In Search of Love and Beauty by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Page A

amount, just as it took him some time to assess each applicant’s need; and both were a secret process that went on while the newcomer was being made comfortable in one of the second-floor bedrooms of the Academy.Some people went away, deciding that Leo was not the answer for them, whereupon he would shake hands with them heartily, almost as if congratulating them on their escape: but if there was a committal and the person decided to stay, then Leo would say all right and he would narrow his eyes and get very businesslike: revealing his diagnosis and its suggested cure—that is, the psychospiritual exercises on the one hand, the size of the donation on the other.
    But Leo had mellowed: Louise and Regi and their contemporaries would have been amazed to see the indulgence he showed to his young students. He moved among them with an air of benign blessing, in his brown habit with the silver ornament around his neck and the buckled cowboy belt hanging low over his stomach. He loved to watch them at their occupations and encouraged them by tweaking a firm young cheek here or buttock there. His presence among them, his approval, made them so happy that they redoubled their efforts, whether this was cleaning the house, cooking, gardening, or—a new project of his—bottling fruit for sale. Sometimes he called them all to sit around him in the sunken garden, and then he would say “Sing, children,” or “Tell me stories”; and these would always be their own stories, their lives up to the moment of regeneration—that is, up to the moment when they had joined the Academy.
    It had been very different in Louise and Regi’s time. Of course he was different then—he was young, younger than most of his students, and stormy. Those terrible rehearsals they had, before one of their public performances! He had worked out a series of group dances, based on his psychological exercises but also of intrinsic aesthetic interest. He had choreographed them, worked with a composer on the music, designed the costumes and the scenery—he was not a Renaissance man for nothing—and he spent weeks rehearsing his students. That was as terrible a time for him as for them. Hewas literally in their hands—or rather, in their whole bodies which he was working to shape into living symbols to illustrate his ideas.
    Their rehearsal space was a studio in the old converted theater building he had rented. At one end of the long room the composer sat at an upright piano while Leo was perched on a high ladder-chair from which he could overlook the students at the other end. Hopping up and down on the top of this chair, he uttered foul German curses translated into English. Sometimes he fell into such a rage at their ineptitude that he threw whatever was at hand; while they, holding on to the long white robes he had designed for them, had learned to skip smartly out of the way.
    The day of performance approached. The theater, in the same building as the rehearsal space, was booked; the students went all around town to paste up the posters Leo had designed, and to hawk the books of tickets he had allotted to them. It was a small hall, but on the great day was never quite full. This was the fault of the students—they tried hard to sell tickets to genuine spectators but the price was steep for those days (five dollars) and interest not widespread, so that they usually ended up buying quite a few themselves. On the day itself, Leo was cool and very efficient—which was just as well, for no one else was. Practically single-handed, he put up the scenery; he tested and fixed the lights; he hovered over the piano tuner; he spotted and dealt with incipient cases of hysteria; he could even be seen kneeling with pins in his mouth to fix someone’s hem. So that at last it was always and only due to his efforts that the curtain parted almost on time, revealing the symbolic scenery. Sometimes this was just one pillar