u
do not remember a word of what he says to you; you make no
progress...." Then I would lower my tone rather, and throwing my
head on one side, would say: "Pardon me, madam, all would go very
well if the young lady liked, if she only studied a little more;
but it is not bad." The mother: "If I were you, I should keep her
at one piece for a whole year." "Oh, as for that, she shall not
leave it before she has mastered every difficulty, and that will
not be as long as you may think." "Monsieur Rameau, you flatter
her, you are too good. That is the only part of the lesson which
she will keep in mind, and she will take care to repeat it to me
upon occasion...." And so the time got over; my pupil presented me
my little fee, with the curtsey she had learnt from the dancing
master. I put it into my pocket while the mother said: "Very well
done, mademoiselle; if Favillier were here, he would applaud you."
I chattered a moment or two for politeness' sake, and behold, that
was what they call a music lesson.

_I._--Well, and now it is quite another thing?

_He._--Another thing! I should think so, indeed. I get there. I am
deadly grave; I take off my cuffs hastily, I open the piano, I run
my fingers over the keys, I am always in a desperate hurry. If they
keep me waiting a moment, I cry out as if they were robbing me of a
crown piece: in an hour from now I must be so and so; in two hours,
with the duchess of so and so; I am expected to dine with a
handsome marchioness, and then, on leaving her, there is a concert
at the baron's....

_I._--And all the time nobody is expecting you anywhere at all?

_He._--No.

_I._--What vile arts!

_He._--Vile, forsooth! Why vile? They are customary among people
like me; I don't lower myself in doing like everybody else. I was
not the inventor of them, and it would be most absurd and stupid in
me not to conform to them. Of course, I know very well that if you
go to certain principles of some morality or other, which all the
world have in their mouths, and which none of them practise, you
will find black is white, and white will become black. But, my
philosopher, there is a general conscience, just as there is a
general grammar; and then the exceptions in each language that you
learned people call--what is i