The Daily Transcript (Norman, Okla.), Vol. 3, No. 83, Ed. 1 Monday, September 27, 1915 Page: 2 of 4
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NORMAN DAILY TRANSCRIPT
c/FAME
^ EDWIN
BLISS
(Coryrtght, 1916, by Pathe Kxi hanxe. Inc. All Moving Pleturo Rights anil all For-
et(fn Copyrights Strictly Reserved.)
forgotten him—you see he was nothing
but a voice to me—but when he re-
called that evening and the scene—"
He shrugged apologetically, sheepish-
ly. "Well, I knew that It was Fate. 1
offered to cultivate his voice and take
my pay In the future, when It bad
proved Itself."
"And you wiBh me to listen when he
comes?"
"He Is waiting now," De Retsky
smiled as he consulted his watch. "He
is always early for his lesson, unwil-
ling to lose a moment of the time." He
nodded to the maid, who ushered into
the room a blushing, roughly-clad
young man. who flushed hotly as he
returned the friendly pressure of the
great vocalist's hand, then turned nat-
urally to the piano as she expressed
the desire to hear his voice.
Her critical Bense was swept away
even as lie Retsky's had been before
her, and the judgment of the artist
upon a tyro gave place to unmixed de-
light as Merwln lavishly poured forth
his soi^g.
She sighed as De Retsky turned upon
her. smiling delightedly at the obvloUB
impression his pupil had made.
"You were right, De Retsky, right,"
she murmured. "It is a voice that
belongs to the world, a voice that
does not belong to you any longer.
You are the singer, old friend, more
than the great teacher of voice pro-
duction. The is The Voice. It belongs
to Spreglia of l'arls, Lamperti in Ber-
lin, old Vanuncchinl of Florence. Syn-
ney I)alton. here in the United States,
in New York, shall have it finally. And
he will coach, will make the opera
singer out of the man with The Voice.
Oh, I shall attend to all that. I must
have my share in this discovery, De
Retsky."
She turned to where the singer had
been and De Retsky frowned as he saw
his protege had slipped away under
cover of the great vocalist's enthusi-
asm. He looked at her uneasily for
some sign of irritation, but a smile
lurked about the corners of her mouth.
"The little country girl who was
feeding the turkeys," she said Boftly,
a curious glitter in her eyes as though
a vagrant tear had somehow found a
resting place there. "Ah. well, it will
make her happy, De Retsky. And hap-
piness should be crowded upon her
now."
The two who had eaten of the fruit
avoided meeting her eyes, as If In fear.
And their fear seemed by some odd
freak to have transferred itself to a
tiny cottage in the outskirts of the
city, where a little woman bent her
head lower over her knitting while
her husband joyously, eagerly told for
the twentieth time of his experience.
FIRST STORY
i.
Pref Carl de Retsky flung a regret-
ful glance at the hills, hurling their
rugged battlements against the twi-
light that marked a definite end to
his vacation. Vacation—rest from
the weary grind, the loathsome task
of training voices that could never be
other than mediocre, voices that tor-
tured his finely tuned nerves so ex-
quisitely he had been forced to these
same hills that the vast silences might
perform their healing function. He
opened his mouth, laving his throat
with the clear air, drinking in great
drafts of It as though trying to store
away a reserve fund of that silence
for the future. And then—
Then the voice reached out to him.
Faintly, at first, but steadily Increas-
ing in volume until the silence was
put to utter rout.
Such a voice! Rivaling in purity,
clarity and sweetness the voices of
nature. Dazed by his incredulous de-
light, the singing master followed the
sounds till he found himself, leaning
against a farm house fence, staring at
a young man upon the porch, his hand-
eome face pressed against the bars of
a canary's cage, his eyes glistening
•with delight as he held vocal contest
with the fluffy little creature. A rich,
■Warm red came from beneath the
heavy coat of tan as he caught sight
of the stranger, halting iiis Bong ab-
ruptly as he Inquiringly approached.
"Such a volce! Such an organ—"
De Retsky stopped abruptly as he
found his enthusiasm carrying him
pway. "I have never heard the song
before," he continued inquiringly.
