Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/473

 Panther Canyon—as if you 'd just been let out of a cage. Did n't you get some of your ideas down there?"

Thea nodded. "Oh, yes! For heroic parts, at least. Out of the rocks, out of the dead people. You mean the idea of standing up under things, don't you, meeting catastrophe? No fussiness. Seems to me they must have been a reserved, somber people, with only a muscular language, all their movements for a purpose; simple, strong, as if they were dealing with fate bare-handed." She put her gloved fingers on Fred's arm. "I don't know how I can ever thank you enough. I don't know if I 'd ever have got anywhere without Panther Canyon. How did you know that was the one thing to do for me? It 's the sort of thing nobody ever helps one to, in this world. One can learn how to sing, but no singing teacher can give anybody what I got down there. How did you know?"

"I did n't know. Anything else would have done as well. It was your creative hour. I knew you were getting a lot, but I did n't realize how much."

Thea walked on in silence. She seemed to be thinking.

"Do you know what they really taught me?" she came out suddenly. "They taught me the inevitable hardness of human life. No artist gets far who does n't know that. And you can't know it with your mind. You have to realize it in your body, Somehow; deep—It 's an animal sort of feeling. I sometimes think it 's the strongest of all. Do you know what I 'm driving at?"

"I think so. Even your audiences feel it, vaguely: that you 've sometime or other faced things that make you different."

Thea turned her back to the wind, wiping away the snow that clung to her brows and lashes. "Ugh!" she exclaimed; "no matter how long a breath you have, the storm has a longer. I have n't signed for next season, yet, Fred. I 'm holding out for a big contract: forty performances. Necker won't be able to do much next winter. It 's going to be one