"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?"
"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 { 449}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."
In the evening our creole, who had been thinking, said to Paul:
{ 450}"Since you are such musicians in France, your well-educated girls must all learn music?"
"Three hours of scales every day, for thirteen years, from seven to twenty; total, fourteen thousand hours."
"One out of eight; of the other seven, three become good hand-organs, four poor hand-or-gans."
"I suppose for a compensation they are made to read?"
"Le Ragois, La Harpe, and other dictionaries, all sorts of little treatises of florid piety."
"A pretty case embalmed with incense, perfumed, securely padlocked, where the mind sleeps while the finders turn a bird-organ."
"Well, that is encouraging for the husband. And what does _he_ do?"