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"You'd better let him go. Now, I have got somebody." Hewitt laughed and slapped the inspector's shoulder. "I've got the man who carried Rameau's body away!" "The deuce you have! Where? Bring him in. We must have him " "All right, don't be in a hurry; he won't bolt."
Tolstoy's rough banter recalls Rousseau's sarcasm about an opera of Rameau's. In the Nouvelle Héloïse, he rails in a similar fashion against the sadly fantastic performances at the theatre. It was, even then, a question of monsters, "of dragons animated by a blockhead of a Savoyard, who had not enough spirit for the beast."
It may be admitted, however, that he inspired a taste for sound musical science, and thus prepared the way for the great Gluck, who to all and more of Rameau's musical knowledge united the grand genius which makes him one of the giants of his art.
"Oh, he's mad mad with Rameau's continual ragging and baiting," Nettings answered. "Anyway, this is a plain indication plain as though he'd left his own signature. Besides, it's in his own language French. And there's his chopper, too." "Speaking of signatures," Hewitt remarked, "perhaps you have already compared this with other specimens of Goujon's writing?"
If there be a thing which a true Parisian of Rameau's stamp associates with love of woman, it is a certain sort of elegant surroundings, a pretty boudoir, a cheery hearth, an easy fauteuil. In the absence of such attributes, "fuyit retro Venus." If the Englishman invented the word comfort, it is the Parisian who most thoroughly comprehends the thing.
Prosperity produced a marked change for the better, if not in the substance of Rameau's character, at least in his manners and social converse. He no longer exhibited that restless envy of rivals, which is the most repulsive symptom of vanity diseased. He pardoned Isaura her success; nay, he was even pleased at it. The nature of her work did not clash with his own kind of writing.
"Well, now I might go home, and put the finishing touch to my sonata for the piano-forte; but it is not yet eleven o'clock, and, withal, a beautiful summer night. Obliquely across the way, some one is murdering the flute, and has, moreover, lungs like Rameau's nephew; and, in notes of 'linked sweetness long drawn out, his neighbour is trying acoustic experiments on the French horn.
Thus it was with Isaura, and not till Rameau's voice had ceased did that dream pass away, and with a slight shiver she turned her face towards the wooer sadly and pityingly. "It cannot be," she said, in a low whisper; "I were not worthy of your love could I accept it. Forget that you have so spoken; let me still be a friend admiring your genius, interested in your career. I cannot be more.
Here," and he thrust a revolver into Rameau's hand. Then with a lusty voice that rang through the crowd, he shouted "Vive le peuple!" The rioters caught and re-echoed the cry, mingled with other cries, "Vive la Republique!" "Vive le drapeau rouge!" The shouts were yet at their full when a strong hand grasped Monnier's arm, and a clear, deep, but low voice thrilled through his ear: "Obey!
But, my son, I say this, if you love her, don't talk to me about that Mademoiselle Cicogna; and if you love Mademoiselle Cicogna, why, then your father will take care that the poor girl who loved you not knowing that you loved another is not left to the temptation of penury." Rameau's pale lips withered into a phantom-like sneer!
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