skilful, and Christophe had been deprived of symphony music for a long
time)--and then Goujart took his arm and, in the middle of the concert,
said:

"Now let us go. We'll go to another concert."

Christophe frowned: but he made no reply and followed his guide. They went
half across Paris, and then reached another hall, that smelled of stables,
in which at other times fairy plays and popular pieces were given--(in
Paris music is like those poor workingmen who share a lodging: when one
of them leaves the bed, the other creeps into the warm sheets). No air,
of course: since the reign of Louis XIV the French have considered air
unhealthy: and the ventilation of the theaters, like that of old at
Versailles, makes it impossible for people to breathe. A noble old man,
waving his arms like a lion-tamer, was letting loose an act of Wagner: the
wretched beast--the act--was like the lions of a menagerie, dazzled and
cowed by the footlights, so that they have to be whipped to be reminded
that they are lions. The audience consisted of female Pharisees and foolish
women, smiling inanely. After the lion had gone through its performance,
and the tamer had bowed, and they had both been rewarded by the applause of
the audience, Goujart suggested that they should go to yet another concert.
But this time Christophe gripped the arms of his stall, and declared that
he would not budge: he had had enough of running from concert to concert,
picking up the crumbs of a symphony and scraps of a concert on the way.
In vain did Goujart try to explain to him that musical criticism in Paris
was a trade in which it was more important to see than to hear. Christophe
protested that music was not written to be heard in a cab, and needed more
concentration. Such a hotch-potch of concerts was sickening to him: one at
a time was enough for him.