"You're making fun of me! I sold you the paper. Make money out of that if you like. But what is written on it is my life-blood; it is mine."
"You sold me everything. In exchange for these particular pieces, I gave you a sum of three hundred francs in advance of a royalty of thirty centimes on every copy sold of the original edition. Upon that consideration, without any restriction or reserve, you have assigned to me all your rights in your work."
"Even the right to destroy it?"
Hecht shrugged his shoulders, rang the bell, and said to a clerk.
"Bring me M. Kraff's account."
He gravely read Christophe the terms of the contract, which he had signed without reading—from which it appeared, in accordance with the ordinary run of contracts signed by music publishers in those very distant times—"that M. Hecht was the assignee of all the rights, powers, and property of the author, and had the exclusive right to edit, publish, engrave, print, translate, hire, sell to his own profit, in any form he pleased, to have the said work performed at concerts, café-concerts, balls, theaters, etc., and to publish any arrangement of the said work for any instrument and even with words, and also to change the title … etc., etc."
"You see," he said, "I am really very moderate."
"Evidently," said Christophe. "I ought to thank you. You might have turned my septette into a café-concert song."
He stopped in horror and held his head in his hands.
"I have sold my soul," he said over and over again.