"Song!" The young chap laughed.
"I was Just teasing the bird—that's
all."
. "Teasing the bird!" the singing
teacher repeated the words In bewil-
derment. He drew a card from his
pocket as the youth smiled. He did
not care to be laughed at—De Retsky.
The young man caught his displeasure
Instantly.
"Thank you," he murmured grate-
fully. "I was smiling because my fa-
ther just told me that my voice didn't
go very far when it came to killing
weeds."
"You should cultivate that voice—
such voices belong to the world and
not to the individual," De Retsky
frowned.
He stopped as he noticed the change
of expression that had come over the
singer's face as he studied the card
with evident recognition.
"Cultivate my voice?" His voice
was husky, hoarse. "Cultivate it! But
■who will pay for the job—who pays?"
He looked about him, at the tiny farm
house, the small farm, the shabby out-
houses, all indicative of small means.
"Yes—that's it. Who pays?" De
Retsky muttered,, a faint smile upon
his lips. For he knew the ultimate
payment would not be found within so
Email a space; would not be taken
from wealth or that which went to
make wealth, but from the human
heart. Whose heart?
II.
"—and for a long time, my dear
Bella, I could not keep that voice from
my ears. Everything was there ex-
cept the training. As you know, I
have heard them all and have not
been rated the worst myself, but for
natural singing quality I have never
heard this young Henry Merwin's
superior."
"It merely shows," he continued,
"how possible it is to dodge duty.
That voice belonged to the world. But
as I recalled what the struggle meant,
what must be gone through before the
summit is attained. I did not have the
courage. Like a coward, a traitor to
my art, I fled." He smiled whimsi-
cally. "But it was to be. I returned
to my work, to the horrible grind. I
listened to the sounds that could never
be made into song and always I was
hearing the voice of the farmer boy
who teased the bird."
"And my little words of encourage-
ment had fallen upon a soul worthy
of that divine voice. Henry Merwin
fought his way to the wagon seat of
a milk wagon. That was what he did
when he found me, that is what he is
doing now—driving a milk wagon—"
"I was in a laundry," the great so-
prano murmured softly, as though to
herself.
De Retsky started to speak, but the
expression on her face deterred him
"He is married?" she queried
abruptly.
"Married the little beauty I saw him
with that evening as I returned to my
hotel—the little country girl he ran to
with the news."
"And I suppose Bhe was happy in his
joy, happy at the encouragement you
had given him!" A lurking bitterness
was in the singer's tones, a note that
caused the professor to look at her
sharply.
"Little Dora twisted her ankle one
morning while I was busy with a
impil. Young Merwin was driving past
and helped the child. He recognized
me immediately, though I had quite
Trying Out His Voice.
She could not analyze the mixture of
emotions tugging at her very heart
Btrings, the Joyous ache, the leaden
ecstasy, the torturing delight all
struggling there for mastery.
"Europe, Ann! The greatest teach-
ers of the world! Just think of it!
Why, it seems impossible! Wealth,
fame, honor, everytihng—"
The tear that had trembled so long
a time upon the fringe of her lashes
dropped to the tiny shoe upon which
she was knitting, clung there until his
eyes rested upon it.
"Aren't you happy, Ann?" he re-
peated.
She nodded a trifle Jerkily, then
slowly lifted her eyes to meet his own.
Honest eyes they were, loving, wor-
shipful eyes they were, patient eyes,
the eyes that belong to women whose
souls are so sensitive they chill before
the mere shadow of impending trag-
edy.
"So happy, Henry, that—I'm afraid
of it—of my happiness," she answered
bravely.
III.
Ann shivered again under some-
thing Ehe read in Madam Holmes'
eyes. She had felt It even before the
woman crossed the threshold, had
been feeling it in ever increasing vol-
ume while De Retsky and her hus-
band outlined plane for his operatic
studies abroad. The great singer had
been silent, strangely silent since it
was she who was doing the financing
of that voice. And now the wife
knew that madam was about to speak
and with her eyes pleaded to the
celebrity—as woman to woman—for
pity, for charity. And madam shrank
before that look, even while her lips
tightened.
