A WagnerMatinée - PlanbookConnect

Before You Read
Activate Prior
Knowledge
Talk About the Story
Remind students that a short story is a work of fiction
that presents a sequence of events called a plot.
Most plots deal with a problem and develop around a
conflict, a struggle between opposing forces. The plot
begins with exposition, which introduces the story’s
characters, setting, and situation. The rising action
adds complications to the conflicts, or problems,
leading to the climax, or crisis, the point of highest
emotional pitch. The climax gives way rapidly to its
logical result in the falling action and finally to the
resolution, (sometimes called the dénouement), in
which the final outcome is revealed. Point out that
in Willa Cather’s fiction conflict often arises between
the values of civilized life and the realities of frontier
existence on the Great Plains.
A Wagner Matinée
by Willa Cather
1
Lesson at a Glance
Activate Prior Knowledge
• Talk About the Story
Literary Element
• Point of View
Vocabulary
• Selection Vocabulary
• Analogies
• Academic Vocabulary
Reading Strategy
• Identify Sequence
Language Note
• The Past Tense
BLM
Grammar Link
• Commas Before and, but,
and or BLM
Fluency
• Expression and Intonation:
Punctuation
Writing Link
• Advice Column
1
Before You Read
Before You Read
Connect to the Story
Have students work in pairs to answer. To help
students get started: Model Living on an isolated farm
a hundred years ago would be so different from what
I’m used to. I’d have to work hard just to stay warm,
clean, and well fed. I would not have much time for
fun. A trip to a city would be a welcome change.
Ask students to respond to the questions. Then have
them discuss their answers with a partner.
A Wagner Matinée
Connect to the Story
Imagine living on an isolated farm in Nebraska one hundred years ago. You have no
radio, no TV, no CDs, and no computer. Write your responses on the lines below.
How do you spend your days?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
What do you do for entertainment?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
What would you enjoy most about a trip to a big city?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
How would you feel if you could hear live music in the city?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Build Background
Read the Build Background notes with students. Help
students understand how difficult life would have been
for settlers who took advantage of the Homestead Act.
Point out that the people who claimed the land had
to work very hard to improve it and that they had to
do the work themselves. Most of them were so busy
working that they had little time for entertainments
such as music and reading.
Build Background
As you read this list, circle the most important words and phrases.
•
The word Wagner in the title refers to the German composer Wilhelm Richard
Wagner (1813–1883). He wrote dramatic and passionate operas.
•
A matinée is a daytime performance.
•
Willa Cather based her story on the experience of her Aunt Franc and Uncle
George. They had taken advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862.
•
The Homestead Act allowed settlers and immigrants to claim 160 acres of public
land. If they improved the land and lived on it for five years, they would own it.
Students might circle Richard Wagner, wrote dramatic and passionate operas, matinée, daytime performance,
Homestead Act.
Set Purposes for Reading
Read to find out how a woman responds when she hears music that she loves and is
reminded of the beauty she has been missing for many years.
Set Purposes for Reading
Have students work together to set additional purposes
for reading. Ask them what more they would like
to know about life on the frontier and in the city of
Boston in the nineteenth century. Encourage them to
look for the answers to their questions as they read.
2
2
Before You Read
Literary Element Point of View
The point of view is the standpoint from which a story is told. A story in the
first-person point of view is told by one of the characters, referred to as “I.” The
reader sees everything through that character’s eyes. In third-person limited point
of view, the narrator tells events as seen by a single character. All characters and
things are referred to as “he,” “she,” or “it.” With the omniscient point of view, the
narrator reveals the thoughts, feelings, and actions of all the characters. Get together
with a partner and tell about a typical event in your everyday life. Describe it from
these three points of view.
Literary Element Point of
View
Help students see the importance of point of view in
storytelling. Explain to them that the same story told
from three different points of view would seem as
though it were three different stories. To demonstrate,
suggest that students consider a familiar fairy tale from
three different points of view. For example, “Cinderella”
would be quite different if told from the prince’s point
of view, the stepsisters’ point of view, or Cinderella’s
point of view.
Reading Strategy Identify Sequence
When you identify sequence, you find the order in which events happen. Often,
authors follow the time order of events when telling a story. Sometimes, however,
they use flashbacks to tell about past events. As you read, it is important to track what
happened first, next, and last. To practice how to identify sequence, complete a chart
on a separate piece of paper like the one below to tell about three events in your life.
Put the events in the order in which they happened.
▲
▲
Vocabulary
Analogies
Analogies are comparisons based on relationships between words.
For example:
hat : head :: shoe : foot
Vocabulary
legacy (legʼ ə sē) n. something inherited, as
money or property
reproach (ri prōchʼ) n. blame for some wrong
In this example, the words in each pair show association or usage.
Now look at this analogy:
doggedly (dôʼ gid lē) adv. keeping on stubbornly
despite difficulties
trepidation (trepʼ ə dāʼ shən) n. fear; dread; a
feeling of being anxious
butterfly : insect :: dog : mammal
What is the relationship between the words in this analogy? Circle
your answer.
