31

Music from a Mute

(With apologies to Halifax)

Our Mute was discovered by Mr.
Willoughby in the Music Room on a
memorable Friday afternoon in Sep-
tember, 1930. Our Mute, be it under-
stood, is by no means incapable, but
rather over-prolific of the spoken
word. When, however, it is demand-
ed of her that she sing, a certain
buoyancy deserts her vocal system,
and a tongue, famous in the family
for the soprano pitch to which its
screams can rise, when offered musi-
cal accompaniment, dwells with re-

current and hopeless persistence on
the dull tone of Middle C.

ae

Our Mute retired from the en-
counter in no way discomposed, for
her muteness, while a surprise to Mr.
Willoughby, was an old story to her-
self. She found, during the weeks
that followed, a pleasant satisfaction in
the contemplation of her fellow-class-
mates as they memorized the words
of “Sophias,” walking of an evening
to the Greeks, or antiphonally voiced
Hellenic melodies in the nightly tub.

When the great Friday arrived, she
tiptoed in the Cloisters as decorously
as any other black-robed virgin, se-
cure in her ensconcement between two
resonant sopranos. No one of the un-
witting audience guessed that a drone
was in the hive, nor did her unsus-
pecting Sophomore deliver up a lan-
tern less readily to this goose among





27



the swans, who had not earned her
hire. ‘

Our Mute has always patronized
the College Choir in its less soulful
efforts. For her all music is bound
up in the classic canon of Gilbert
and Sullivan. As a freshman, she
giggled and sighed her sympathy with
the three little maids from school, when
Polachek played Pitti Sing in the
Mikado; as a junior, she fell indis-
criminately and desperately in love
with the Heavy Dragoons. Now, in
her senior senility, as she sits dozing
in an early morning class, a mist rises
before her eyes, through which she
dimly sees again Righter across the
aisle as the Idyllic Poet, or Culbert-
son as the enchanting dairymaid, Pa-
tience. Her admiration of the music-
leaders, Bertolet, Meneely, and their
crew, has induced her to be constantly
associated with them, in a brave new
world where she may sing vicariously
when so moved. They, however, still
deplore her unblushing lack of taste,
when she declares herself reluctant to
curtail the weekly sea-food lunch for
the charms of Stokowski and his di-
vine musicians on a Friday afternoon.
Indeed, her appearance at Parzival
in the orchestra stalls last Easter puz-
zled the whole college, until, on being
questioned, she admitted she was
motivated by the meanest curiosity, to
observe how her pink party dress
looked on her roommate in the Maid-
ens’ Chorus.