Anger Read Free Page B

include Thornton, “All this began about money, strangely enough.”
    â€œMoney and talent. Do they ever go together?” Dr. Springer asked with a teasing smile.
    â€œOf course—why not?”
    â€œYou’re changing your tune, Anna Lindstrom,” Mr. Thornton said.
    â€œNo I’m not. A talent is no shelter. You can’t take refuge in it. There is no safety in a talent because the more recognized and applauded you are, the greater the risk. It doesn’t matter whether you inherited millions or didn’t. Don’t you see?”
    â€œThere is, however, less urgency for the rich and perhaps a greater fear of failure,” Dr. Springer said. “Without the necessity to earn, there is no immediate spur. It is easy, and perhaps far more pleasant, to settle for being an amateur, for not facing the competition. But do you still feel insecure, Miss Lindstrom? Your position, I should think, is unassailable. You seem so perfectly in control when one has the pleasure of hearing you in concert Do you still feel unsafe as you suggest?”
    â€œUnsafe? I’m terrified!”
    â€œCome now, I don’t believe you for a minute,” Mr. Thornton said.
    Anna turned back to the surgeon, “What nobody understands is that an artist, a performer has to prove herself over and over again. No one stands over you when you are operating and writes a review the next day pointing out that you fumbled, do they? In professional life outside the arts there are no critics in on every move you make. But we are targets. We are judged every time we open our mouths, sometimes by ignoramuses at that, and the public takes any critic’s word as gospel truth. Of course I’m anxious. Of course I feel insecure. What performer doesn’t?”
    But just as things were getting interesting their hostess summoned them into the drawing room, its French windows opening to a balcony and the intimacy of Louisburg Square, and Anna, taking advantage of the spring evening, pushed one open and slipped through. At that moment she had a sudden desire to sing, to open her throat and launch into an aria. As always when she went out into society, she felt like a fish out of water. Either the conversation was trivial or if not, she plunged in too passionately, was too committed, too intense. Once more Anna’s one wish was to escape.
    Sensing someone at her back, she turned and greeted her host. “It’s so lovely,” she said, “the little square, the street lamps. I had to taste the air … What a marvelous place to live!”
    â€œIt used to be,” Ambrose Upton said. “But the Hill is a disaster these days, dangerous at night. I used to walk everywhere, and often late at night, to smoke a cigar. Alice hates cigars. Now I can’t do that.” He led her gently back into the drawing room then, and Alice summoned her over to the sofa to sit beside her and poured her a demitasse.
    â€œWe are thrilled that you could come,” she said. “Have you enjoyed yourself? You certainly charmed the gentlemen with whom you talked at the dinner table. Didn’t she?” she added as Dr. Springer came to get his cup refilled.
    â€œDidn’t she what?” he smiled across at Anna.
    â€œCharm you, of course.”
    Everyone was kind, but as usual Anna felt somehow like a household pet, something one patted and cajoled but who would never belong. Every society becomes a secret society to the outsider, she was thinking. But the truth was she was uncomfortable in any society, just as her father had been.
    After Anna had left, early, with the excuse that she could not afford late nights—she was singing in Rochester three days later—Dr. Springer talked with Alice Upton about her.
    â€œShe’s an interesting woman,” he said. “There is something innocent about her, innocent and violent. She seems quite unspoiled so far. I expect she is on the brink of real