"Of course," she said slowly, "I shall
provide for your wife while you are
abroad. Mr Merwin."
Though she had been expecting a
blow, though she had nerved herself
for the worst, Ann could not repress
the little cry of incredulous pain that
leaped from her lips. Her hands
sought her heart gropingly, the hands
that still gripped the unfinished shoe.
"You mean—you mean that I am
not to go—that Henry is to go alone—
to leave me and—and—"
"A student should have no distrac-
tion in his studies."
Ann felt something go dead within
her. Her hands went out In groping
fashion toward her husband.
"Henry you—you want to leave—"
She could not finish for the great,
choking sob constricting her throat,
suffocating her.
He wheeled upon her fiercely,
plunged into a rage of his own creat-
ing, but madam flashed him a warn-
ing look as Ann sank back in her
chair.
"My dear," in the great soprano's
voice were all the tones that had
quickened tears in the hearts of au-
diences throughout the world, "you
must not make It any harder than it
is already. Don't you know that I
understand; that I am a woman, and
that I understand your pain at part-
ing?" She moved a step closer, plac-
ing her hand upon Ann's shoulder and
turning upon the two men.
"You have your choice, Mr Merwin
—milkman or a Voice. I had the
choice and Voice won. It has brought
me fame, wealth, honor, glory; it has
lost me all that my heart would have
clung to did I consider happiness
alone. I do not say that it is always
so, but the price of fame is often mis-
ery. The price of Fame must be paid
and Fame is a hard bargainer."
Ann looked up eagerly, timidly, yet
with a strange ferocity to catch the
impression upon her husband What
she read upon his face filled her with
swift self-reproach.
"I think I understand,'' she whis-
pered softly. "I want the fame for
him."
IV.
Strange the quips and whimsies of
Chance, elusive Chance.
Years that seemed interminable,
years of goading desperation, dis-
couragement, self-sacrifice, endurance
stretched behind Henry Merwin as he
halted a moment at the stage door of
the New York Grand Opera house to
allow one of the stars to enter. A
bitter smile curved his lips, lips that
had tightened since the days when
the milk route alone oppressed his
mind, as he slowly made-up in the
male dressing room for a peasant in
the opening act of "Pagliacci." He
was a chorus man—only a chorus
man.
From below he could hear the
strains of "Cavalleria Rusticana"
which preceded "Pagliacci" and the
voice of Cabosso, greatest of all ten-
ors. Cabosso, who stood where the
ignorant young milkman had dreamed
of standing; Cabosso, the announce-
ment of whose singing was sufficient
to pack the great house.
The soul of the artist within him
struggled impotently at his situation,
the difference between the dream and
the reality. Cabosso singing Canio,
the bitter, disillusioned pantaloon,
when everything that life could hold
was his: and he. Henry Merwin, with
a voice no less than that of the star,
sang among the peasants. Uncon-
sciously he threw himself into the
role of the man. compelled to amuse
the public with his antics, compelled
to don grease paint when he wished
to smear his face with the blood of
rival and unfaithful wife. His lips
opened and the tenor aria at the close
of the first act poured from his throat.
He stopped abruptly as a hand fell
upon his shoulder, biting his lips in
mute embarrassment as he looked up
into the eyes of the stage manager. It
dawned upon him that he was trans-
gressing the rules of the house in
singing, that in all likelihood, he
would be discharged. And suddenly
ho was seized with a vast, overwhelm-
ing desire to hold this position that a
moment before had roused all his re-
sentment.
"Are you up on the role — on
Canio?" The words were crisp, brit-
tle, mandatory.
For a moment he did not Under-
stand. then a quick flush mantled his
cheeks at what he took for sarcasm.
A hot answer was on the tip of his
tongue, checked only in time as he
read upon the faces about him that
the man was really In earnest. He
rose swiftly, his hand gripping at the
lapel of the stage manager's coat even
as the man fairly dragged him down
the narrow, iron stairway toward the
director, who raged about in the
wings, his face the picture of misery.
