Read In America for Free Online Page B

few of us afterward to celebrate—”
    â€œCall Zofia for me, will you?” She had started to mix the henna.
    â€œForgive me for bringing up a dinner while you’re preparing for a performance. But it should be called off if you’re feeling too…”
    â€œDon’t,” she murmured. She was blending a little Dutch pink and powdered antimony with the Prepared Whiting to powder her hands and arms. “Bogdan?”
    He didn’t answer.
    â€œI’m looking forward to the party,” she said and reached behind for a gloved hand to lay on her shoulder.
    â€œYou’re upset about something.”
    â€œI’m upset about everything,” she said dryly. “And you’ll be so kind as to let me wallow in it. The old stager has need of a little stimulation to go on doing her best!”
    *   *   *
    MARYNA DID NOT RELISH lying to Bogdan, the only person among all those who loved her, or claimed to love her, whom she did in fact trust. But she had no place for his indignation or his eagerness to console. She thought it might do her good to keep this astonishing incident to herself.
    Sometimes one needs a real slap in the face to make what one is feeling real.
    When life cuffs you about, you say, That’s life.
    You feel strong. You want to feel strong. The important thing is to go forward.
    As she had, single-mindedly, or almost: there had been much to ignore. But if you are of a stoical temperament, and have a talent for self-respect, and have worked hard with another talent God gave you, and have been rewarded exactly as you had dared to hope for your diligence and persistence, indeed, your success arrived more promptly than you expected (or perhaps, you secretly think, merited), you might then consider it petty to remember the slights and nurture the grievances. To be offended was to be weak—like worrying about whether one was happy or not.
    Now you have an unexpected pain, around which the muffled feelings can crystallize.
    You have to float your ideals a little off the ground, to keep them from being profaned. And cut loose the misfortunes and insults, too, lest they take root and strangle your soul.
    Take the slap for what it was, a jealous rival’s frantic comment on her impregnable success—that would have been something to share with Bogdan, and soon put out of mind. Take it as an emblem, a summons to respond to the whispery needs she’d been harboring for months—this would be worth keeping to herself, even cherishing. Yes, she would cherish poor Gabriela’s slap. If that slap were a baby’s smile, she would smile at the recollection of it, if it were a picture, she would have it framed and kept on her dressing table, if it were hair, she would order a wig made from it … Oh I see, she thought, I’m going mad. Could it be as simple as that? She’d laughed to herself then, but saw with distaste that the hand applying henna to her lips was trembling. Misery is wrong, she said to herself, mine no less than Gabriela’s, and she only wants what I have. Misery is always wrong.
    Crisis in the life of an actress. Acting was emulating other actors and then, to one’s surprise (actually, not at all to one’s surprise), finding oneself better than any of them were—including the pathetic bestower of that slap. Wasn’t that enough? No. Not anymore.
    She had loved being an actress because the theatre seemed to her nothing less than the truth. A higher truth. Acting in a play, one of the great plays, you became better than you really were. You said only words that were sculpted, necessary, exalting. You always looked as beautiful as you could be, artifice assisting, at your age. Each of your movements had a large, generous meaning. You could feel yourself being improved by what was given to you, on the stage, to express. Now it would happen that, mid-course in a noble tirade by her beloved Shakespeare