The Small Rain by L'Engle Madeleine;

Author:L'Engle, Madeleine;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2016-08-18T04:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

When she went back to the apartment where she and Julie had lived on Tenth Street (How long ago was it? Nearly eight years), the street, and its ailanthus trees, and the house itself, seemed to have shrunk. Katherine walked up and down before it until she felt that she must look like a suspicious character, trying to pretend that she was ten once more, trying to pretend that Julie was up in the top floor of the apartment—and somehow trying to pretend that Justin was there, too. But Julie wasn’t there. Justin wasn’t there. Katherine wandered up and down Tenth Street until long after dark, then went back to the apartment Manya had taken overlooking the East River.

Tom had gone out of town to give a series of lectures. She found Manya back from her rehearsal, sitting in front of the fireplace, gazing into the flames. Katherine stood in the doorway of the shadowy room and watched Manya, getting pleasure and satisfaction from the weary grace of her aunt’s pose, from the firelight flickering over the beautiful face. After a while she said, “Aunt Manya.”

Manya turned around and held her arms out. “Katyusha, I’m so glad you’re home. I’m in the depths of gloom.”

Katherine sat on the hearth bench and put her head on Manya’s knee. “What are you gloomy about?”

Manya sighed. “We had an abominable first reading. Everyone is terrible. After all the trouble Oliver Henley and I had recasting the thing over here, nobody is right. I read badly. Sometimes I can’t help thinking: Now I’m successful, now I’m at the top, my name in lights, my picture in the papers; but in a few years, when I shall be a far better actress than I am now, perhaps my beauty will be gone, perhaps I’ll be forgotten, unable to get a job. Now I’m at the top, but if the play flops here, maybe that’ll start me on the downgrade. I don’t mean in the quality of my acting. That I control. But in my name, in my popularity. It’s bound to happen sooner or later. It always does. I know I’m a fool to let it matter. I know it doesn’t, really. But it seems very bleak. Very dreary.” She laughed and held her fingers with all their rings out to the blaze. “Maybe you’ll have to take to writing me fake fan letters in my old age, Katya. But if you dare!”

Katherine rubbed her head drowsily against Manya’s knee. “I’m gloomy, too,” she said.

“Why, baby?”

“I’ll be eighteen next month. And what have I to show for it?”

“Well, what?” Manya asked.

“Not much, it doesn’t seem to me. I ought to be more in control of my playing than I am. Technically I’m all right, but I haven’t any emotional control—no ability to sustain. And after all, any fool can acquire technique. And I haven’t done much living. You and Mother’d both done much more living than I have when you were my age.”

“Had we?”

“Of course!” Impatiently.

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