Some of My Lives Read Online Free PDF

doctor from the nearest village was called in. He arrived in his little horse-drawn buggy. His name was Don Virgilio.
    He examined Shirley. “What did he say?” Lenny asked me anxiously (at that point I was the only one who knew Spanish). “He says, ‘Either she will get better, or she won’t.’”
    Some time later Lenny stepped on a bee, and his foot swelled alarmingly. Don Virgilio came back on the double. By this time, he was completely under the Bernstein charm and invited us all to his little house, where he gave us small glasses of sweet Málaga wine and danced and sang to a song called “Mi Jaca,” with us providing a clapping accompaniment. Then we all danced.
    Our month’s holiday over, we headed for the airport, with a few tears. Lenny went on to Israel to conduct; I returned to my Paris office. He took off a heavy gold link bracelet I always wore and put it on.
    It was not as usual then as now for men to wear jewelry. A conductor’s wrist is very visible. The gold bracelet was the subject of comment. Later, when Lenny married Felicia, she sent the bracelet back to me. I still wear it.
    I had not met Felicia Montealegre, the beautiful Chilean girl who had come to New York to study piano with Claudio Arrau. But Lenny talked to me about her often, and the pros and cons of marrying her. Twice he had been officially engaged, but twice he couldn’t go through with it.
    Felicia hung on resolutely, in spite of what must have been humiliating public rejections (nothing was kept under wraps with Lenny).
    He wanted to be a good Jewish family man, but he had an unquenchable, as he called it, “dark” side.
    Finally, they did marry in what was the best possible move for him but not all plain sailing for her. I became extremely fond of Felicia. She was charming and talented—both musically and as an actress. She gave him three splendid children. Lenny adored them. She made their apartment in the Dakota a center of lighthearted multilingual hospitality. I owe many happy evenings and stimulating encounters to her.

    At one such evening, a fellow guest was the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. He spoke no English or French but had picked up a bit of Spanish while in Cuba. He rather stuck to me as, aside from our Chilean hostess, no one else spoke Spanish. We left at the same time, and in the elevator he asked me, “What did you think of the dinner?” Somewhat surprised, I answered I thought it delicious. “But so short …” I understood he meant so few courses. He continued as we exited, “When you come to my house, there will be platos y platos y platos ”—“course after course after course.” I gathered Russian hospitality involved a steady succession of dishes.
    Sadly, Felicia died far too soon, in 1978. I was deeply touched when Lenny and the children asked me to speak at her memorial.
    On a happier note, Jamie, Lenny’s eldest daughter, had a baby boy. We were all in the Bernstein box to hear and watch Lenny conduct the Philharmonic. After the concert we rushed to the Dakota, where the baby was left in the care of their faithful Julia. Lenny, bursting with pride, pointed to the baby: “There goes the first Jewish president of the United States.”
    Lenny was as generous as he was expansive. Soloists who performed with him have told me that no conductor could be more supportive. When I started my lecturing career at the Metropolitan Museum in 1971, he sent me, unsolicited, this little text to be used for my publicity: “Madame Bernier has the gift of instant communication to a degree I have rarely encountered, and in a field where it is not easy to be communicative without being glib. Indeed, her lectures are richly informed, full of fresh surprise, and delivered with elegance and simple charm.”
    And the night after my lecturing debut at the Met, Lenny and Felicia gave me a large party. If it had not been for