Reading Strategy Identify
Sequence
Explain that a flashback is an interruption in the
chronological order of a story. Flashbacks show events
that happened earlier. Authors use flashbacks to
explain later events in the story.
obliquely (ōb lēkʼ lē) adv. in a slanting direction
object/characteristic
Vocabulary Analogies
part/whole
Say each word aloud with students. Ask volunteers to
define each word in his or her own words. Then have
partners work together to pair each vocabulary word
with another to create analogies that help them to
understand and remember the words’ meaning. For
example: trepidation : fear :: dry : arid
example/class
Read the vocabulary words and definitions in the side column out loud. As you
encounter these words in the selection, think of analogies that you might make
using them.
3
Vocabulary Routine
To introduce the vocabulary, follow the routine
below.
Define: When you receive a legacy, you inherit
something, such as money, property, or honor.
Example: The legacy Daniel received from his
aunt allowed him to go to college. Ask: What
legacy would you like to leave to your own
grandchildren in the future? EXAMPLE
If you are disappointed about something your
friend does, you might express reproach
about it. When Catherine broke her promise to
Ann, she suffered Ann’s reproach. What action
by your friend might cause you to express
reproach? DESCRIPTION
If you feel trepidation, you are nervous
and fearful. Forrest stopped at the door to
the principal’s office, filled with trepidation
about why he had been called there. Name
an emotion that is the opposite of trepidation.
When you do something doggedly, you keep
at it in a stubborn way. Sara doggedly practiced
her dance routine until she knew it by heart.
Compare the results of practicing something
doggedly with the results you would get by
giving up too early. COMPARE AND CONTRAST
If you draw a line obliquely, you draw it in
a slanting direction. Marcie divided her wall
obliquely, painting one side blue and the other
side yellow. Give an example of a moment in
sports where a player might move obliquely.
3
ANTONYM
EXAMPLE
A Wagner Matinée
Interactive
Question-Response
A Wagner Matinée
Vocabulary
legacy (legʼ ə sē) n. something
inherited, as money or property
Vocabulary
To help students remember the meaning of legacy,
point out that legacy and leave start with the same
two letters. Explain that a legacy is something that one
person leaves to another.
Reading Strategy Identify
Sequence
If students have trouble identifying the sequence of
events, draw a time line on the board. Write “the
young Clark” on one end and “the adult Clark” on the
other end. Have students suggest phrases from the
story that describe the young Clark.
Reading Strategy
Identify Sequence How does the
narration shift in the highlighted
text? Write your answer on the
lines below. Underline the phrases
that provide clues to this shift.
Possible
response: It
_______________________________
moves
from the present to
_______________________________
recollections
of the past.
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
I received one morning a letter, written in pale ink on glassy, bluelined note-paper, and bearing the postmark of a little Nebraska village.
This communication, worn and rubbed, looking as if it has been carried
for some days in a coat pocket that was none too clean, was from my
uncle Howard, and informed me that his wife had been left a small legacy
by a bachelor relative, and that it would be necessary for her to go to
Boston to attend to the settling of the estate. He requested me to meet
her at the station and render1 her whatever services might be necessary.
On examining the date indicated as that of her arrival, I found it to be no
later than tomorrow. He had characteristically delayed writing until, had I
been away from home for a day, I must have missed my aunt altogether.
The name of my Aunt Georgiana opened before me a gulf of
recollection so wide and deep that, as the letter dropped from my hand,
I felt suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of my existence,
wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the familiar surroundings of my
study. I became, in short, the gangling farmer-boy my aunt had known,
scourged2 with chilblains3 and bashfulness, my hands cracked and sore
from the corn husking. I sat again before her parlour organ, fumbling the
scales with my stiff, red fingers, while she, beside me, made canvas mittens
for the huskers.
The next morning, after preparing my landlady for a visitor, I set out
for the station. When the train arrived I had some difficulty in finding my
aunt. She was the last of the passengers to alight, and it was not until I
got her into the carriage that she seemed really to recognize me. She had
come all the way in a day coach; her linen duster4 had become black with
soot and her black bonnet grey with dust during the journey. When we
arrived at my boarding-house the landlady put her to bed at once and I
did not see her again until the next morning.
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
1. Render means “to make available” or “to provide.”
2. Scourged means “afflicted.”
3. Chilblains are red, swollen sores on the skin. They are caused by exposure to
the cold.
4. A duster is a long, lightweight coat. It is worn to protect one’s clothing from dust.
4
Language Note
The Past Tense
When students respond to the Reading Strategy question, remind them to use the past tense
in their responses. When using past tense verbs, students should be careful to pronounce
the -ed sound at the end of the verb. For example, students should say, “Clark used to be
shy,” instead of “Clark use to be shy.” In a small group, have students repeat the following
sentences after you. Then have them write down each past-tense verb as you model saying
the sentences again.
