EIGHTH.
Two days after there was a concert. The creole said in coming out that he was very tired, and had understood nothing of all that buzzing, and begged Paul to explain to him what pleasure people found in such noise.
“For,” said he, “they have enjoyed it, since they paid six francs for admission, and applauded vehemently.”
“Music awakes all sorts of agreeable reveries.”
“Let us see.”
“Such an air suggests scenes of love; such another makes you imagine great landscapes, tragic events.”
“And if you don’t have these reveries, the music bores you?”
“Certainly; unless you are professor of harmony.” "But the audience were not professors of harmony?”
“No indeed.”
“So that they have all had all those reveries you talk about, otherwise they would be bored; and, if they were bored, they would neither have paid nor applauded.”
[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
“Well argued.”
“Explain then to me the reveries they have had; for example, that serenade mentioned in the programme, the serenade from Don Pasquale.”
“It paints a happy love, full of pleasure and unconcern. You see a handsome youth with laughing eyes and blooming cheek, in a garden in Italy; under a tranquil moon, by the whispering of the breeze, he awaits his mistress, thinks of her smile, and little by little, in measured notes, joy and tenderness spring harmoniously from his heart.”
“What, they imagined all that! What happy country-folk are your people! What fulness of emotion and thought! What discreet countenances! I should never have suspected, to see them, that they were having so sweet a dream.”
“The second piece was an andante of Beethoven.”
“What about Beethoven?”
[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
“A poor, great man, deaf, loving, misunderstood, and a philosopher, whose music is full of gigantic or sorrowful dreams.”
“What dreams?”
“‘Eternity is a great eyry, whence all the centuries, like young eaglets, have flown in turn to cross the heavens and disappear. Ours is in its turn come to the brink of the nest; but they have clipped its wings, and it awaits death while gazing upon space, into which it cannot take flight.’”
“What is that you are reciting to me?”
“A sentence of de Musset, which translates your andante.”
“What! In three minutes they passed from the first idea to this. What men! What flexibility of spirit! I should never have believed in such readiness. Without tripping, as a matter of course, they entered this reverie on leaving a serenade? What hearts! What artists! You make me thoroughly ashamed of myself: I shall never again dare to say a word to them.”
“The third piece, a duo of Mozart’s, expresses quite German sentiments, an artless candor, melancholy, contemplative tenderness, the half-defined smile, the timidity of love.”
“So that their imagination, which was still in a perfect state of distraction, is in a moment so transformed as to represent the confidence, the innocence, the touching agitation of a young girl?”
“Certainly.”
“And there are seven or eight pieces in a concert?”
“At least. Moreover, these pieces being taken from three or four countries and two or three centuries, the audience must suddenly assume the sentiments, opposite as they are and varied, of all these centuries and of all these countries.”
“And they were crowded on benches, under a glaring light.”
“And in the pauses, the men talked railroads, the ladies dresses.”
“I am getting confused. I, when I dream, want to be alone, at my ease, or at most with a friend. If music touches me, it is in a little dark room, when some one plays airs of one sort, that suit my state of mind. It is not necessary that any one should talk to me about positive things. Dreams do not come to me at will; they fly away in spite of me. I see clearly that I am on another continent, with an entirely different race. One learns in travelling.”
A suspicion seized him: “Perhaps they had come there for penance? When they came out, I saw them yawning, and dejected in countenance.”
“Don’t believe anything of it. It is because they restrain themselves. Otherwise, they would burst into tears and throw themselves on your neck.”