83 pages • 2-hour read
The Trumpet of the Swan
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Chapters 16-18 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Philadelphia”
By the end of his first week in Boston, Louis has firmly established himself as the Swan Boat’s musical accompanist and main attraction. After his first night at the Ritz, the Boatman agrees to have Louis sleep on the lake, and the rest of the fall season passes smoothly. He takes care of his trumpet and learns new songs, such as “Beautiful Dreamer, Wake Unto Me” and “Now the Day Is Over” (139). For the most part, passengers are appreciative and respectful, and the Swan Boat becomes more popular than ever.
As the season draws to a close, Louis receives a Western Union telegram from a nightclub promoter in Philadelphia. The promoter, Abe “Lucky” Lucas, offers to pay $500 a week for a 10-week engagement. Louis quickly determines the $5000 will cover his father’s debt and writes a message on his slate for the telegram messenger accepting the offer. For his last performance in Boston, Louis plays a medley of his favorite songs. Although it signals the end of his time in Boston, Louis is at peace and ready for his next adventure.
The next morning, Louis flies south with his belongings and easily lands at the Philadelphia Zoo’s Bird Lake in time for his appointment with Mr. Lucas. Mr. Lucas describes the details of the engagement, including the club venue, transportation to and from the Zoo, and his agent’s fee, which he describes as “ten percent, a mere bagatelle” (144).
Mr. Lucas offers to keep Louis’s moneybag for safekeeping, but Louis declines. Louis also learns that Zoo management has a policy of pinioning the wings of wild birds so that that cannot fly away. However, Mr. Lucas has arranged with the Man in Charge of Birds for Louis not to have his wings clipped as long as he plays free public concerts at the Zoo every Sunday.
Louis agrees to these terms, and while uncertain about whether he will like his new job, he is happy to be in the Zoo with so many other water birds, including three Trumpeter Swans. That evening, he takes the taxi arranged by Mr. Lucas and heads to his first club engagement in Philadelphia.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Serena”
For the next 10 weeks, Louis works at the club, plays Sunday concerts at the Zoo, and gets paid handsomely—after Mr. Lucas’s agent fee, Louis makes $450 a week. While he does not care for the noise and clientele of the club, Louis understands that musicians cannot always “choose their working hours” (148). Conversely, he does enjoy playing classical and modern contemporary works every Sunday at the Zoo. He plays so well, he even gets an invitation to play with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra.
One day, the week before Christmas, a great storm blows over the city and something drops into Bird Lake out of the sky. Louis investigates and realizes that it is not only a Trumpeter Swan—it is his love, Serena. Though his first instinct is to rush over, he concludes that it is better to wait before reintroducing himself and wooing her with his music. He reminds himself there is no rush and continues to wait through the day while Serena slowly regains her energy. In preparation for their meeting, Louis places his belongings beneath a bush and chooses his serenade song, “Beautiful Dreamer, Wake Unto Me” (154). The song has become “one of his best numbers,” which he plays with notes of “clean and pure and sustained” emotion “like jewels held up to the light” (155).
As he prepares to leave for work, Louis discovers that a Wood Duck has taken his trumpet. He immediately regains his instrument after swatting the duck with a “swift blow” (155). With this victory, he is ready for his evening engagement at the club. When he returns from work, he stays up until dawn and stations himself directly in front of Serena when he begins his song. Louis’s plan is a success. Animals and humans wake in wonder, but most importantly, Serena awakens enthralled with “sounds that made her tremble with joy and with love” (160).
They begin their courtship in that moment, and Louis decides to play her his “Serena” song, which wins her over completely. Louis is overjoyed and feels a deep peace and enchantment as they continue to swim and court each other. Serena, for her part, is also pleased to have “found an acceptable mate” with talent, wealth, and style (163).
Chapter 18 Summary: “Freedom”
The Head Man in Charge of Birds finally learns of Serena’s presence on Bird Lake and orders his keepers to catch and pinion the valuable swan “before she flies off” (164). Louis awakens to see two keepers approaching Serena with a net and surgical instruments, quickly stores his belongings beneath a willow tree, and attacks the two keepers. He jabs one keeper in the posterior and beats the other in the head with his wings until Serena is able to slip into the lake and escape.
Infuriated by this attempt to capture Serena, Louis gathers his belongings and enters the Head Man’s office. There, he uses his slate explain that he and Serena are in love and have plans to fly north. The Head Man congratulates Louis on falling in love, but tells him Serena cannot leave the Zoo since an “act of God” brought her there (168). He attempts to convince Louis that staying in the Zoo where it is safe and comfortable would be in the best interest of the young couple and their future children.
Louis prefers freedom to safety and asks for two favors: 1) to put off Serena’s operation until after Christmas and 2) to let Louis send a telegram. The Head Man agrees. Louis composes a telegram to Sam Beaver asking him to travel to the Zoo immediately—Louis can cover the airfare, as he is now wealthy. Louis and Serena spend the rest of the day courting in the lake.
Sam arrives the day after Christmas with camping supplies and provisions. He and Louis have a joyous reunion in the Zoo, and Louis introduces Sam to Serena. Louis then shows Sam all the money he has earned from his Boston and Philadelphia jobs and explains his situation with the Head Keeper and Serena. Sam understands Louis’s feelings on freedom and, after thinking over the situation, offers one possible solution to Louis. He suggests that the young couple promise, every year or so, to donate one of their young cygnets who might “[need] extra security” to the Zoo (173). Louis thinks over the prospect, agrees to the deal, and plays his “Serena” song for Sam.
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
As Louis’s skill on the trumpet grows, his career and fame takes off until he get job paying $500 a week in a Philadelphia nightclub. However, although Louis’s club engagement is his most professional work to date, but ironically, it is the least satisfying. While working in Boston, despite occasional children “shooting BB shots at [his] trumpet,” Louis’s work, more often than not, made him feel “lighthearted and gay” (138). But now, working for Mr. Lucas, a slick, trickster “dressed in a purple suit” (143), Louis has to play for people who are “talking too loudly, eating too much, and drinking too much” (148). Like many artists, Louis faces the necessity to work at a somewhat unpleasant and uncreative job for the paycheck, while creatively expressing himself more fully at his non-paying gig of Sunday concerts at the Zoo where he can play classic standards to an appreciative audience. It is a sign of Louis’s adulthood that he accepts the realities of being a career professional.
Now that Louis has solved the problem of his father’s debt, his love life comes back into focus with Serena’s arrival in Philadelphia. Louis courts Serena based on gendered cob behavior: “[w]hen in love, one must take risks” (152). He sees Serena as his beautiful dreamer whom he is determined to wake with his song. “Beautiful Dreamer” does make her fall “hopelessly in love” and she responds with “feelings of delight and ecstasy and wonder” (160). The resolution of Louis’s love life has a fairy tale quality grounded on the assumption that a male who possesses the skill and ability to properly woo a female will win her over.
However, Louis’s many wins are put into sharp relief by the Head Man’s attempts to pinion Serena—something he assumes he can do without her consent. Louis does his best, calling on his mastery of human behavior to argue with the Head Man that he and Serena belong together by “the power of love” (168) and that they prefer freedom. But these arguments fail, and Louis must contact Sam for help. Sam immediately grasps that Louis, for all his specialness, is still a bird, and in the human world, animals only get rights at the benevolence of humans. Sam appeals to capitalism and suggests an exchange of Serena’s freedom for a future cygnet.
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