He laughed ironically as his under
ling whispered to him, sizing the
chorus-man up and down.
"Canio!" he laughed. "Substitute
for Cabosso! What is your training?
Who coached you?"
"Spreglia, Lamperti—"
"But who coached you in Canio?"
Though his interruption was harsh,
Merwin could Bee a light of interest
in his eyes.
"De Retsky—Jean himself, coached."
"Make up—quickly," the director de-
cided sharply.
He heard nothing of the stage man-
ager's instructions, was numbly con-
scious of getting into the costume of
the pantaloon, heard nothing of the
director's instructions as, in a cold
perspiration he waited for the bari-
tone to finish with the prologue.
Fear was upon him, cold, dank
fear. Could he have run from the
place, could he have put a finish to
every ambition he had pressed so
closely to his very soul, could he have
thrust it all aside at that moment,
he would have done so rather than
suffer the fiery heat alternating with
icy cold that seized his body, be tor-
JL_ I
"You Want Me to Lose My Voice!"
tured by the prickling fingers at his
spine, the harsh grip at his heart.
" don't mind the whispering and
talking while you sing. They do it
with everyone but Cabosso—"
He heard no more, but these words
seared themselves in letters of fire
upon his brain. His teeth clicked
shut with an audible sound. Suddenly
all the stage fright disappeared be-
fore an anticipatory rage. They
should not whisper and talk while
he sang; they should treat his voice
with the same respect they treated
that of Cabosso. His voice was the
equal of the great tenor's.
Unconscious of his audience, of the
stir of curiosity at his appearance in-
stead of the familiar Cabosso, regard-
less of everything save overweening
desire to win, Henry Merwin hardly
realized he was upon the stage before
the curtain stareil him in the face, the
curtain which formed a barrier
against the tumultuous applause of
the audience at his performance, and
shut him into the other world behind
the scenes, the world of fellow-singers
who made him realize the tremendous
impression he had created.
He suddenly felt himself very weak,
felt his impotence. He needed help,
sympathy—he needed—Ann—
Swiftly he discarded his costume,
but illy wiping the grease paint from
his countenance. But in his eyes
glowed something of happiness, grow-
ing from more than fame as, half an
hour later, he reread the message he
had just written before passing it to
the agent.
Ann Merwin, Los Angeles, Cal.: Come
to New York at once. No more poverty.
HENRY.
V.
He waited In the library, listening
to the sounds of delight from Ann's
room.
In the week he had tasted the fruit
of success and laughed at the fear he
had entertained of it. To be sought
out by the great director and placed
under a contract at a figure he had
only vaguely dreamed of ever earning;
to be the toast of town and press, to
be invited into the very heart of so-
ciety's most sanctified circle; to know
that it was all deserved—surely they
were fools who had told him the price
to be paid for fame was heavy.
And now Ann was here, was so
close to him he had but to tap upon
the adjoining door to see her, so
close to him he could hear her de-
lighted exclamations over the gown he
had bought for her to wear at Mrs.
Van Rolphe's reception that very
night.
Slowly a frown crossed his fore-
head, a perplexed and anxious frown.
Ann—would Ann be able to live up
to the position he had created for
her?
A little cry from the doorway, and
he clasped her to his heart, fiercely,
for the doubt that had been his. But,
as he held her away from him, he
was filled with the bitter realization
that the doubt remained.
Pretty, fresh, wholesome—yet she
was obviously uncomfortable in her
finery. There was something of the
out-of-doors about her that did not
seem to fit into the new life. He felt
himself guiltily contrasting her with
the dark, exotic beauty of Olga Drake,
the woman who had made so much
of him at a reception of the day be-
fore, the woman who had seemed so
desirous of being with him alone, de-
spite the gallants besieging her. And
Olga Drake, mistress of wealth and
beauty, was not less famous as a so-
cial dictator that he was as a singer.
In the carriage he could not drive
that contrast from his preoccupied
mind. He felt himself already a bit
irritated at the insistence of Ann that
the tiny cottage, the humble little
home in Los Angeles should not be
sold, that not a stick of the furniture
be changed.
