JOSEPHINE, THE SONGSTRESS
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that at these moments she infuses us with new energy, etc., etc.
A
long way, that is, for ordinary people, but not for Josephine's
flatterers. "How can it be otherwise?" they will ask with really
shameless impudence. "How else can you explain so great an
attend11nce~
especially in the face of immediate danger, an attend–
ance
~o
great that it has often interfered with proper and timely
measures of defense against that danger?" Now this last is true,
unfortunately, but it does not redound to Josephine's credit, partic–
ularly when one adds that whenever these gatherings were sud–
denly broken up by the enemy so that many of us had to lose our
lives then and there, Josephine, who was responsible for all this,
having perhaps actually attracted the enemy by her squeaking,
would always be occupying the safest spot, and protected by her
claque, very quietly and hurriedly, would be the first to disappear.
Although everybody really knows about this, the next time that
Josephine rises to sing at any place and time she pleases they will
again hurry over. You might conclude from this that Josephine
is almost above the law, that she can do whatever she wants to,
even when it endangers the community, yet be forgiven everything.
If
this were so, Josephine's demands would be completely under–
standable. This freedom granted to her, this extraordinary gift,
which really controverts the law and has never been given to any–
one else, might be considered indeed a confession of that which
Josephine claims, that the people do not understand her, that they
marvel helplessly at her art, feel unworthy of her, and try by
what is no less than an act of desperation to make good the suffer–
ing they cause her, and that in the same way that her art is beyond
their comprehension, her person and its wishes are beyond their
uthority. Now this in any event is altogether untrue; perhaps the
eople yield to Josephine too quickly in details, but they surrender
emselves unconditionally neither to her nor to anyone else.
For a long time now, perhaps since the very beginning of her
rtistic career, Josephine has foughno be released from all work
· recognition of her singing; she is to be freed from care as to her
aily bread and from all else connected with the struggle for
xistence, and this is to be shifted-probably-to the people as a
hole. Some one easily carried away-there are such-might
nclude this demand to be intrinsically justified simply by its
xceptional nature and by the very state of mind capable of con-
