detestable to
me. Men came about us and wanted to talk to me: women and men seemed to
look at me with a sneering smile; it was no better than a fiery
furnace. Perhaps I make it worse than it was--you don't know that life:
but the glare and the faces, and my having to go on and act and sing
what I hated, and then see people who came to stare at me behind the
scenes--it was all so much worse than when I was a little girl. I went
through with it; I did it; I had set my mind to obey my father and
work, for I saw nothing better that I could do. But I felt that my
voice was getting weaker, and I knew that my acting was not good except
when it was not really acting, but the part was one that I could be
myself in, and some feeling within me carried me along. That was seldom.

"Then, in the midst of all this, the news came to me one morning that
my father had been taken to prison, and he had sent for me. He did not
tell me the reason why he was there, but he ordered me to go to an
address he gave me, to see a Count who would be able to get him
released. The address was to some public rooms where I was to ask for
the Count, and beg him to come to my father. I found him, and
recognized him as a gentleman whom I had seen the other night for the
first time behind the scenes. That agitated me, for I remembered his
way of looking at me and kissing my hand--I thought it was in mockery.
But I delivered my errand, and he promised to go immediately to my
father, who came home again that very evening, bringing the Count with
him. I now began to feel a horrible dread of this man, for he worried
me with his attentions, his eyes were always on me: I felt sure that
whatever else there might be in his mind toward me, below it all there
was scorn for the Jewess and the actress. And when he came to me the
next day in the theatre and would put my shawl around me, a terror took
hold of me; I saw that my father wanted me to look pleased. The Count
was neither very young nor very old; his hair and eyes were pale; he
was tall and walked heavily, and his face was heavy and grave except
when he looked at me. He smiled at me, and his smile went through me
with horror: I could not tell why he was so much worse to me than other
men. Some feelings are like our hearing: they come as sounds do, before
we know their reason. My father talked to me about him when we were
alone, and praised him--said what a good friend he had been. I said
nothing, because I suppo