1. Clark owed thanks to his aunt.
2. Aunt Georgiana cooked three meals a day.
3. She ironed and mended his clothes.
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A Wagner Matinée
A Wagner Matinée
Whatever shock Mrs. Springer experienced at my aunt’s appearance,
she considerately concealed. As for myself, I saw my aunt’s battered figure
with that feeling of awe and respect with which we behold explorers
who have left their ears and fingers north of Franz-Joseph-Land,5 or their
health somewhere along the Upper Congo.6 My Aunt Georgiana had
been a music teacher at the Boston Conservatory, somewhere back in the
latter sixties. One summer, while visiting in the little village among the
Green Mountains7 where her ancestors had dwelt for generations, she had
kindled the callow8 fancy of my uncle, Howard Carpenter, then an idle,
shiftless boy of twenty-one. When she returned to her duties in Boston,
Howard followed her, and the upshot of this infatuation was that she
eloped with him, eluding the reproaches of her family and the criticism of
her friends by going with him to the Nebraska frontier. Carpenter, who,
of course, had no money, took up a homestead in Red Willow County,
fifty miles from the railroad. There they had measured off their land
themselves, driving across the prairie in a wagon, to the wheel of which
they had tied a red cotton handkerchief, and counting its revolutions.
They built a dug-out in the red hillside, one of those cave dwellings
whose inmates so often reverted to primitive conditions. Their water they
got from the lagoons where the buffalo drank, and their slender stock of
provisions was always at the mercy of bands of roving Indians. For thirty
years my aunt had not been farther than fifty miles from the homestead.
I owed to this woman most of the good that ever came my way in
my boyhood, and had a reverential9 affection for her. During the years
when I was riding herd for my uncle, my aunt, after cooking the three
meals—the first of which was ready at six o’clock in the morning—and
putting the six children to bed, would often stand until midnight at her
ironing-board, with me at the kitchen table beside her, hearing me recite
Latin declensions and conjugations,10 gently shaking me when my drowsy
head sank down over a page of irregular verbs. It was to her, at her ironing
or mending, that I read my first Shakespeare, and her old textbook on
mythology was the first that ever came into my empty hands. She taught
me my scales and exercises on the little parlor organ which her husband
had bought her after fifteen years, during which she had not so much as
seen a musical instrument. She would sit beside me by the hour, darning
and counting, while I struggled with the “Joyous Farmer.”11 She seldom
talked to me about music, and I understood why. Once when I had been
doggedly beating out some easy passages from an old score of Euryanthe12
I had found among her music books, she came up to me and, putting her
hands over my eyes, gently drew my head back upon her shoulder, saying
tremulously,13 “Don’t love it so well, Clark, or it may be taken from you.”
5. Franz-Joseph-Land is a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean.
6. The Congo River is in central Africa. It is also called the Zaire River.
7. The Green Mountains go from western Massachusetts through Vermont and into
Canada.
8. Callow means “inexperienced” or “immature.”
9. Reverential means “with a feeling of deep respect and awe.”
10. Declensions are different forms of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives.
Conjugations are different forms of verbs. Students often memorize these forms
when learning a new language.
11. Joyous Farmer is one of a series of compositions for children by Robert Schumann
(1810–1856).
12. Euryanthe (ā Ûr i än tā) is an opera by the German composer Carl Maria von Weber
(1786–1826).
13. Tremulously means “in a trembling or shaking manner.”
Vocabulary
reproach (ri prō̄chʼ) n. blame for
some wrong
doggedly (dôʼ gid lē) adv.
keeping on stubbornly despite
difficulties
Vocabulary Skill
Analogies The word reproaches
has almost the same meaning as
another word in this sentence.
Circle that word. Then circle the
item below that describes their
relationship.
object/characteristic
antonyms
part/whole
synonyms
example/class
Read and Discuss
Read the last paragraph
out loud with a partner. As
you read, underline details
that show Aunt Georgiana’s
influence on Clark as he was
growing up. Then discuss with
your partner what these details
tell about Aunt Georgiana’s
personality. Write your response
on the lines below.
Students
will underline
____________________________
details
that show Georgiana’s
____________________________
kindness
and culture.
____________________________
Possible
response: Aunt
____________________________
Georgiana
was a dutiful,
____________________________
cultured,
and loving person,
____________________________
but
suffered from losing the
____________________________
music
that she loved.
____________________________
5
Fluency
Expression and Intonation: Punctuation
Tell students that they will be doing a choral reading from this page and provide them with
starting and end points. Remind students to focus on stopping when they come to a period.
Model the fluency skill as you read the text at a moderate tempo. Then have one student start
reading the passage. Have another student join in at the second sentence, a third join in at the
third sentence, and so on. When students reach the end of the passage, have pairs of students
reread the passage to each other.
5
Interactive
Question-Response
Vocabulary Analogies
Point out to students that determining the relationship
between two words is the first step in understanding
an analogy. If the first two words in an analogy are
synonyms (words with the same or almost the same
meaning), the second pair must also be synonyms.
Read and Discuss Partner Talk
If students are having difficulty, write Latin, literature,
and music on the board. Then have students work in
pairs to find words and phrases in this paragraph that
are related to these topics.
