CHAPTER XI

LEAVING BERLIN

After a short season in Stockholm, where once more I had the pleasure of singing before dear old King Oscar, I found myself in Berlin. One morning my maid brought me this telephone message:--

Heinrich Conried of New York is at the Hotel Bristol. Will Miss Farrar please come down and sing for him?

I promptly had the maid telephone carefully as follows:--

Miss Farrar is at her home, and, if Herr Conried wishes to call, she will be glad to see him.

Later that same day Herr Conried called. He was scouting Europe for artists for the Metropolitan, and he had been advised by Maurice Grau to keep a watchful eye upon my career.

We talked of his plans for New York, and Herr Conried expressed a wish to have me return to my native land. Of course, from the day I had first dreamed of singing in grand opera, the Metropolitan had been my ultimate goal, but now that the moment for considering so important a step had come I was very wary. Knowing that New York was loyal to some of the older artists still under contract, I wanted to protect my interests as best I could while working up my career in America. I do not believe that Mr. Conried was then very anxious to have me come; certainly he was much taken aback when I stated my ideas of the contract. They were so entirely at divergence with his that the interview came to nothing, and he departed. I was neither glad nor sorry. I telegraphed Maurice Grau the result, to which he laconically replied:--

Don't worry, he'll be back.

Having been many years in that same position, _vis-a-vis_ prima donnas, Maurice Grau well knew whereof he spoke, for indeed Mr. Conried did "come back," finding me on my vacation in Franzensbad, where I had been very busily concerned looking up all manner of contracts for America. After much obstinacy on my part and reiteration on his, we managed to close the contract. Besides my guaranteed operatic performances I was to sing in no private houses unless agreeable to me and only for special compensation; and I incorporated every possible clause imaginable about dressing-rooms, drawing-rooms on trains, carriages, railroad fares for my mother and my maids on tour, and in fact every conceivable concession which the most arrogant prima donna might demand. Not that I really cared about such items of expense, but I was determined to enter the Metropolitan _en dignite_, and I did.

The contract was not to take effect until a year later, in November, 1906. Meanwhile, I was to conclude another season in Berlin, fulfill all European contracts in the spring, and then secure leave of absence from the Kaiser for three years. It was arranged, however, that I should always be subject to the demands of the Royal Opera, and one of the clauses of the Conried contract was that, if at any time I was called back to appear in Berlin, my contract would be indefinitely postponed until such time as I could fulfill it without conflicting with my Berlin contract.

That concluding season in Berlin was a constant series of farewells. The news had been made public that I was to sing in America, and that I would be absent for at least a year. One of the pleasant memories of that season is a farewell concert at the Marmor Palace at Potsdam for the Crown Prince and Princess, when they presented to me a diamond pendant made up of the letters "W-C" interwoven--Wilhelm and Cecile. The Crown Princess Cecile, gracious, charming, young, adored in Berlin and throughout Germany, was greatly interested in charities, and during my last season in Berlin I assisted her in organizing the programmes for many charity concerts.

At last came the eventful day when I was to leave the country of my adoption for the land of my nativity. I had announced an "Abschied," or "Farewell Concert," in Philharmonic Hall, Berlin, the first week in October, 1906. We charged five dollars a seat, and could have sold the house twice over. One half the gross receipts went to a hospital kitchen founded by my dear Frau von Rath, who had been so kind to me; and the other half went to the fund of the Crown Princess's pet charity for crippled children. It was a wonderful and representative audience, in which royalty was conspicuously present.

Next day we drove through crowds in the streets of Berlin, _en route_ to the station for Bremerhaven, from which we sailed on the Kaiser Wilhelm II, my mother, father, and I. Quite a contrast to our last voyage together on the cattle ship from Boston! But now we were homeward bound. I was returning to the land of my birth after an absence of nearly seven years, to sing in the greatest temple of music in the western world. It represented the near approach of the greatest of my dreams.

But, could I have foreseen all the difficulties that were to come to me, I wonder if I would have been so buoyant and care-free as the great ship pounded her way westward through the October seas!