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By Root 733 0

showman. He didn’t call for silence but simply stood there, arms outstretched, as if gathering in the voices. When it was almost quiet he mounted the steps, lit the candles, turned, signalled to a steward who waited by the doors into the foyer, and the next moment the electric lights went out. There was an immediate hush. Lit thus, magical with leaping shadows, the stair landing took on the aspect of a stage. Bowing, Rosenfelder announced he had the honour to present, straight from the Opera House in Paris, Miss Adele Baines. Dramatically he strode left, to the swing doors opening on to the enclosed promenade, and pushed them wide. A blast of night air tore at the candles and sent the flames rippling. The buzz of conversation started up again, though not so loudly as before. A dog, similar to the one who had pounced upon my letter, turned round and round on the Axminster carpet and subsided, muzzle on paws. Several women could be heard complaining of the cold. A figure appeared in the doorway and suddenly there was no sound at all save for a unified intake of breath.

She was dressed in Japanese costume and wore a black wig above the chalk-white mask of her face. Tippy-toeing, as though her feet were bound, she advanced to the centre of the landing. She appeared sightless, for the eyes beneath the painted lids were so pale in colour as to be invisible, and there she waited, divinely tall, her two hands pressed to the silken breast of her poppy-red kimono. Then the orchestra began to play.

I’d seen productions of Madame Butterfly on many occasions in London, Madrid, and New York, and always found the story unconvincing and sentimental. Who can believe that a woman, and a Japanese one at that, is capable of such passion? I’d certainly not expected to be disturbed by Adele’s interpretation of Cio-Cio-San. I had regarded her behaviour of the day before, when she had run towards the rail, as nothing more than a calculated piece of play-acting performed for the benefit of Scurra, but now, as she sang in candlelight, I saw it differently. It wasn’t just her voice that moved me, though that was pure and thrilling enough in tone, nor the contrast between the chill and doleful mask of her face and the burning intensity she brought to the hackneyed words, but rather the realisation that she had indeed been prepared to die of love.

Un-bel dí, ve-dre-mo, le var-si un fil di fu-mo . . .

Sul l’estremo confin del mare

Poi la nave appare

Vedi? E venuto . . .

Here, she looked towards the swing doors, one hand clutched to her heart, the other pitched against the air as if pressing back a joy that threatened to overwhelm her. An astonishing thing happened; we too turned to glance in that direction, and in spite of the darkness it was possible to believe she glimpsed that dazzling uniform against the deep blue sky . . .

I do not run to greet him. Not I!

I rest upon the rise of the hillside

and there wait . . .

Now she was faltering a little, caught betwixt ecstasy and despair–

Wait for a long time, never tiring

of the long waiting . . .

And I did know then, suddenly and dreadfully, how cruelly she had been kept waiting, for hope springs eternal, as they say, even though the one who waits, be it a woman on a hillside or a child swinging its legs on an orphanage bench, already divines that the mandate of heaven is lost and the waiting must last for ever.

When Butterfly had finished – He will call, he will call, my little orange blossom . . . tiente la tua paura, io son sicura fede l’aspetto – and we’d clapped our hardest and roared for more – Adele declined – the electric lights came on and the tables were put back in place. Almost at once, what we had felt faded and nothing remained of the experience save for three wisps of smoke spiralling from the blown-out candles. The orchestra struck up a turkey-trot and Molly Dodge inveigled Melchett on to the dance floor.

I went to sit with Lady Duff Gordon and her party, where we were presently joined by a triumphant Rosenfelder and Adele, the latter still in costume. On my murmuring