A Wagner Matinée
A Wagner Matinée
Reading Strategy
Interactive
Question-Response
Identify Sequence Underline the
phrases in the highlighted passage
that show time order. Briefly
describe the day that the narrator
has planned for his aunt. Write
your answer on the lines below.
Possible
response: He wants
_______________________________
to
take her for a walk, to lunch,
_______________________________
Reading Strategy Identify
Sequence
If students have trouble, Ask: What phrases in this
passage answer the question When? (At two o’clock
and before lunch)
and
then to a concert.
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
Literary Element Point of
View
If students are having difficulty, explain that they
should imagine themselves in Aunt Georgiana’s
place. Model What do I know about Aunt Georgiana?
She used to be a music teacher, and she has always
loved music. She has been away from it for thirty
years. Coming back to a concert hall had to be a
highly emotional moment for her.
Literary Element
Point of View If the point of view
had been Aunt Georgiana’s instead
of Clark’s, what might she have
said about this moment? Complete
the following sentence.
Aunt Georgiana might have said
Possible
response: that being
_______________________________
in
the concert hall made her
_______________________________
really
understand that she was
_______________________________
going
to hear some music.
_______________________________
Vocabulary
trepidation (trepˊ ə dāˊ shən) n.
fear; dread; a feeling of being
anxious
When my aunt appeared on the morning after her arrival in Boston,
she was still in a semi-somnambulant14 state. She seemed not to realize
that she was in the city where she had spent her youth, the place longed
for hungrily half a lifetime. She had been so wretchedly train-sick
throughout the journey that she had no recollection of anything but her
discomfort, and, to all intents and purposes, there were but a few hours
of nightmare between the farm in Red Willow County and my study on
Newbury Street. I had planned a little pleasure for her that afternoon, to
repay her for some of the glorious moments she had given me when we
used to milk together in the straw-thatched cowshed and she, because I
was more than usually tired, or because her husband had spoken sharply
to me, would tell me of the splendid performance of the Huguenots15 she
had seen in Paris, in her youth.
At two o’clock the Symphony Orchestra was to give a Wagner
program, and I intended to take my aunt; though, as I conversed with
her, I grew doubtful about her enjoyment of it. I suggested our visiting
the Conservatory and the Common16 before lunch, but she seemed
altogether too timid to wish to venture out. She questioned me absently
about various changes in the city, but she was chiefly concerned that she
had forgotten to leave instructions about feeding half-skimmed milk to a
certain weakling calf, “old Maggie’s calf, you know, Clark,” she explained,
evidently having forgotten how long I had been away. She was further
troubled because she had neglected to tell her daughter about the freshlyopened kit of mackerel in the cellar, which would spoil if it were not
used directly.
I asked her whether she had ever heard any of the Wagnerian operas,
and found that she had not, though she was perfectly familiar with their
respective situations, and had once possessed the piano score of The
Flying Dutchman. I began to think it would be best to get her back to
Red Willow County without waking her, and regretted having suggested
the concert.
From the time we entered the concert hall, however, she was a
trifle less passive and inert, and for the first time seemed to perceive
her surroundings. I had felt some trepidation lest she might become
aware of her queer, country clothes, or might experience some painful
embarrassment at stepping suddenly into the world to which she had been
dead for a quarter of a century. But, again, I found how superficially I had
judged her. She sat looking about her with eyes as impersonal, almost as
stony, as those with which the granite Rameses17 in a museum watches
the froth and fret that ebbs and flows18 about his pedestal. I have seen this
same aloofness in old miners who drift into the Brown hotel at Denver,
their pockets full of bullion,19 their linen soiled, their haggard faces
unshaven; standing in the thronged corridors as solitary as though they
were still in a frozen camp on the Yukon.20
14. Semi-somnambulant (semʼ ē som namʼ byə lənt) means “bewildered or dazed, as if
sleepwalking.”
15. Huguenots (hūʼ gə notsʼ) is a French opera by the German composer Giacomo
Meyerbeer (1791–1864).
16. Common refers to Boston Common, a public park.
17. Rameses (ramʼ ə sēz) is the name shared by several kings of ancient Egypt.
18. [froth and fret . . . flows] This phrase refers to the general busy activity that
would come and go past a museum statue.
19. Here, bullion (boolʼ yən) is gold.
20. Yukon refers to the Yukon River, a major route to the Klondike gold fields in Canada.
6
6
A Wagner Matinée
A Wagner Matinée
The matinée audience was made up chiefly of women. One lost the
contour of faces and figures, indeed any effect of line whatever, and there
was only the color of bodices past counting, the shimmer of fabrics soft
and firm, silky and sheer; red, mauve, pink, blue, lilac, purple, écru,21 rose,
yellow, cream, and white, all the colors that an impressionist22 finds in a
sunlit landscape, with here and there the dead shadow of a frock coat. My
Aunt Georgiana regarded them as though they had been so many daubs of
tube-paint on a palette.
