United States or China ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A few words let fall by Christophe or Olivier, or even by Goujart, who pretended to be well-informed, had been enough for him to construct a fanciful Jean-Christophe, "a Republican genius, the great musician of democracy." He seized the opportunity to decry various contemporary French musicians, especially the most original and independent among them, who set very little store by democracy.
But the battery! What a change since last February! Every man as spruce as ever, but with an added air of tested capability that inspired all beholders. Only their German musicians still seemed fresh from the mint, and oh! in what unlucky taste, considering the ecclesiastics, the song they brayed forth in jaunty staccato.
Anyhow she rolled her eyes so eloquently at him that he forgot all about the important errand on which he was bound. Just at that moment the musicians struck up a schottische, and, on the spur of the moment, he asked the pretty girl to dance. She declined, with an arch smile, but, pointing to the old witch, said her aunt would be delighted. Poor Dick! There was no help for it.
It is a curious fact that not only the violin but violin music was the creature of the most luxurious period of art; for, in that golden age of the creative imagination, musicians contemporary with the great violin-makers were writing music destined to be better understood and appreciated when the violins then made should have reached their maturity.
"Your musicians have come to waken you, and your servitors stand without," as Buff tapped at the door with hot water. "He is as comfortable as a baby wrapped in lamb's wool," she thought as she ran down the stairs. "And this air is so pure and the sun so bright! Oh, he must grow strong here! Anybody would be cured here anybody!" The captain followed her to the barnyard.
And being a young man he would begin by considering the long series of poets, painters and musicians, he had read of in Balzac's novels, but as none of these would be within the harmony of Violet's perverse humour, he would turn to life, and presently a vague shaggy shape would emerge from the back of his mind, but it would refuse to condense into any recognizable face; which is as well, perhaps, else I might be tempted to pick up this forgotten flower, though I am fain to write no more long stories.
It took half an hour, however, for the young men to gratify the natural curiosity of the girls. At last the orchestra leader, tiring of the long delay, passed the word to his musicians. Then the music pealed out for that good, stirring old eulogy: "For he's a jolly good fellow!" In an instant bright-faced boys and girls caught up the refrain, making the hall shake with the din of their voices.
Karnis and his troupe were musicians of no ordinary stamp; still the law concerning singing-girls might place him in peril, especially now that to make matters worse a young Christian was paying court to his pretty niece. What catastrophes might not be called down on his hapless head if so influential a woman as Marcus' mother Mary should come to know of her son's backsliding!
Only now and then he gave out flashes of his old geniality and even they seemed forced. I was amazed at the change in him, and yet, when I consider all I have heard since, I do not wonder much at his appearance. Despite his hearty Bohemian spirit, Tanrade, like most musicians, is a dreamer and as ready as a child to believe anything and anybody.
"What?" excitedly demanded old Miguel, who by this time had fortified himself with a fresh glass of aguardiente. "Why, after it had been gathered up and handed to her, she, without so much as looking at it, tossed it lightly into the center of the stage and bade the musicians and stage-hands remember her when they drank to their sweethearts to-night."
Word Of The Day