Thea Kronborg

“ During the balcony singing in the second act the doctor's thoughts were as far away from Moonstone as the singer's doubtless were. He had begun, indeed, to feel the exhilaration of getting free from personalities, of being released from his own past as well as from Thea Kronborg's. It was very much, he told himself, like a military funeral, exalting and impersonal. Something old died in one, and out of it something new was born. ”

“ He fell to looking back over his life and asking himself which years of it he would like to live over again,—just as they had been,—and they were not many. His college years he would live again, gladly. After them there was nothing he would care to repeat until he came to Thea Kronborg. There had been something stirring about those years in Moonstone, when he was a restless young man on the verge of breaking into larger enterprises, and when she was a restless child on the verge of growing up into something unknown. ”

“ Thea always woke with a pink flush on her cheeks, and this morning her mother thought she had never seen her eyes so wide-open and bright; like clear green springs in the wood, when the early sunlight sparkles in them. She would make a very handsome woman, Mrs. Kronborg said to herself, if she would only get rid of that fierce look she had sometimes. Mrs. Kronborg took great pleasure in good looks, wherever she found them. She still remembered that, as a baby, Thea had been the "best-formed" of any of her children. ”

“ Thea began to wonder whether people could not utterly lose the power to work, as they can lose their voice or their memory. She had always been a little drudge, hurrying from one task to another—as if it mattered! And now her power to think seemed converted into a power of sustained sensation. She could become a mere receptacle for heat, or become a color, like the bright lizards that darted about on the hot stones outside her door; or she could become a continuous repetition of sound, like the cicadas.
III
The faculty of observation was never highly developed in Thea Kronborg. ”

“ IT was late on the morning after the night she sang Elsa, when Thea Kronborg stirred uneasily in her bed. The room was darkened by two sets of window shades, and the day outside was thick and cloudy. She turned and tried to recapture unconsciousness, knowing that she would not be able to do so. She dreaded waking stale and disappointed after a great effort. The first thing that came was always the sense of the futility of such endeavor, and of the absurdity of trying too hard. Up to a certain point, say eighty degrees, artistic endeavor could be fat and comfortable, methodical and prudent. ”

“ Mrs. Kronborg chuckled as she wiped the cracker crumbs from Thor’s chin and fists. “Well, you’re mighty conceited, Peter! But I don’t know as I ever regretted it. I prefer having a family of my own to fussing with other folks’ children, that’s the truth.”
Before the Kronborgs reached Copper Hole, Thea’s destiny was pretty well mapped out for her. Mr. Kronborg was always delighted to have an excuse for enlarging the house.
Mrs. Kronborg was quite right in her conjecture that there would be unfriendly comment in Moonstone when Thea raised her prices for music-lessons. ”

“ Mrs. Kronborg smiled. “Yes, it’s pretty of her. But that will pass. When these things happen far away they don’t make such a mark; especially if your hands are full and you’ve duties of your own to think about. My own father died in Nebraska when Gunner was born,—we were living in Iowa then,—and I was sorry, but the baby made it up to me. I was father’s favorite, too. That’s the way it goes, you see.”
The doctor took out Thea’s letter to him, and read it over to Mrs. Kronborg. ”

“ Her mother would never have to make an effort again.
Dr. Archie went up to Moonstone at once. He had great confidence in Mrs. Kronborg's power of will, and if Thea's appeal took hold of her enough, he believed she might get better. But when he was shown into the familiar room off the parlor, his heart sank. Mrs. Kronborg was lying serene and fateful on her pillows. On the dresser at the foot of her bed there was a large photograph of Thea in the character in which she was to make her début. Mrs. Kronborg pointed to it.
"Is n't she lovely, doctor? It 's nice that she has n't changed much. ”

“ In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from with out. There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that it was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardor and anticipation. It was on such nights that Thea Kronborg learned the thing that old Dumas meant when he told the Romanticists that to make a drama he needed but one passion and four walls. ”

