Women From The United States

"The second night you repeated the same words over and over. I think the fever had set in by then. Do you remember what you said? "No." She knew every one of them. His voice, broken and stumbling, had filled her dreams until she had wept in her sleep, crying tears for him that she'd never been able to cry for her father or for herself. "Oxe Harbrea Sacrus Vax Dragga..." she began. Eugenides's chin lifted as he recognized the opening words. "It's the invocation of the Great Goddess at her spring festival," he said calmly, "calling her to the aid of those that need her. Those words are archaic."

"Be cautious," said the other. "Do not offend the gods."

"If you want to keep something safe from thieves, hide it carefully and keep a close watch over it."

"While the magus, realizing his error, was trying to word an apology, my father came to look in at me. "I thought I heard you laughing up your sleeve," he said."

"I stifled a snort of my own in the silence that followed. The magus must have still been tired. He must have once known, but forgotten, that the minister of war had married the daughter of the previous King's Thief. He was talking to my father. The magus might have remembered this, might have recognized me from the first time he'd seen me in Sounis, but we had never been introduced. When he'd come with Sounis's marriage proposals, I had been sulking in my rooms."

"The minister of war snorted. The magus didn't recognize this as high praise, and he said stiffly, "I've been told that his father wanted him to be a soldier. I'd be happy to inform his father that he has a son to be proud of.""

"The magus described the fighting with the guard in detail and made me look very good indeed."

"The magus might have heard me thinking. "He does have other skills to be proud of," he said. For instance, I thought, stealing Hamiathes's Gift not once but twice. Who else in history had done that? But the magus referred to the fight with the Queen's Guard at the base of the mountain. That wasn't a skill I appreciated much. If I'd been as inept with a sword as I was in a saddle, my father might not have driven me so hard to be a soldier and to let the title of King's Thief lapse forever. It had been meaningless for so many generations, and he'd felt strongly that it should disappear for good."

"The queen laughed, and I flushed in the privacy of my bedroom. I do hate horses. That was the first sign that I wasn't going to be the soldier my father hoped for."

"The minister of war snorted. "Not if he had to follow you on a horse," he said."

"He couldn't have found the whereabouts of the stone from the papers in my study," the magus went on. "I was careful to destroy any records. But he could have followed us and stolen the Gift once it was located."

"I am a master of foolhardy plans, I thought. I have so much practice I consider them professional risks. Sooner or later they would have needed the cell and the chains for someone more important, the minister of the exchequer, for instance, and I would have been moved to another cell. Sooner or later I would have had my chance to escape, if I hadn't died of disease first."

"I don't know how he would have gotten out of the prison on his own," said the magus. "It seems a foolhardy plan to have relied on my intervention."

""Gen-" Sophos started to ask another question, but I interrupted him. "No," I said, "not Gen. Eugenides from now on. I never, never, want to hear Gen again in my life." The magus laughed while I shook my head. "You haven't spent any time in the king's prison," I said. "And you haven't had to drink your way through every disreputable wineship in the city of Sounis. I cannot tell you how sick I have been of cheap wine and of being dirty. Of talking with my mouth half closed and chewing with it open. Of having bugs in my hair and being surrounded by people who think Archimedes was the man at the circus last year who could balance four olives on his nose." The magus looked around the books piled in my study. "I remember that Archimedes. I think it was five olives," he said with a straight face. "I don't care if it was twelve," I said."

"With my good hand I reached under the braid at the base of my neck to free the thong that was tied there. It was the shorter of the two that Pol had given me on the banks of the Aracthus. One-handed, I couldn't easily get the knot undone, and several strands of my own dark hair came with the thong when I pulled it free. I glanced back briefly at the magus and was delighted to see his mouth open in astonishment. "Gen," he said under his breath, "you viper." Above the queen's extended palm I held Hamiathes's Gift. It had hung hidden in my hair since I'd braided it there after first fighting in the Sea of Olives."

""Surely I am a better mistress to serve?" "You are more beautiful, Your Majesty." The queen smiled again before I finished. "But she is more kind." So much for discretion. The smile disappeared. You could have heard a pin drop onto the stone floor as her alabaster cheeks flushed red. No one could ever accuse the queen of Attolia of being kind."

