Josephine the Songstress

But then, in respect to her battle of becoming free from doing any work, here things are different; indeed, this too is basically a fight over her song but in this fight she's not limited to the immediate tools of her trade, her most valuable weapons, rather there are other means available here and it's for this reason-I believe that this, perhaps, is the line that her reasoning takes-that she's quite able to use means that are really ugly. So, for example, there's this rumor going around that Josephine intends upon shortening her coloratura... Now, I've never even noticed any coloratura in her singing and in general the voices of our folk tend toward being rough and untamed; our nature probably precludes any training that would allow for such refinement, but now Josephine is threatening to shorten her coloratura, not that they'd be eliminated entirely, just shortened. It's quite likely that she's followed through on this though I can't say that I've noticed any particular differences in the way that she sings versus how it used to be. Our folk as a whole has continued on listening just as we listened earlier, there haven't been any comments made as regards the coloratura and we haven't altered our stance in the least as regards her petition-indeed, nothing seems to have changed. Just as Josephine has always been so charming in her bearing {Gestalt}, so too-there's no denying it-her thinking is also, often enough, quite charming. Thus, for instance, after one of her performances with the abbreviated coloratura-as if her resolution, really, had been all too hard on us-so she announced that next time around she'd resume doing her full repertoire, a full-blown concert with all of the extras. But, then again, right after the next concert she changed her mind once again and declared that from here on out there wouldn't be any coloratura at all and that this was her final, irrevocable decision and, moreover, she didn't even want to discuss the matter any further. Now, the folk listened along to all of these clarifications, decisions and counter-decisions just like it always pays attention to the tantrums of a young child: we all wished for the best outcome but none of this seemed to have any connection to reality.

But Josephine wouldn't let up. Next thing you know she's claiming to have injured her foot whilst working and this injury would make it extremely difficult for her to stand during her performances and, since it was necessary for her to sing standing up, well, so now she doesn't have any other choice other than shortening her concerts. Despite the circumstance that she'd now come limping to center stage and that she allowed her entourage to help her along, despite all of this there wasn't a single one of us who believed that she had really hurt herself. Although we're all quite willing to admit that Josephine is a bit more sensitive than the rest of us, all the same as a folk we're very well known for being exceptional in our industrious-ness, we're hard workers one and all and Josephine, no matter what she says, Josephine is one of us. If everyone were to start limping about every time he would scrape up his knee, well, we'd all be limping about constantly.