“ He said Chicago, repeatedly. Under the circumstances, it seems to me we ought to try to carry out his wishes exactly, if Thea is willing."
"Certainly, certainly. Thea is conscientious. She would not waste her opportunities." Mr. Kronborg paused. "If Thea were your own daughter, doctor, would you consent to such a plan, at her present age?"
"I most certainly should. In fact, if she were my daughter, I 'd have sent her away before this. She 's a most unusual child, and she 's only wasting herself here. At her age she ought to be learning, not teaching. ”

“ Her own broad, resolute face set its chin at her, her eyes flashed into her own defiantly. Lily Fisher was pretty, and she was willing to be just as big a fool as people wanted her to be. Very well; Thea Kronborg wasn’t. She would rather be hated than be stupid, any day. She popped into bed and read stubbornly at a queer paper book the drug-store man had given her because he couldn’t sell it. She had trained herself to put her mind on what she was doing, otherwise she would have come to grief with her complicated daily schedule. ”

“ His man tied the ponies and stood holding the doctor's alligator-skin bag—very elegant, Thea thought it. Mrs. Kronborg did not burden the doctor with warnings and cautions. She said again that she hoped he could get Thea a comfortable place to stay, where they had good beds, and she hoped the landlady would be a woman who 'd had children of her own. "I don't go much on old maids looking after girls," she remarked as she took a pin out of her own hat and thrust it into Thea's blue turban. "You 'll be sure to lose your hatpins on the train, Thea. It 's better to have an extra one in case." ”

“ Nobody who could sing ever recited, because the warmest applause always went to the singers.
However, when the programme was printed in the Moonstone Gleam, there it was: “Instrumental solo, Thea Kronborg. Recitation, Lily Fisher.”
Because his orchestra was to play for the concert, Mr. Wunsch imagined that he had been put in charge of the music, and he became arrogant. He insisted that Thea should play a “Ballade” by Reinecke. When Thea consulted her mother, Mrs. Kronborg agreed with her that the “Ballade” would “never take” with a Moonstone audience. ”

“ Thea had been moaning with every breath since the doctor came back, but she did not know it. She did not realize that she was suffering pain. When she was conscious at all, she seemed to be separated from her body; to be perched on top of the piano, or on the hanging lamp, watching the doctor sew her up. It was perplexing and unsatisfactory, like dreaming. She wished she could waken up and see what was going on.
The doctor thanked God that he had persuaded Peter Kronborg to keep out of the way. He could do better by the child if he had her to himself. He had no children of his own. ”

“ Moreover, Miss Kronborg was not in the least sentimental about her husband. Sometimes from the show pupils one had to endure a good deal. “I like that girl,” she used to say, when Harsanyi told her of one of Thea’s gaucheries. “She doesn’t sigh every time the wind blows. With her one swallow doesn’t make a summer.”
Thea told them very little about herself. She was not naturally communicative, and she found it hard to feel confidence in new people. She did not know why, but she could not talk to Harsanyi as she could to Dr. Archie, or to Johnny and Mrs. Tellamantez. ”

“ Kronborg spoke up from the next room. "He 's a good teacher, doctor. It 's good for us he does drink. He 'd never be in a little place like this if he did n't have some weakness. These women that teach music around here don't know nothing. I would n't have my child wasting time with them. If Professor Wunsch goes away, Thea 'll have nobody to take from. He 's careful with his scholars; he don't use bad language. Mrs. Kohler is always present when Thea takes her lesson. It 's all right." Mrs. Kronborg spoke calmly and judicially. ”

“ Burns’s “Reply to his Tailor,” he often read aloud to himself in his office, late at night, after a glass of hot toddy. He used to read “Tam o’Shanter” to Thea Kronborg, and he got her some of the songs, set to the old airs for which they were written. He loved to hear her sing them. Sometimes when she sang, “Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast,” the doctor and even Mr. Kronborg joined in. Thea never minded if people could not sing; she directed them with her head and somehow carried them along. When her father got off the pitch she let her own voice out and covered him. ”