"Neither the king's reward nor Pol could stop me, but I wanted to be a kingmaker myself. I wanted to be the first one to steal Hamiathes's Gift in hundreds and hundreds of years. I wanted to be famous. Only I couldn't steal the damned thing if I didn't know where if was, and only the magus could find it for me. I would stay with him until he led me to the stone, but I promised myself that someday I would stick a sharp knife into his arrogance and give it a good twist."

"Ambiades, I realized, was the kind of person who liked to put people in a hierarchy, and he wanted me to understand that I was at the bottom of his. He was supposed to treat me politely in spite of my subservient position, and I was supposed to be grateful. For my part, I wanted Ambiades to understand that I considered myself a hierarchy of one. I might bow to the superior force of the magus and Pol, but wasn't going to bow to him. Neither of us moved."

""You can always give me some of Ambiades's food." The magus gave me an ugly look. "You'll get your share and nothing else. No one's going hungry so that you can eat." :"I don't see why not," I said as I lay down on the grass for a nap. It had dried in the sumer sun to crakling stalks that poked me in the arms and neck. "I'm a lot more important than anyone else here," I told the blue sky above me."

""...Everything about you reveals your low birth. You'd never be comfortable at the court." "I'd be famous." "Oh, you're already that, Gen," he said pityingly."

""I can steal anything." "So you claimed. It was a wager to that effect that landed you in prison." He picked a pen nib off the desk behind him and turned it in his hands for a moment. "It is too bad for you that intelligence does not always attend gifts such as yours, and fortunate for me that it is not your intelligence I am interested in, but your skill. If you are as good as you say you are." I repeated myself. "I can steal anything." "Except yourself out of the king's prison?" the magus asked, lifting one eyebrow this time. I shrugged. I could do that, too, but it would take time."

"Mother said she couldn't guess what was worse, to be a two-year-old with a cold forever or to live with a two-year-old with a cold forever."

""And we never get any older. Richie and Alex will always be ten. My sister and Todd will always be newlyweds. Angela will always be two. And I will always be the only one with no one my age to talk to." "You have me to talk to," pointed out John. Edwina smiled. "You aren't afraid to talk to ghosts?" "Not at all." John realized the truth as he said it."

"The factory doesn't like to hear too much talk about things it doesn't believe in. Contrary to what you may have heard, the factory has never found a single problem caused by ghosts. So if you meet any ectoplasmic spirits up there in the high crane, I suggest you be polite and they'll probably be polite right back. You're up there alone for fourteen hours a day, and you might find it's nice to have someone to talk to."

"The jam is from my mother's pantry." "Oh, does your mother live far from here?" "Not far," he responded, "as the crow flies."

"They looked like business cards. Instead of a printed name, a filigreed gold line wrapped itself in a design in the middle of each white rectangle.:"What are they?" Selene asked. "Wishes," said the elf prince. "You've got three. Just make a wish and burn a card. It doesn't"-- he looked her over with contempt --"require a college education." "Thanks, but no, thanks," said Selene, handing the cards back. She'd read about people who were offered three wishes my malevolent spirits. No matter what they wished, something terrible happened. She looked carefully at the man. Behind the nice suit and tie, he was just as she thought a malevolent spirit might appear. "What do you mean, 'Thanks, but no, thanks'? They are perfectly good wishes, I assure you. They're not cheap 'wish for Popsicles' wishes, young woman. They are very high quality. Here." He pushed them towards her. "Wish for anything. Go ahead." "I wish for peace on earth," Selene said, and sneaked a look over her shoulder. Her bus was coming up the street, but still two blocks away. "That's not a thing!" snarled the elf prince. "That's an idea, that's a concept. I didn't say wish for a concept. I said a thing. A material object. Go on." Selene stood her ground. "I'd rather not.""

"I had to ask, "Is it a true story, Aunt Charlotte?" Aunt Charlotte looked at me without saying anything for a while. Then she said, "I've told you my story. What you believe is up to you, Marguerite.""

"Without hesitation, Maria Callas. . . Maria Callas gave me the opera bug. To pursue that area of placing my instrument, which I had already found out from me was not ordinary. I took a plane to Chicago, during the 50’s when she was there for the first time doing Madama Butterfly. And the excitement! Histrionically, she remade Opera, in the sense that she merged the sound with the action. Now, I’m not that kind of electric personality. but she taught me to fit my own movements, my own acceptance of claiming center-stage from her own doing that. It was one of the most exciting experiences I have ever known."