When the musicians came out and took their places, she gave a little
stir of anticipation, and looked with quickening interest down over the
rail at that invariable grouping, perhaps the first wholly familiar thing
that had greeted her eye since she had left old Maggie and her weakling
calf. I could feel how all those details sank into her soul, for I had not
forgotten how they had sunk into mine when I came fresh from ploughing
forever and forever between green aisles of corn, where, as in a treadmill,
one might walk from daybreak to dusk without perceiving a shadow of
change. The clean profiles of the musicians, the gloss of their linen,
the dull black of their coats, the beloved shapes of the instruments, the
patches of yellow light on the smooth, varnished bellies of the ’cellos and
the bass viols in the rear, the restless, wind-tossed forest of fiddle necks
and bows—I recalled how, in the first orchestra I ever heard, those long
bow-strokes seemed to draw the heart out of me, as a conjurer’s stick reels
out yards of paper ribbon from a hat.
Literary Element
Point of View The reader sees
Aunt Georgiana’s reaction through
Clark’s eyes. How might Aunt
Georgiana have described this
same scene? Write your answer on
the lines below.
Possible
response: She might
_______________________________
have
described how exciting
_______________________________
it
was to see the musicians
_______________________________
enter
and take their places. She
_______________________________
might
have said how it brought
_______________________________
her
back to the days when she
_______________________________
lived
in Boston and was able
_______________________________
21. Écru (āʼ kroo) is beige, a very light tan color.
22. An impressionist is a member of a movement in French painting. Impressionists
emphasized the play of light and color.
to
enjoy such performances
_______________________________
regularly.
_______________________________
READING CHECK
Predict
Based on what you already know about Aunt Georgiana, how do
you think she will react to the music? Write your answer on the
lines below.
Possible
response: She will have a strong emotional reaction
______________________________________________________
to
the music.
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
7
Reading Check
Predict
Ask students to explain the reasons for their prediction. (Students will probably say that they
know how much music means to her and how much she has missed it.)
7
Interactive
Question-Response
Literary Element Point of
View
If students have difficulty, have them reread the
paragraphs describing the concert. Have them
underline the sentences that describe the scene. Then
have them discuss what they already know about Aunt
Georgiana and her past association with music.
A Wagner Matinée
A Wagner Matinée
Reading Strategy
Identify Sequence What does
Clark realize here? Write your
answer on the lines below.
Interactive
Question-Response
He
realizes that Georgiana has
_______________________________
not
heard music played in all the
_______________________________
time
that she has been gone.
_______________________________
Reading Strategy Identify
Sequence
If students have trouble responding, have them review
what they know from the flashbacks about Aunt
Georgiana’s life on the frontier.
Read and Discuss Partner Talk
If students are having difficulty, have them reread
the paragraph and underline sections that describe
Clark’s memories of Aunt Georgiana’s love of music.
Ask: What does this tell you about Aunt Georgiana?
(Music is very important to her.)
Read and Discuss
With a partner, read this
paragraph aloud, paying special
attention to the period at the
end of each sentence. Be sure
that your voice has the correct
intonation and shows the end
of each sentence. After reading,
discuss with your partner how
you think Aunt Georgiana felt
as she listened to the concert.
Write your response on the
lines below.
Possible
response: Aunt
____________________________
Georgiana
must have
____________________________
deeply
enjoyed the concert,
____________________________
because
music had meant
____________________________
so
much to her.
____________________________
The first number was the Tannhauser overture. When the horns drew
out the first strain of the Pilgrim’s chorus, Aunt Georgiana clutched my
coat sleeve. Then it was I first realized that for her this broke a silence of
thirty years. I saw again the tall, naked house on the prairie, black and
grim as a wooden fortress; the black pond where I had learned to swim,
its margin pitted with sun-dried cattle tracks; the rain gullied clay banks
about the naked house, the four dwarf ash seedlings where the dishcloths
were always hung to dry before the kitchen door. The world there was
the flat world of the ancients;23 to the east, a cornfield that stretched
to daybreak; to the west, a corral that reached to sunset; between, the
conquests of peace, dearer-bought than those of war.
The overture closed, my aunt released my coat sleeve, but she said
nothing. She sat staring dully at the orchestra. What, I wondered, did
she get from it? She had been a good pianist in her day, I knew, and her
musical education had been broader than that of most music teachers of
a quarter of a century ago. She had often told me of Mozart’s operas and
Meyerbeer’s, and I could remember hearing her sing, years ago, certain
melodies of Verdi.24 When I had fallen ill with a fever in her house she
used to sit by my cot in the evening—when the cool, night wind blew
in through the faded mosquito netting tacked over the window and I lay
watching a certain bright star that burned red above the cornfield—and
sing “Home to our mountains, O, let us return!” in a way fit to break the
heart of a Vermont boy near dead of homesickness already.
I watched her closely through the prelude to Tristan and Isolde,
trying vainly to conjecture what that seething turmoil of strings and winds
might mean to her, but she sat mutely staring at the violin bows that
drove obliquely downward, like the pelting streaks of rain in a summer
shower. Had this music any message for her? Had she enough left to at all
comprehend this power which had kindled the world since she had left it?