He flushed hotly as she stumbled
upon her train as they made their
entrance at the Van Rolphes', angry
with himself for the impulse which
made him seek out the eyes of Olga
Drake to find whether she had noticed
the slip, more angry to know that he
had smiled with her at his wife's mis-
hap. Ann was his wife, the woman
he loved, and no one had the right
to smile at her.
He turned toward her, assisting her
to their hostess, bracing his shoulders
against the gibes he knew her man-
ner occasioned, with a smile upon
his lips. And then the guilty feeling
came upon him that he was feeling
the martyr, that he was taking pride
in his attitude of suffering.
In the mortification of the moment
he found himself offering his arm to
Olga Drake, passing his wife without
a glance.
"I'm afraid we frightened your poor
wife," Miss Drake murmured in his
ear.
He looked furtively at Olga Drake
at the note of sympathy In her voice.
And yet he merely smiled and sought
out his wife with his eyes, dropping
them more swiftly as they met the
mute appeal in Ann's own eyes. He
was conscious of chattering volubly
about nothing in particular, was aware
that his face was burning.
A farmer's daughter he had mar-
ried. A milkman's wife he had made
her. And, equally indifferent to aught
she was one still.
VI.
He paced the library floor nervous-
ly, every nerve In his body jangling
discordantly at the chatter of his wife
in the next room, the confusion of her
undignified romping with the baby.
Only the night before he had given
a wretched performance, his voice
turning hoarse. Only the night be-
fore he had tiffed with Olga Drake,
for the first time in all the months
during which their intimacy had
grown to such an extent, that there
were whispers about it.
First, he had tried to break away
from the spell she cast upon him. But
his work threw hixn with her set and
his wife used every subterfuge to avoid
accompanying him to any affair which
might aid him In the social world,
always pleading to be allowed to re-
main with the baby.
And now she was late. He looked
at his watch nervously then whirled
to the stairs and tapped upon her
door.
"I forgot again, Henry," she replied,
before he had a chance to say a word.
"Please forgive me, but—but I don't
think I help you with these people—"
"You make no effort to improve your-
self. You are constantly doing every-
thing you can to annoy me. You are
ruining my voice, clouding my whole
career.
"And you don't try to do better. You
don't care for anything but the vile
little hole in Los Angeles. You want
me to be ruiued. You want me to
lose my voice. You know you do—
you want a milkman because you are
nothing and never will be anything but
fit for a milkman's wife."
"But what can I do. Henry? What
do you want me to do?"
"Do?" He laughed, laughed In her
face. "Why, get a divorce, of course.
I'm through. Get it before I'm com-
pletely ruined. I'll give you the di-
vorce—there'll be no trouble about
that—and fifty thousand dollars."
She regarded him steadily, search-
ingly.
"No, there'll be no trouble—about
that," she repeated after him, as he
slammed the door. "No trouble,
Henry."
curtain as It slowly descended upon a
wild-eyed, sobbing tenor, who glared
piteously at the back of a laughing
woman in the box at the head of the
diamond horseshoe.
With the ready effervescent sym-
pathy of the Romance people the di-
rector pillowed the head of his great
"find" upon his shoulder. But over
that head his eyes sought those of
Doctor Holbrook, the world's renowned
throat specialist, who had been treat-
ing Merwin now for months. And a
hard expression, a look of flint was in
the director s eyes as the specialist
shook his head to indicate the death
of another voice.
"It is the fault of the atmosphere,
the early training," coolly declared
the impresario later that evening to
the reporters "Now, Merwin, with
the proper, early training would have
proved the greatest tenor of our
time." He shrugged a bit contemp-
tously. "You call it here, 1 believe, a
flash in the pan."
VIII.
Ann Merwin's hands still gripped,
tightly the newspaper with which she1
had fled from her attorney's office, the
newspaper whose startling head had
caught her eye even as her hand re-
ceived the final decree of divorce.
There was a wild expression in her
eyes as she lunged through the crowd-
ed traffic of the streets toward the city
hospital where the story said Henry
had been taken.