"The magic of a Callas is a quality few artists have, something special, something different. There are many very good artists, but very few who have that sixth sense, the additional, the plus quality. It is something which lifts them from the ground: they become like semi-gods. She had it. Nureyev has it, [Laurence] Olivier. But Olivier is also a case of an extremely rich knowledge of everything. He is completely coherent in his life, onstage. Whatever he does is part of a complete personality. Maria is a common girl behind the wings, but when she goes onstage, or even when she talks about her work or begins to hum a tune, she immediately assumes this additional quality. For me, Maria is always a miracle. you cannot understand or explain her. You can explain everything Olivier does because it is all part of a professional genius. But Maria can switch from nothing to everything, from earth to heaven. What is it this woman has? I don't know, but when that miracle happens, she is a new soul, a new entity."

"About Maria Callas, I am honestly practically devoid of words. And that must be the case when one comes up against a phenomenon that one simply can't explain, but whom one appreciates. Indeed, as far as I'm concerned, I've been in love with her for years. She is, I think without any doubt at all, (and I don't mind what letters come to me tomorrow) the greatest theatrical, musical artist of our time.... She has an enormous feeling for music. She has an enormous feeling for words. She has an enormous feeling for the dramatic situation. She can convey all those things to an audience in a way that practically no other artist alive today can do."

"The last great artist. When you think this woman was nearly blind, and often sang standing a good 150 feet from the podium. But her sensitivity! Even if she could not see, she sensed the music and always came in exactly with my downbeat. When we rehearsed, she was so precise, already note-perfect. ... For over thirty years, I was Arturo Toscanini's assistant, and from the very first rehearsal, he demanded every nuance from the orchestra, just as if it were a full performance. The piano, the forte, the staccato, the legato — all from the start. And Callas did this too. ... She was not just a singer, but a complete artist. It's foolish to discuss her as a voice. She must be viewed totally — as a complex of music, drama, movement. There is no one like her today. She was an esthetic phenomenon."

"I did it to serve Callas, for one must serve a Callas."

"To work with her, you had to really understand how she saw your role, not how you saw it. She had a very clear-cut understanding of her role, and you had to fit into that interpretation. She was so great, [yet] she could not distance herself from a role. It was actually quite terrifying — she would at times actually cry while singing! You must only portray the emotions, not become personally involved. But Maria always became the role. She was such a servant of the text and the composer, she would tear her voice to ribbons to accomplish it!"

"This rivality was really building from the people of the newspapers and the fans. But I think it was very good for both of us, because the publicity was so big and it created a very big interest about me and Maria and was very good in the end. But I don’t know why they put this kind of rivality, because the voice was very different. She was really something unusual. And I remember that I was very young artist too, and I stayed near the radio every time that I know that there was something on radio by Maria. The most fantastic thing was the possibility for her to sing the soprano coloratura with this big voice! This was something really special. Fantastic absolutely!"

"[Working with Callas was] like nothing else. Compared to nothing. I would say singers are reproductive artists, but she was a creative artist. She was in the role so much, it was fabulous, fabulous. She was very modest, very easy. But I think she saw red when she saw a journalist. But I could discuss a breath or anything with her. She didn't really have an ego when it came to the work. Her curse was that she was so musical, so intelligent, that she could take on roles that her voice couldn't handle. But what she did was always wonderful. There's a good example of what I mean. Callas — artist. Tebaldi — wonderful singer."

"[Backstage] she was wonderful; she was marvelous. She was easy-going and a worker. Oh my goodness! She rehearsed and rehearsed; always full-voice, never pushing the sound, but she would work till she got what was wanted. And of course had very poor eyesight. She used to pace out how many steps she would go, and there were steps and different levels on stage, as they were, in Norma. And she knew how many paces she could take before she had to take a step, because she was blind as a bat. She had terrible eyesight and, of course, couldn’t wear contact lenses at the stage. She did later."

"[Hearing Callas in Norma in 1952] was a shock, a wonderful shock. You just got shivers up and down the spine. It was a bigger sound in those earlier performances, before she lost weight. I think she tried very hard to recreate the sort of “fatness” of the sound which she had when she was as fat as she was. But when she lost the weight, she couldn’t seem to sustain the great sound that she had made, and the body seemed to be too frail to support that sound that she was making. Oh, but it was oh so exciting. It was thrilling. I don’t think that anyone who heard Callas after 1955 really heard the Callas voice."

