Josephine the Songstress

Certainly, there are also children who rebel against the ways of the world in such a wild, uncontrolled manner, but with Josephine this has a foundation that has a bit more substance. Though, indeed, she doesn't save us, nor does she supply us with any powers that might be decisive, it's all too easy to play the role of savior when you're dealing with such a folk like us: we're used to suffering, well acquainted with death, not given to pretense, fast in our decision-making, only apparently angst-ridden in this atmosphere of great daring and heroics in which we're constantly making do, living out our lives and, beyond all of this, our fertility is as legend as our audaciousness; it is so easy-as I've said-that one plays oneself off as the savior for such a folk, a folk that somehow or other manages to save itself though not, let us never forget, not without terrible sacrifices over which the historians, and in general we really do neglect doing all that much in viable historical research, the historians, as I say, those who preserve the actual in their memories of the past: their blood runs cold and simply paralyzes them due to the shocking horror, all of the horrors through which we've come! But still it is true that in the times of our greatest despair, this is when we listen most attentively to Josephine's voice. All of the forebodings, the threats that are gathering above us, all of this tends to make us calmer and more humble, we're more easily molded and responsive to Josephine's commanding presence, we're more than happy to gather together and press up against one another and even the more so due to the circumstance that our gathering is far removed from the major dilemma that torments us. It's as if we'd want a quick-true, all too true, speed is always para-mount, this is something that Josephine is wont to forget all too readily-a quick pick me up, to drink a cup from the fountain of peace before venturing out into the calamities of battle. It's not so much a vocal performance as it is an assemblage of the populace, an assemblage in which except for the slight whistling coming from center stage up front, besides this it's totally silent, the hour is far too serious for any idle gossip! Such a relation is not what is needed and it's impossible that this, indeed, would ever satisfy Josephine, nor is this even something that might be maintained for long. Despite all of her nervous anguish that overcomes her, filling her with unhappiness due to her position that has never been clarified, there's a great deal that she, blinded by her self-consciousness, doesn't see, and it doesn't take all that much effort for her blind spot to be enlarged considerably, there's a swarm of her adherents who are constantly flattering her, egging her on, and in doing this they perform a useful function though, to be sure, all of this happens off to one side and out of the limelight, that she might sing for them in some remote corner, and were it not for them it's certain that she'd never have the nerve to pull off the sacrifice needed to sing, that she do so even despite the enormity of the undertaking.