The Fabulous Showman by Irving Wallace

Author:Irving Wallace [Wallace, Irving]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Thereafter, Jenny Lind’s career was an anticlimax.

She continued her American tour alone with lessening success. Business details bothered her. Running into Barnum on several occasions, she told him: “People cheat me and swindle me very much, and I find it very annoying to give concerts on my own account.” Without Barnum’s showmanship, her appeal decreased. A Philadelphia newspaper reported that she showed “ill temper and vexation” on the stage and was as angry “as a hive of wasps and as black as a thundercloud, and all because the house was not crowded.”

Worst of all, she was so blindly in love with Goldschmidt that she began to force him upon a resisting public. The German pianist was overly formal and colorless, yet she made him appear twice at each concert, whereas Sir Julius Benedict had been confined to one appearance. She led him on the stage, and she led him off the stage, and when he played she sat near by, gazing at him with moon eyes and encouraging the audience to applause. It was all romantic and heart-warming for Jenny Lind, but it did not stimulate attendance.

On February 5, 1852, Jenny Lind became Madame Otto Goldschmidt, and so advertised herself from that day on. The decision to marry the man she loved had been difficult. For one thing, he was Jewish, and that disturbed Jenny Lind, and for another, he was nine years her junior. But then, he had refinement, solidity, talent, and, above all, a deep love for her begun in their childhood. She could not resist, and they were married in Boston, at the house of a banker, in the rites of the Episcopal Church.

On a rainy night, four months later, she gave her farewell appearance in Castle Garden. The receipts were less than half of what they had been at her debut under the auspices of Barnum. The showman had a complimentary ticket and came to say goodby backstage. He reminded her that God had given her a voice beyond all others and that she must never cease using it. “Yes,” she agreed, “I will continue to sing so long as my voice lasts, but it will be mostly for charitable objects, for I am thankful to say I have all the money which I shall ever need.”

Jenny Lind and Goldschmidt settled in a home at Malvern Hills, in the Victorian England she so much admired. This home was the only personal luxury she bought out of her considerable American earnings; the rest remained in a fund to be expended on Swedish charities and scholarships. Within seven years, she gave birth to a boy, Walter, who grew up to become an army officer; a girl, Jenny, who inherited some of her mother’s musical gifts and married a government official named Maude; and a second boy named Ernest.

Although she rarely sang for personal gain in the years that followed, she was far from retired. Before and after the births of her children, she gave concerts for every needy cause.

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