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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.
The others, who would have been hard put to it to give any explanation and were disconcerted by Christophe, referred him to the musician of the company, Theophile Goujart, the great musical critic, who began at once to talk of sevenths and ninths. Goujart knew music much as Sganarelle knew Latin.... "... You don't know Latin?" "No."
He said: "I thought perhaps you would like to hear a little music from time to time: and as I have tickets for everything, I came to ask if you would care to come with me." Christophe was delighted. He was glad of the kindly attention, and thanked him effusively. Goujart was a different man from what he had been at their first meeting.
He did not notice that two men crept into the room to listen to him. One was Sylvain Kohn, a passionate lover of music God knows why! for he knew nothing at all about it, and he liked bad music just as well as good. The other was the musical critic, Theophile Goujart. He it simplifies matters so much neither understood nor loved music: but that did not keep him from talking about it.
Theophile Goujart took him to the concerts of a Society dedicated to the national art. There the new glories of French music were elaborated and carefully hatched. It was a club, a little church, with several side-chapels. Each chapel had its saint, each saint his devotees, who blackguarded the saint in the next chapel.
Goujart, who knew the house and the people of old, declared that he would look after everything. Barth dragged Christophe into an arbor and ordered beer. The air was deliciously warm and soft, and resounding with the buzzing of bees. Christophe forgot why he had come. Barth emptied the bottle, and said, after a short silence: "I know what I'll do."
Christophe chose as his witnesses the first men of his acquaintance who turned up, the musical critic, Theophile Goujart, and a German, Doctor Barth, an honorary lecturer in a Swiss University, whom he had met one night in a cafe; he had made friends with him, though they had little in common: but they could talk to each other about Germany.
It was not suited to the theater: it was nonsense, and almost hurtful to stage it. But Roussin was so insistent, Sylvain Kohn so persuasive, and Goujart so positive, that Christophe yielded to the temptation. He was weak. He was so longing to hear his music! It was quite easy for Roussin. Manager and artist rushed to please him.
They could not as a matter of dignity allow the possibility of a rival's discovering a genius whom they had ignored. Some of them were rabid about it. Others commiserated Christophe on his ill-luck. Goujart, annoyed at having the ground cut away from under his feet, wrote an article, as he said, to set people right on certain points. The musicians made bitter fun of it all.
The previous holder of the post, a young and talented composer, had been dismissed because he insisted on saying what he thought of the authors and their work. Goujart had never taken any interest in music, and knew nothing at all about it: he was chosen without a moment's hesitation.
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