the most exquisite elegance … Through the weaving lines of the Scherzo, she remembers a childhood moment, in another landscape. Ah yes, she can almost feel the sun on her neck and shoulders back then, as she stepped out of the hacienda and on to the pampas, with its expanse of ruffled grasses, and a gentle breeze lifting her little white nightie and bending the grass like a great breath, in a sweeping melodious motion … Her father coming out behind her and stroking her hair, and before her, the play of light and shadow, and the intimation of a harmonious motion, the inward music of things … She continues with the Scherzo, not quite knowing any longer whether she is summoning the music from under her fingers, or whether it is guiding her hand through its musings, just beyond the horizon of her thoughts, her longings.
Longing and loneliness. Back in her hotel room, the longing, left on its own, gapes, gasps, wells, surges. I have chosen this, she thinks, somehow I have chosen it. It always comes upon her before a concert, this visitor, this pure news from herself. Let it ride, let it ride, this horse of the Apocalypse. She has her routines for this too, she knows she has to let It do with her as it will, let it have its way with her. She handles herself carefully, since she is almost in physical pain. She lies down on the bed, waiting for it to course through her. She is an athlete who can’t count on dying young; she has to treat herself with professional care. It’s nothing, she thinks, nothing, a mood, a vapor. It’s nothing, you’re nothing, this doesn’t matter. This too shall pass. The throb of silence, and then the throb of her own self. She can feelthe beast removing its claws, lifting, leaving. The Female Beast is how she thinks of it, the Saint Teresa syndrome in its other aspect. She doubts that Rothman is prone to such states. And yet, as she gets up and composes herself for the task ahead, she feels that this danger is close to the source, the source of strength; that there, her soul recharges its being.
She plays with a fine, unforced elan that evening; and the audience responds with enthusiastic warmth. A reception afterward at the American Embassy. The ambassadress, a handsome woman in a four-square suit, expounds energetically and amiably on the country to which she is an emissary, on the nature, the very character of Bulgaria. Countries seem to have acquired personalities these days, Isabel has noticed, complete with characteristic features, virtues and vices. More character than most people are given credit for. But the ambassadress extols the virtues: the vivacity of the people, their generosity and cleverness. Does Isabel know about the Bulgarian computer geniuses? She’s doing her best to entertain the visiting artist, not to let a blank, uncivilized silence fall; and Isabel tries to go along, to keep alert and interested. There is something, in fact, that intrigues her about the country where she happens to have found herself; something she has sensed in the singing of the women, the rhythms of the streets, in the air. The economy though, the ambassadress continues, is a disappointment. She had thought Bulgaria would take well to free enterprise, but it hasn’t, it is lagging behind some of its neighbors … She stops, turning toward a man who has come up to them, and is making a small bow. Isabel has seen him before, she knows that, though she remembers not so much him, as the gesture he has just made, the small, rather courtly bow; and also, something oddly intense about his expression. Then she realizes: it’s the man from Paris, the one who came to the Green Room with McElvoy. Didn’t McElvoysay something about his being in Sofia? Or that woman did, at the reception. The man is looking at her out of his long, narrow face, with the same puzzling intentness which had thrown her off guard before. The ambassadress introduces him as Anzor Islikhanov. This time she catches the name.
“My
Longing and loneliness. Back in her hotel room, the longing, left on its own, gapes, gasps, wells, surges. I have chosen this, she thinks, somehow I have chosen it. It always comes upon her before a concert, this visitor, this pure news from herself. Let it ride, let it ride, this horse of the Apocalypse. She has her routines for this too, she knows she has to let It do with her as it will, let it have its way with her. She handles herself carefully, since she is almost in physical pain. She lies down on the bed, waiting for it to course through her. She is an athlete who can’t count on dying young; she has to treat herself with professional care. It’s nothing, she thinks, nothing, a mood, a vapor. It’s nothing, you’re nothing, this doesn’t matter. This too shall pass. The throb of silence, and then the throb of her own self. She can feelthe beast removing its claws, lifting, leaving. The Female Beast is how she thinks of it, the Saint Teresa syndrome in its other aspect. She doubts that Rothman is prone to such states. And yet, as she gets up and composes herself for the task ahead, she feels that this danger is close to the source, the source of strength; that there, her soul recharges its being.
She plays with a fine, unforced elan that evening; and the audience responds with enthusiastic warmth. A reception afterward at the American Embassy. The ambassadress, a handsome woman in a four-square suit, expounds energetically and amiably on the country to which she is an emissary, on the nature, the very character of Bulgaria. Countries seem to have acquired personalities these days, Isabel has noticed, complete with characteristic features, virtues and vices. More character than most people are given credit for. But the ambassadress extols the virtues: the vivacity of the people, their generosity and cleverness. Does Isabel know about the Bulgarian computer geniuses? She’s doing her best to entertain the visiting artist, not to let a blank, uncivilized silence fall; and Isabel tries to go along, to keep alert and interested. There is something, in fact, that intrigues her about the country where she happens to have found herself; something she has sensed in the singing of the women, the rhythms of the streets, in the air. The economy though, the ambassadress continues, is a disappointment. She had thought Bulgaria would take well to free enterprise, but it hasn’t, it is lagging behind some of its neighbors … She stops, turning toward a man who has come up to them, and is making a small bow. Isabel has seen him before, she knows that, though she remembers not so much him, as the gesture he has just made, the small, rather courtly bow; and also, something oddly intense about his expression. Then she realizes: it’s the man from Paris, the one who came to the Green Room with McElvoy. Didn’t McElvoysay something about his being in Sofia? Or that woman did, at the reception. The man is looking at her out of his long, narrow face, with the same puzzling intentness which had thrown her off guard before. The ambassadress introduces him as Anzor Islikhanov. This time she catches the name.
“My
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