I was in a fever of curiosity, but Aunt Georgiana sat silent upon her peak
in Darien.25 She preserved this utter immobility throughout the number
from The Flying Dutchman, though her fingers worked mechanically
upon her black dress, as if, of themselves, they were recalling the piano
score they had once played. Poor hands! They had been stretched and
twisted into mere tentacles to hold and lift and knead with; on one of
them a thin, worn band that had once been a wedding ring. As I pressed
and gently quieted one of those groping hands, I remembered with
quivering eyelids their services for me in other days.
Vocabulary
obliquely (ōb lēkˊ lē) adv. in a
slanting direction
23. The ancients refers to those who lived in classical Greece and Rome.
24. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (woolfʼ gangʼ äʼ mə dāʼ əs mōtʼ särt) (1756–1791) was
an Austrian composer. Giuseppe Verdi (joo zepʼ pe verʼ dē) (1813–1901) was an
Italian composer of opera.
25. The phrase “peak in Darien” (dārʼ ē enʼ) alludes to the poem “On First Looking
into Chapman’s Homer” by John Keats. The poem describes Spanish explorers
on a mountain in Darien, now Panama, who stand silently and in awe, as the first
Europeans to view the Pacific Ocean.
8
8
A Wagner Matinée
A Wagner Matinée
Soon after the tenor began the “Prize Song,” I heard a quick drawn
breath and turned to my aunt. Her eyes were closed, but the tears were
glistening on her cheeks, and I think, in a moment more, they were in
my eyes as well. It never really died, then—the soul which can suffer so
excruciatingly and so interminably; it withers to the outward eye only;
like that strange moss which can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and
yet, if placed in water, grows green again. She wept so throughout the
development and elaboration of the melody.
During the intermission before the second half, I questioned my aunt
and found that the “Prize Song” was not new to her. Some years before
there had drifted to the farm in Red Willow County a young German,
a tramp cowpuncher,26 who had sung in the chorus at Bayreuth27 when
he was a boy, along with the other peasant boys and girls. Of a Sunday
morning he used to sit on his gingham-sheeted bed in the hands’ bedroom
which opened off the kitchen, cleaning the leather of his boots and
saddle, singing the “Prize Song,” while my aunt went about her work in
the kitchen. She had hovered over him until she had prevailed upon
him to join the country church, though his sole fitness for this step, in
so far as I could gather, lay in his boyish face and his possession of this
divine melody. Shortly afterward, he had gone to town on the Fourth of
July, been drunk for several days, lost his money at a faro28 table, ridden a
saddled Texas steer on a bet, and disappeared with a fractured collar-bone.
All this my aunt told me huskily, wanderingly, as though she were talking
in the weak lapses of illness.
“Well, we have come to better things than the old Trovatore29 at any
rate, Aunt Georgie?” I queried, with a well meant effort at jocularity.30
Her lip quivered and she hastily put her handkerchief up to her
mouth. From behind it she murmured, “And you have been hearing this
ever since you left me, Clark?” Her question was the gentlest and saddest
of reproaches.
The second half of the program consisted of four numbers from the
Ring, and closed with Siegfried’s funeral march. My aunt wept quietly, but
almost continuously, as a shallow vessel overflows in a rain-storm. From
time to time her dim eyes looked up at the lights, burning softly under
their dull glass globes.
The deluge of sound poured on and on; I never knew what she found
in the shining current of it; I never knew how far it bore her, or past what
happy islands. From the trembling of her face I could well believe that
before the last number she had been carried out where the myriad31 graves
are, into the grey, nameless burying grounds of the sea; or into some world
of death vaster yet, where, from the beginning of the world, hope has lain
down with hope and dream with dream and, renouncing,32 slept.
Reading Strategy
Identify Sequence What
past experience related to the
“Prize Song” has affected Aunt
Georgiana’s reaction to hearing the
song now? Write your answer on
the lines below.
Possible
response: She had
_______________________________
known
a young German
_______________________________
cowboy
who had sung this
_______________________________
song.
Hearing it again has a
_______________________________
highly
emotional effect on
_______________________________
her
because it stirs up old
_______________________________
memories.
_______________________________
Cowpuncher means “cowboy.”
Bayreuth (bı̄ roitʼ) is a German city famous for its annual Wagnerian music festival.
Faro (fārʼ ō) is a gambling game played with a deck of cards.
Trovatore (tro və tōrʼe) refers to Il Trovatore, an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.
Jocularity means “joking” or “humor.”
Myriad means “countless” or “innumerable.”
Renouncing means “giving up.”
Reading Strategy Identify
Sequence
If students are having difficulty answering the
question, get them started with the following sentence
frame:
She liked the young German cowboy because of his
_________________________. (musical ability)
Discuss with students what effect the song has on her
now and why.
_______________________________
Literary Element Point of View
Literary Element
Point of View What does the
first-person point of view reveal in
the last paragraph on page 8?