Forgotten the document In her
handbag, forgotten the bitterness with
which he had treated her. She only
remembered that he was the father of
her child, that he was the man she had
lored—the man she loved still.
Voiceless, forsaken by friends, an
object of pity and contempt, a vagrant
succumbing to exposure at the dark
waterside where he might have con-
templated making his final resting
place—he was still her husband just
as he always had been.
She did not heed the curious glaoces
of the nurses nor the internes as she
demanded admittance to his bedside.
That the story of the celebrity's down-
fall, the divorce and attendant Bcandal
belonged to the world meant nothing
to her. A queen—she demanded the-
right to be with her husband in his
hour of need.
She did not shrink away from the
poor creatures upon the cots in the-
wards through which they passed. The
flotsam and jetsam of a great city
was there, but that mattered nothing
to her. That her husband was just
such another dependent upon a city's
charity meant nothing to her.
She felt a little pain in her heart as
the interne paused beside a snowy cot,
hesitated a second before approaching
the delirious man, tossing and tum-
bling upon the cot, then bravely moved
forward again. The interne rested hiB
hand upon her arm. She looked into
his face with surprise and saw nothing
but sympathy there and desire to
avoid harm coming to her. She
brushed him aside and then a voice
reached out to hrr, a voice wild and
hoarse, throbbing with the insanity of
delirium yet with the longing of a
world in it, a voice she would have
known ffom all the voices of the
world.
"Olga—Olga—Olga—"
On and on and on, interminably,
and always with that same piteous
appeal, that same throbbing note of
heart-rending helplessness cried the
voice; the voice of Henry Merwin, her
husband toward the woman, the laugh-
ing woman's back, the Olga Drake who
sat in the head box of the diamond
horseshoe.
She held her head proudly, defiant-
ly as the superintendent of the hospi-
tal tried to suppress the pity in his
look with which he accepted the
VII.
Merwin felt a curious elation upon
him, a sudden lightness of heart, one
of those miraculous sensations of ut-
ter delight that come at the most un-
expected moments when one is per-
forming one's work a little better than
ever it has been performed before.
Arrogant with the delightful arro-
gance of the artist who has worked
hard for achievement his eyes sought
those of Olga Drake in her box at the
head of the diamond horseshoe. That
very day Ann had been granted her
interlocutory decree of divorce; that
very day a sensational newspaper had
whispered the name of Miss Drake
in connection with it; that very day
he had boasted to her that he would
make amends for that; and now—
now, in the first performance of the
widely heralded new opera, he was
singing as he had never sung before
Clear, ringing, sweet toned as any
bell, holding the audience spellbound,
with eyes aglow the voice of Merwin
rang out. And then the song died in
mid-air, seemed to halt upon its
course. The singer's hand clutched
at his throat, clutched desperately
there as though by sheer brute
strength he would force out the
sounds that the vocal chords refused
to give. His lips opened and closed,
closed and opened. A mute he stood
there, a ludicrous mute, sawing the
air with hi9 hands, desperately, wild-
ly—
A laugh hurtled from the gallery,
the laugh that was sufficient to guide
the mob. It grew in volume, grew so
that its sound penetrated the heavy
Wife and Child Neglected.
money she had placed upon his desk,
when she fled from that ward, fled
from that voice.
"When he is well," she said quietly,
"give him this money. Say it is from
a—a friend."
"But—"
"From—a—friend," she repeated
softly, a faint smile upon her lips.
She rose suddenly for the scent of
roses was in her nostrils, the vision
of far-flung hills in her eyes, with a
tiny white cottage nestling at the foot
of them.
"Perhaps he may go back," she
murmured to herself, as she left the
place. "Perhaps he may go back-
home—and be glad—glad the home
didn't go when everything else was
paid—paid. WTio Pays?"
END OF THE FIRST STORY.
The next story, "The Pursuit of
Pleasure."
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Burke, J. J. The Daily Transcript (Norman, Okla.), Vol. 3, No. 83, Ed. 1 Monday, September 27, 1915, newspaper, September 27, 1915; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc113058/m1/2/: accessed May 28, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.