"I didn’t dare study her phrasing, but of all the singers I listen to, it’s Callas I love most. I always have. And I was lucky enough to be at the Met[ropolitan Opera] when she did the master classes at Juilliard [School]. I saw them, and saw how she worked with people and what her knowledge was. There was no mystery to it. It was very tangible. The grounding was sort of like a ballerina’s footing in barre exercises. To get to the point where you get your feet to leap into the air, you have to begin very close to the floor. That’s what I think a lot of her musicianship represents to me: It’s her extraordinary devotion."

"Whatever genius is, I think there’s a strong element of genius in [Callas]."

"Callas’ magnificence lay in both her natural gift and her incredible commitment to mastering the correct style with the great conductors that she worked with. All the things that you think are happening spontaneously are planned and organized. They’re part of the style. Her stylistic mastery, as well as her personality and voice, still make people talk today. It’s that magic thing that happens."

"I've loved opera since I was a child. I study her; I mean of course I can't sing like that, but she has taught me a lot about discovering how to deliver the inner narrative of a song. Because I listen to her songs--I don't speak Italian or I don't speak whatever language she's singing--but I understand what she's conveying through her emotional interpretation."

"In October of 1948, just after I moved to Florence to head the Teatro Comunale, Serafin called me from Rome. "Come at once," he begged. "You must hear this girl. She is discouraged and has bought a ticket to return to America. Help me convince her to stay." So, at his home, I met Maria Callas. She was tall and heavy, but had an interesting face, real presence, expression, intelligence. With Serafin at the piano, she did her usual repertory for me — Gioconda, Turandot, Aida, Tristan. Parts of the voice were beautiful, other empty, and she used strange portamenti. During a pause, she said she had studied with Elvira de Hidalgo, which struck me as curious, for de Hidalgo had been a coloratura. "I know coloratura pieces too," Callas explained, "but I'm a dramatic soprano." "Well," I asked, "can we hear something of a different nature?" So she sang the aria from I Puritani, with the cabaletta. I was overwhelmed, and tears streamed down Serafin's cheeks. This was the kind of singer one read about in books from the nineteenth century — a real dramatic coloratura."

"Listen to me, everyone speak about Callas. But I know Callas. I know Callas before she was Callas. She was fat and she had this vociaccia -- you know what a vociaccia is? You go kill a cat and record its scream. She had this bad skin. And she had this rich husband. We laugh at her, you know that? And then, I sat in on a rehearsal with Maestro Serafin. You know, it was Parsifal and I was supposed to see if I do one of the flowers. I didn't. And she sing that music. In Italian of course. And he tell her this and he tell her that and little by little this voice had all the nature in it -- the forest and the magic castle and hatred that is love. And little by little she not fat with bad skin and rich-husband-asleep-in-the-corner; she witch who burn you by standing there. Maestro Serafin he say to me afterwards, you know now something about Parsifal. I say, 'No, Maestro, I know much more. I know how to study. And I know that we are more than voices. We are spirit, we are god when we sing, if we mean it.' Oh yes, they will go on about Tebaldi this and Freni that. Beautiful, beautiful voices, amazing. They work hard. They sincere. They suffer. They more talented than Maria, sure. But she was the genius. Genius come from genio -- spirit. And that make her more than all of us. So I learn from that. Don't let them take from you because you are something they don't expect. Work and fight and work and give, and maybe once in a while you are good."

"The greatest technician I ever met ! She could do everything."

"That woman is a miracle!"

"Maria, you are a monster; you are not an artist nor a woman nor a human being, but a monster."

"If the public could understand, as we do, how deeply and utterly musical Callas is, they would be stunned."

"Emmylou and I are both Maria Callas fans. We listen to that all the time. She's the greatest chick singer ever. I learn more about bluegrass singing, more about singing Mexican songs, more about singing rock-and-­roll from listening to Maria Callas records than I ever would from listening to pop music for a month of Sundays."

"There's no one in her league. That's it. Period."

"Maria had a way of even transforming her body for the exigencies of a role, which is a great triumph. In La traviata, everything would slope down; everything indicated sickness, fatigue, softness. Her arms would move as if they had no bones, like the great ballerinas. In Medea, everything was angular. She’d never make a soft gesture; even the walk she used was like a tiger’s walk."