Circle the letter of the best
answer below.
a. Clark can’t hear the music.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
Interactive
Question-Response
b. Clark can’t grasp what his aunt
feels.
c. Clark doesn’t enjoy Tristan and
Isolde.
d. Clark fears his aunt isn’t having
a good time.
9
9
If students have trouble, help them eliminate some
options. Model Clark can certainly hear the music
and shows no sign of disliking Wagner. So that leaves
b and d.
A Wagner Matinée
A Wagner Matinée
Interactive
Question-Response
Literary Element Point of
View
To help students complete the sentence frame, ask
students what they already know about Clark and his
relationship with his aunt. Remind them that Clark
knows what it is like to be isolated on a remote farm,
even though he did not endure it for as long as his
aunt has.
Literary Element
Point of View Complete the
sentence frame below to explain
how Clark knows what his aunt is
feeling.
The concert was over; the people filed out of the hall chattering and
laughing, glad to relax and find the living level again, but my kinswoman
made no effort to rise. The harpist slipped the green felt cover over his
instrument; the flute-players shook the water from their mouthpieces; the
men of the orchestra went out one by one, leaving the stage to the chairs
and music stands, empty as a winter cornfield.
I spoke to my aunt. She burst into tears and sobbed pleadingly. “I
don’t want to go, Clark, I don’t want to go!”
I understood. For her, just outside the concert hall, lay the black pond
with the cattle-tracked bluffs; the tall, unpainted house, with weathercurled boards, naked as a tower; the crook-backed ash seedlings where the
dish-cloths hung to dry; the gaunt,33 moulting turkeys picking up refuse
about the kitchen door.
Clark has experienced both city
farm life , so he can
life and __________
she doesn’t
understand why
____________________
want
to go back
______________________________
.
33. Gaunt means “extremely thin.”
READING CHECK
Question
Why does Aunt Georgiana say, “I don’t want to go, Clark. I don’t
want to go!”? Write your answer on the lines below.
Aunt
Georgiana does not want to go because she realizes
______________________________________________________
what
she’s been missing for the past thirty years.
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
10
Reading Check
Question
If students are having difficulty answering the question, have them complete this sentence
frame:
Aunt Georgiana does not want to go because she realizes __________. (that she will return
to a life without music)
10
After You Read
A Wagner
Matinée
After You Read
Connect to the Story
Look back at the questions on page 2. Now that you have read the story, would
you change your answers to any of the questions? If so, write your new answers
on the lines below. Explain your reasons.
Connect to the Story
How do you spend your days?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
What do you do for entertainment?
If students have trouble: Model The story made life on
a frontier farm seem far harder than I had imagined.
It looks as if the work involved in keeping such a place
going would take up nearly all of your time.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
What would you enjoy most about a trip to a big city?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
How would you feel if you could hear live music in the city?
Students
might revise some or all of their answers. They should provide reasons for their revisions.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Literary Element
Literary Element Point of
View
Remind students that a first-person narrator does not
have access to another character’s thoughts.
Point of View
Review the definitions of both first-person and third-person limited point of view
on page 3. Select an event in Aunt Georgiana’s or Clark’s life. On the lines below,
write a one-sentence description of the event from both a first-person and thirdperson limited point of view.
Reading Strategy Identify
Sequence
First-person point of view:
Possible
sentence: As I read the letter from my Aunt Georgiana, I remembered all she had done for me.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Third-person limited point of view:
Possible
sentence: As Clark read the letter from his Aunt Georgiana, he smiled somewhat sadly.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reading Strategy Identify Sequence
Look back over the Reading Strategy chart you completed on page 3. Now,
complete a similar chart to describe a sequence of three major events in Aunt
Georgiana’s life. Put them in the order in which they happened.
11
Grammar Link
BLM
Commas Before and, but, and or
Prepare students to complete the activity on page 14. Read the grammar instruction with
students, and complete the first item with them to help them get started.
11
If students have trouble, suggest a sequence of events
beginning with Aunt Georgiana’s marriage. (Aunt
Georgiana marries Uncle Howard; they move to the
Nebraska frontier; they establish a homestead in Red
Willow County.)
After You Read
After You Read
A Wagner
Matinée
Vocabulary
Academic Vocabulary
Write the following sentence on the board: Aunt
Georgiana has an internal response to the external
stimulus of music.
Point out to students that external is an academic
word that has many different meanings. Have them
use context clues to figure out the meaning of external
in each of the following sentences and explain the
difference between the two meanings.
1. The skin is the most external feature of the
human body. (exterior)
2. Despite her external composure, Deepali was so
on edge she could barely breathe. (superficial, or
merely appearing as such)
After Reading
Have students complete the after reading activity on
page 13.
legacy
reproach
doggedly
trepidation
obliquely
A. Word Meaning Circle the answer that best fits the meaning of the boldfaced
vocabulary word in each sentence.