“ Thea reached Moonstone in the late afternoon, and all the Kronborgs were there to meet her except her two older brothers. Gus and Charley were young men now, and they had declared at noon that it would “look silly if the whole bunch went down to the train.” “There’s no use making a fuss over Thea just because she’s been to Chicago,” Charley warned his mother. “She’s inclined to think pretty well of herself, anyhow, and if you go treating her like company, there’ll be no living in the house with her.” Mrs. Kronborg simply leveled her eyes at Charley, and he faded away, muttering. ”

“ Say what you will, Thea Kronborg, you are not that sort of person. You will never sit alone with a pacifier and a novel. You won't subsist on what the old ladies have put into the bottle for you. You will always break through into the realities. That was the first thing Harsanyi found out about you; that you could n't be kept on the outside. If you 'd lived in Moonstone all your life and got on with the discreet brakeman, you 'd have had just the same nature. ”

“ She told him, indeed, that she could not very well get along without Mr. Kronborg. The doctor looked at her with astonishment. Was it possible that she could miss the foolish old man so much? He reminded her of her children.
"Yes," she replied; "the children are all very well, but they are not father. We were married young."
The doctor watched her wonderingly as she went on knitting, thinking how much she looked like Thea. The difference was one of degree rather than of kind. The daughter had a compelling enthusiasm, the mother had none. ”

“ The poor man had no natural, spontaneous human speech. If he had his sincere moments, they were perforce inarticulate. Probably a good deal of his pretentiousness was due to the fact that he habitually expressed himself in a book learned language, wholly remote from anything personal, native, or homely. Mrs. Kronborg spoke Swedish to her own sisters and to her sister-in-law Tillie, and colloquial English to her neighbors. Thea, who had a rather sensitive ear, until she went to school never spoke at all, except in monosyllables, and her mother was convinced that she was tongue-tied. ”

“ When she was making her Christmas presents, she never failed to ask the women who came into her shop what you could make for anybody who got a thousand dollars a night. When the Denver papers announced that Thea Kronborg had married Frederick Ottenburg, the head of the Brewers’ Trust, Moonstone people expected that Tillie’s vain-gloriousness would take another form. But Tillie had hoped that Thea would marry a title, and she did not boast much about Ottenburg,—at least not until after her memorable trip to Kansas City to hear Thea sing. ”

“ Getting the engine out now. Your girl, Thea. You 'll surely do that for the poor chap. Everybody knows he thinks the world of her." Seeing that Mr. Kronborg showed no indication of having made up his mind, the operator turned to Gunner. "Call your sister, kid. I 'm going to ask the girl herself," he blurted out.
"Yes, yes, certainly. Daughter," Mr. Kronborg called. He had somewhat recovered himself and reached to the hall hatrack for his hat.
Just as Thea came out on the front porch, before the operator had had time to explain to her, Dr. Archie's ponies came up to the gate at a brisk trot. ”

“ Archie, we had better consult Mrs. Kronborg.”
“I think I can bring Mrs. Kronborg around, if I have your consent. I’ve always found her pretty level-headed. I have several old classmates practicing in Chicago. One is a throat specialist. He has a good deal to do with singers. He probably knows the best piano teachers and could recommend a boarding-house where music students stay. I think Thea needs to get among a lot of young people who are clever like herself. Here she has no companions but old fellows like me. It’s not a natural life for a young girl. ”

“ Gunner often got bored with his own clothes or stilts or sled, and wanted Axel’s. But Thea, from the time she was a little thing, had her own routine. She kept out of every one’s way, and was hard to manage only when the other children interfered with her. Then there was trouble indeed: bursts of temper which used to alarm Mrs. Kronborg. “You ought to know enough to let Thea alone. She lets you alone,” she often said to the other children.
One may have staunch friends in one’s own family, but one seldom has admirers. ”