That was, in fact, what happened when Christophe first heard the famous
work which the French had so extravagantly praised, while some of them were
announcing the coming of the greatest musical revolution of the last ten
centuries. (It was easy for them to talk about centuries: they knew hardly
anything of any except their own.)

Theophile Goujart and Sylvain Kohn took Christophe to the Opera Comique
to hear _Pelleas and Melisande_. They were proud to display the opera
to him--as proud as though they had written it themselves. They gave
Christophe to understand that it would be the road to Damascus for him. And
they went on eulogizing it even after the piece had begun. Christophe shut
them up and listened intently. After the first act he turned to Sylvain
Kohn, who asked him, with glittering eyes:

"Well, old man, what do you think of it?"

And he said:

"Is it like that all through?"

"Yes."

"But it's nothing."

Kohn protested loudly, and called him a Philistine.

"Nothing at all," said Christophe. "No music. No development. No sequence.
No cohesion. Very nice harmony. Quite good orchestral effects, quite good.
But it's nothing--nothing at all...."