1. Aunt Georgiana’s uncle had left her a small legacy, so she had to travel to
Boston to settle the estate.
a car
b house
c inheritance
d allowance
2. Aunt Georgiana experienced reproach from her family after she married a
young man who had no job.
a respect
b disapproval
c kindness
d pity
3. Even though Clark doggedly practiced playing the piano, he was never
very good at it.
a rarely
b skillfully
c passionately
d stubbornly
4. Clark felt some trepidation about how Aunt Georgiana would react to the
well-dressed crowd.
a dread
b excitement
c curiosity
d wonder
5. The orchestra leader gestured obliquely with his baton.
a straight
b to the right
c diagonally
d quickly
B. Analogies For each item below, determine the relationship between the first
pair of words. Then apply that relationship to the second pair and circle your
answer. In each expression, : means “is to” and :: means “as.” The first one has
been done for you.
1. lawyer : attorney :: legacy : ______________
a money
b furniture
c property
d inheritance
c praise
d admiration
Relationship: synonyms
2. success : failure :: reproach : ______________
a applause
b approval
Relationship: antonyms
_____________________________________________________________________________
3. quickly : fast :: doggedly : ______________
a stubbornly
b proudly
c obediently
d docile
Relationship: synonyms
_____________________________________________________________________________
12
Writing Link
Advice Column
Have students imagine they are an advice columnist responding to a reader who is
contemplating a major move (such as from the city to the country, from the country to the city,
or from the United States to another country). Have them create a distinctive persona for their
columnist (hardheaded? comforting?) and a well-reasoned response to the reader’s situation.
Give them a limit of 150–200 words.
An effective advice column should
• create a distinctive persona
• have a clear, well-reasoned position for or against the move
• keep within the space limit
12
After You Read
A Wagner
Matinée
Compare-and-Contrast Chart
A two-column chart can help you track the contrasts between life on the
Nebraska frontier and life in Boston. Review the story, noting down details that
illustrate either frontier life or city life. (Two sample details have been done
for you.) Then use these details to help you fill out the sentence frame at the
bottom of the page.
Frontier Life
Life in Boston
the tall unpainted house
the matinée audience in their colored dresses
response: a pleasant, comfortable, cultured life
Aunt Georgiana exchanged Possible
________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Possible response: a hard, grim, uncivilized life
in Boston for ____________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________ on the Nebraska frontier.
13
13
After You Read
During Reading
A Wagner Matinée
Name ______________________________________________________ Date __________________________
Grammar Link Commas Before and, but, and or
Use a comma to separate two main clauses that are joined by and, but, or or. How
do you know if you have two main clauses? A main clause is a group of words with a
subject and a predicate. It can stand on its own and make sense.
Each underlined part in this sentence is a main clause:
Aunt Georgiana had received a legacy, and she had to go to Boston to get it.
Notice that when the two main clauses are joined by and, a comma goes before the
word and.
If either part of the sentence is not a main clause, do not use the comma.
EXAMPLE:
Aunt Georgiana had received a legacy and had to go to Boston to get it.
Notice that the second part of the sentence does not have a subject. It cannot stand
on its own and make sense.
Practice Write OK on the line if the sentence is correct as written. If it is not correct,
Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
rewrite it correctly.
1. Aunt Georgiana had traveled all day and was very tired. ___________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. Clark wanted to take his aunt to the matinée but he was not sure how she would react.
________________________________________________________________________
3. They could have stayed in Boston, or they could have gone west. ____________________
________________________________________________________________________
4. Aunt Georgiana listened to the music and tears streamed down her face.
________________________________________________________________________
5. The music ended but Aunt Georgiana did not want to leave. _________________________
________________________________________________________________________
14
During Reading
A Wagner Matinée
Name ______________________________________________________ Date __________________________
Grammar Link Commas Before and, but, and or
Use a comma to separate two main clauses that are joined by and, but, or or. How
do you know if you have two main clauses? A main clause is a group of words with a
subject and a predicate. It can stand on its own and make sense.
Each underlined part in this sentence is a main clause:
Aunt Georgiana had received a legacy, and she had to go to Boston to get it.
Notice that when the two main clauses are joined by and, a comma goes before the
word and.
If either part of the sentence is not a main clause, do not use the comma.
EXAMPLE:
Aunt Georgiana had received a legacy and had to go to Boston to get it.
Notice that the second part of the sentence does not have a subject. It cannot stand
on its own and make sense.
Practice Write OK on the line if the sentence is correct as written. If it is not correct,
rewrite it correctly.
________________________________________________________________________
2. Clark wanted to take his aunt to the matinée but he was not sure how she would react.
Clark
wanted to take his aunt to the matinée, but he was not sure how she would react.
________________________________________________________________________
3. They could have stayed in Boston, or they could have gone west. OK
____________________
________________________________________________________________________
4. Aunt Georgiana listened to the music and tears streamed down her face.
Aunt Georgiana listened to the music, and tears streamed down her face.
________________________________________________________________________
5. The music ended but Aunt Georgiana did not want to leave. _________________________
The music ended, but Aunt Georgiana did not want to leave.
________________________________________________________________________
15
Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
OK
1. Aunt Georgiana had traveled all day and was very tired. ___________________________