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The Prussian finances are not in a condition now to make such expensive arrangements. But I think you may tell Monsieur Hecht, in confidence, that you hope the instructions with which you know that Mr. Keith is gone to Petersburg, may have some effect upon the measures of that Court.
Hecht took no notice, and went on imperturbably, as though Christophe did not exist: "Krafft ... no, never heard it." He was one of those people for whom not to be known to them is a mark against a man. He went on in German: "And you come from the Rhine-land?... It's wonderful how many people there are there who dabble in music!
He gravely read Christophe the terms of the contract, which he had signed without reading from which it appeared, in accordance with the ordinary run of contracts signed by music publishers in those very distant times "that M. Hecht was the assignee of all the rights, powers, and property of the author, and had the exclusive right to edit, publish, engrave, print, translate, hire, sell to his own profit, in any form he pleased, to have the said work performed at concerts, cafe-concerts, balls, theaters, etc., and to publish any arrangement of the said work for any instrument and even with words, and also to change the title ... etc., etc."
And at that we have quite brushed by GEORGE S. CHAPPELL. who serves a tasty appetizer at the very threshold, a bubbling cocktail of verse defining the authentic story of censorious gloom. Censorship seems a species of spiritual flagellation to BEN HECHT, who, as he says, "ten years ago prided himself upon being as indigestible a type of the incoherent young as the land afforded."
When he was getting better and was allowed to get up for a little, the first thing he thought of was to pay Sidonie back for the expenses she had incurred during his illness. It was impossible for him to go about Paris looking for work, and he had to bring himself to write to Hecht: he asked him for an advance on account of future work.
Not that he had any ardent affection for Christophe. It was devotion that he loved rather than the men to whom he devoted himself. They were only an excuse for doing good, for living. He labored to such effect that he managed to induce Hecht to publish Christophe's David and some other compositions. Hecht appreciated Christophe's talent, but he was in no hurry to reveal it to the world.
They had succeeded in collecting a vast amount of booty, including many fair young maidens and tender youths, and were returning in long cavalcade through the Red Tower Pass. Here, however, they fell into an ambuscade arranged by the men of Herrmannstadt, headed by their burgomaster, the brave George Hecht.
He had no doubt but that he had made a deadly enemy, not only of Hecht, but of Kohn, who had introduced him. He was in absolute solitude in a hostile city. Outside Diener and Kohn he knew no one.
There were probably not two people in Paris more capable than Hecht of appreciating Christophe's artistic originality. But he took care not to say anything about it, not only because his vanity was hurt by Christophe's attitude towards himself, but because it was impossible for him to be amiable: it was the peculiarly ungracious quality of his nature.
When he turned once more to the book it was late and the bookseller was shutting up his boxes. He decided to buy the book and hunted through his pockets: he had exactly six sous. Such scantiness was not rare and did not bother him: he had paid for his dinner, and counted on getting some money out of Hecht next day for some copying he had done. But it was hard to have to wait a day!
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