It had been a thirsty morning. Before lunch was over, all but Pfeiffer were jovial, and Professor George Cooper showed a tendency to bump into tables, and laugh at himself for doing so. They were, after all, musicians under the professorial gown, and a well-set table was one of the elements in which they lived. They all thanked Arthur and Maria with a heartiness that made Professor Pfeiffer suspect the worst. But he could not be bought. Oh no, not he.
(5)
FIRST IN THE LINE of dressing-rooms on the stage level was a small kennel reserved for the use of the conductor, when there was one, and a quick-change room if that should be needed. Here sat Schnak, desolate and alone. She had known rejection before this: had there not been the boy who said that sex with her was like sleeping with a bicycle? She had known the loneliness of leaving home and parents. She had known the bitterness of being a loner, of not fitting into any group, while being still too young and insignificant to wear loneliness like a badge of honour. But never had she known wretchedness like this, when she was about to take a great step forward in her life as an artist.
She knew that she would not fail. Francesco Berger had made it clear to her, a few weeks ago, that the examination was a rite of passage, a ceremonial and scholarly necessity; the School of Music would not permit the examination to take place if it were not ninety-five per cent certain to be a success. The examination was either the last and most demanding of the torments of student life, or the first and simplest of the torments of professional life. She had nothing to fear.
Nevertheless, she feared. Her experience as a conductor had been confined to a few bouts with a student orchestra, which was fractious enough, because inexperienced. A professional orchestra was something very different. These old pros were like livery-stable horses: they were used to all sorts of riders, and they were determined to do, so far as possible, what they chose. Oh, they wouldn’t wreck the performance; they were musicians, through and through. But they would be sticky about tempi, sluggish about entrances, perfunctory in phrasing; they wouldn’t be bossed by a raw kid. Gunilla would conduct at all the public performances, unless Gunilla was kind and let her do one or tw
o mid-week shows. Gunilla knew how to get what she wanted out of an orchestra, and she had the kind of sharp tongue musicians respect—professionally severe, but not personal. What had she said to the harpist yesterday? “The arpeggi must be deliberate, like pearls dropping in wine, not slithering like a fat woman slipping on a banana skin.” Not Oscar Wilde, but good enough for a rehearsal. Gunilla had coached her, had allowed her to conduct a full orchestra rehearsal, and had given her an hour of notes afterward. But once she lifted her baton this afternoon, she was alone. And that old hellion Pfeiffer would be watching every minute.
The dressing-room was unbearable. She wandered out to the stage, which was set for the Prologue, and as it was lighted only by one harsh lamp high up in the flies it was as charmless as an unlit stage always is. Below her, under the device of rollers, like corkscrews, that produced the effect of gently heaving waves, she heard voices: Waldo Harris, Dulcy, and Gwen Larking, arguing with Geraint.
“They work perfectly well, but they make too much noise,” said Waldo. “I don’t suppose you’d agree to leaving them out altogether? We could probably rig up something that would look like moving water.”
“Oh, no!” said Dulcy. “These are the darlings of my heart—and absolutely authentic for the way they did things in 1820.”
“They’ve cost a fortune to make,” said Waldo. “I guess it would be a shame to scrap them.”
“But what can you do?” said Geraint.
“We’d have to dismantle the three rollers and put rubber on the parts that engage. That’d do it, I think.”
“How long will it take?” said Geraint.
“An hour, at least.”
“Then take an hour, and do it,” said Geraint. “I want to see it this afternoon.”
“Can’t,” said Gwen Larking. “The curtain must go up sharp at two. It’s Schnak’s examination, remember?”
“What of it? An hour won’t kill them, surely?”
“From what I hear about this morning, an hour’s delay would put them in a very bad temper. Especially that old fellow who makes all the trouble. We mustn’t make things difficult for Schnak.”
“Oh, damn Schnak! That miserable little runt is more bother than she’s worth!”
“Come on, Geraint, be a sport. Give the kid her chance.”
“You mean Schnak’s chance is more important than my production?”
“Yes, Geraint, from now till half past four Schnak’s chance is more important than anything else. You said so yourself, to the whole cast, yesterday,” said Dulcy.
“I say whatever is best at the moment, and you know it.”
“What’s best at the moment is that we leave this piece of machinery till later.”
“This is just the trade-unionism of women. God, how I hate women.”
“All right, Geraint; hate me,” said Gwen. “But give Schnak her chance, even if you hate her later.”
“Gwen’s right,” said Waldo. “I said an hour, but it could be two. Let’s leave it for the moment.”
“O Jesu mawr! O anwyl Crist! Have it your way then!” Geraint could be heard going off in a huff.
“Don’t fuss! We’ll manage the appearance of the sword! It’ll do for today,” said Waldo, but there was no sound of an appeased director.
Schnak threw up her lunch-time sandwich and cup of coffee into the toilet. It had turned to gall within her. When she had wiped her face and doused it with cold water, she went back to her dressing-room and looked at herself in the mirror. Damned Schnak. Miserable little runt. Yes, Geraint was right.
He’d never love me. Why would anybody love me? I love Geraint even better than I love Nilla, and he hates me. Look at me! Short. Scrawny. Awful hair. Face like a rat. Those legs! Why did Nilla say I had to wear a black jacket and this white blouse? Of course he hates me. I look just bloody awful. Why can’t I look like Nilla? Or that Maria Cornish? Why is God so mean to me?
A tap at the door, and a gofer (the prettiest gofer) put her head inside.
