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PARTISAN REVIEW
musical sense has some connection with this. We are too old for
music; its inspiration and its soaring flights do not go with our
inertia, we wearily wave it away; we confine ourselves to squeak·
ing; a little squeaking now and then is the thing for us. Who
knows, perhaps there are musically talented persons among us;
but if there are, they are inevitably suppresseJ Ly the character of
their fellow citizens before they can unfold. Josephine, on the
other hand, can sing or squeak, or whatever she calls it, to her
heart's content and not bother us; it agrees with us, and we can put
up with it very well.
If
there is any music in it, it has been
reduced to an infinitesimal minimum; a certain tradition of music
is preserved, but without letting it trouble us in the slightest.
However, Josephine has even more to give to a people of this
humor. At her concerts, especially in times of crisis, only those
who are quite young take any interest in the singer as such; they
alone marvel at the way she curls her lips, expels the air from
between her delicate front teeth, faints away in admiration of her
own sounds, and then takes this collapse as a pretext for urging
herself on to new achievements that become more and more incom·
prehensible. But it is plain to see that most of the crowd has with·
drawn into itself. Here in their short respites from battle the peo–
ple sit and dream; it is as though each individual were relaxing
his limbs, as though the restless one were able to lay himself down
for once and stretch out at his pleasure in the great warm bed of
the people. And now and then Josephine's squeaks sound through
these dreams-she calls it sparkling, we call it jerky; but anyhow
it is appropriate here as nowhere else, finding its expectant moment
in a way music hardly ever does. Something of our poor short
childhood is in it, something of our lost and unrecoverable joy, but
also something of our busy present-day life, something of its small,
inconceivable and yet persistent and inextinguishable cheerfulness.
And all this is expressed, really, without any grand gestures, but
softly, whisperingly, familiarly, often a little huskily. Naturally,
it is squeaking. What else could it be? Squeaking is the language
of our people. But many squeak all their lives, and do not know
it, while here squeaking is liberated from the bonds of daily life,
and for a short while we too are liberated by it.. We positively do
not want to miss these concerts.
But it is still a long way from this to Josephine's contention