“Fifteen minutes, Schnak,” she said. “And the best of luck. All the girls have their fingers crossed for you.”
Schnak snarled, and the gofer withdrew quickly.
After fifteen minutes more of repetitious self-hate the last call came—from outside the door—and Schnak made her way downstairs, through the undercroft to the stage, and into the orchestra pit. There they sat, the thirty-two villains who meant to destroy her. Some of them nodded to her pleasantly; the concert-master, and Watkin Bourke at the harpsichord, whispered, “Good luck.”
If there is any applause when you step onto the podium, turn and bow to the house, Nilla had said. There was no applause, but from the tail of her eye she could see that the seven examiners had placed themselves here and there in the auditorium, and in the front row, right behind her, a full score on his knees and a flashlight in his hand, sat the ominous Professor Pfeiffer. What a seat to choose, she thought.
The little red light-signal from the Stage Manager flashed on, and at the same time the oyster eye of the closed-circuit television camera directly in front of the conductor’s desk, which would carry Schnak’s every movement to backstage monitors, for Stage Management, Chorus, and offstage sound of every kind, gave a gloomy blink, like an undersea monster.
She tapped the music desk, raised her baton—one of Gunilla’s own, specially made and perhaps intended as a talisman—and when she gave the down beat, the first mysterious chord of the Prologue rose at her.
The orchestra, aware of her nerves, but oblivious of her hatred, played well, and after fifteen slow bars of the Prologue the curtain swept upward to show the Enchanted Mere. In front of it stood Oliver Twentyman, splendid as Merlin, and Hans Holzknecht, armoured and cloaked as King Arthur. Merlin apostrophized the waves, and not quite on cue the great sword Caliburn rose above the unmoving waters. Arthur seized it, and invoked all the magic of the sword. Everything seemed to be going well, until Schnak felt herself being tapped—almost punched—in the back, and when she ignored this, there was a loud whistle, and Professor Pfeiffer’s voice crying, “Hold it! Hold it! Repeat from Letter D, please!” Schnak dropped her baton and the music stopped.
“What’s the matter?” It was Dean Wintersen’s voice.
“I want to hear it again from Letter D,” said Pfeiffer. “They are not playing what is written in the score.”
“A minor change in rehearsal,” said Gunilla’s voice. “Some addition to the wood-winds.”
“I am speaking to the conductor,” said Pfeiffer. “If there has been a change, why is it not in the score as it was presented to us? Repeat from Letter D, if you please.”
So the music was repeated from Letter D. Holzknecht, who had been pleased with his performance, was not pleased by this unexpected encore; Oliver Twentyman flashed a charming smile at Professor Pfeiffer across the footlights like someone humouring a child, and the Professor did not like it.
Nevertheless, the repeat was performed, and all went well until the end of the Prologue. It had been seen through a scrim, a transparent curtain which lent mystery to the stage, and as this was whisked up into the flies, it did not whisk obligingly, but caught on the first wing on the right side of the stage, and there was a terrible ripping. The scrim was halted in its progress, and Gwen Larking appeared at the side of the stage accompanied by a large man with a pole who fished the scrim away from what was catching it. This did not dismay the stage crew, or the singers, who were used to such mishaps, but it struck coldly into the heart of Schnak, who was sure this would be counted against her by her merciless foe.
What happened during the long afternoon was not, as Geraint wildly cried, like the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera, but it included more than the usual number of technical troubles. What really put the rehearsal to the bad was the frequent interruption of Professor Pfeiffer, who demanded, in all, seven repeats of music which he said—quite rightly—was not entirely as it appeared in the score he had been sent three weeks earlier. When he did not stop p
roceedings by whistling loudly through his teeth, like a policeman, he could be heard muttering, and demanding more light to help him in making notes. The opera, which should have taken two and a half hours, without the single fifteen-minute interval, took rather more than four, and the singers became demoralized, and were far below their best. Only the orchestra, firmly professional, sawed and tooted and strummed imperturbably, and did, under the circumstances, pretty well.
Six of the seven examiners had given up the struggle before the rehearsal finished. They had heard enough, had liked what they heard, had enjoyed lunch, and were ready to wrap the affair up and get back to their homes. Professor Pfeiffer, whose eyes were fixed on his score, never seemed to look at the stage and was impatient when technical problems brought the performance to a halt. Nobody, therefore, noticed that it was not Schnak who conducted the last scene, but Watkin Bourke, who did so from the harpsichord. Schnak had disappeared, and the orchestra had assumed that she was ill and were not, all things considered, surprised.
Even they were surprised, however, when a loud siren was heard outside the fire exit on the right-hand side of the auditorium, and Gwen Larking, appearing from one of the proscenium doors, jumped from the stage to open it and admit four men with a stretcher, who hurried across the front of the theatre, trampling Professor Pfeiffer’s feet as they did so, and disappeared through the pass-door on the stage left. But the music went on, somewhat rockily, until, moments later, the four men reappeared, carrying a stretcher upon which lay the body of Schnak, under a blanket. The stage had filled, meanwhile, with actors in costume, several stagehands, the gofers, and Arthur and Maria, who stood at the footlights with Geraint Powell. The body of Schnak was carried before them, thought Darcourt, who had been in the darkness at the back of the theatre, very much as if they were looking down at it from Arthurian battlements, and their astonishment and dismay were not in the least theatrical, but real and stamped with terror. The little procession reached the door, the stretcher disappeared, and the siren grew fainter as the ambulance sped away.