He turned to Professor Ferro, as a drowning man seizes the first object that offers. “Excuse me, professor,” he said hurriedly, “but can you tell me who are those dreadful-looking men there in that box, in the third row, immediately to the left of the lady in purple?”
“Those necromancers?” answered the doctor with a laugh, “but that’s the G.H.Q.! And almost complete too!”
“G.H.Q.! What G.H.Q.?”
Ferro seemed amused: “You, at any rate, maestro, live all your days in the clouds. What a lucky man you are.”
“What G.H.Q.?” asked Cottes again, impatiently.
“The Morzi’s, for Heaven’s sake!”
“The Morzi’s?” echoed the old man, struck by the most terrible thoughts. The Morzi, a name of terror. Cottes had never been for them or against them, he knew nothing about them, he had never wanted to concern himself, all he knew was that they were dangerous, that it was better not to provoke them. And poor wretched Arduino had come up against them, made himself their enemy. There was no other explanation. So that foolish son of his was busy with political intrigues instead of putting a little common sense into his music! Nobody could wish for a more indulgent, reasonable and understanding father: but, by Jove, Arduino would hear about this tomorrow! Risking his entire career for a madness of this sort! Cottes gave up the idea of asking any more questions of his previous informer. He realized it would be useless, if not harmful. One did not fool about with the Morzi. It was generous of them to have thought of putting him on his guard. He looked over his shoulder. He had the feeling that the entire theater was looking at him disapprovingly. Ugly characters, the Morzi. And powerful. Difficult to get hold of. Why try and provoke them?
He roused himself with difficulty. “Maestro, don’t you feel well?” asked Professor Ferro.
“What? Why? . . .” he answered, rapidly recovering himself.
“I saw you turning pale . . . it happens sometimes in this heat. . . . Forgive me . . .”
He said, “Oh, how very kind of you . . . I did feel very tired for a moment . . . I’m getting old, that’s the trouble!” He drew himself up, and went toward the exit. The sight of all that rich, healthy humanity, elegantly dressed and full of life among the marble walls and pillars of the foyer brought him back from the darkness into which this revelation had flung him; just as the first rays of the morning sun blot out the memory of the nightmares which can obsess a man all night long. He felt he needed to relax, and came up to a group of critics who were deep in argument. “In any case,” said one, “the choral writing’s good, one can’t deny that.”
“Choruses are to music,” said a second, “what old men’s heads are to painting. It’s easy to get an effect with them, but we oughtn’t ever to be taken in by it.”
“Granted,” said a colleague, noted for his plain speaking. “But where does that get us? . . . Music today doesn’t look for effect, it isn’t superficial, or moving, or tuneful, or instinctive, or easy, it doesn’t appeal to the gallery, so far so good. But can you tell me what is left?” Cottes thought of his son’s music.
It was a huge success. It is doubtful whether a single person in the whole of the Scala genuinely liked the music of the Strage. But nearly everybody wanted to look as if he understood it, and to figure in the avant-garde. So a kind of tacit competition began. When everyone makes a determined effort to discover all the potential beauty in a musical work, its originality and hidden significance, then autosuggestion knows no bounds. In any case, have modern operas ever been amusing? One assumes from the outset that leading modern composers dislike providing amusement. It would be an unpardonable blunder to expect it. People in search of it could go to revues or the fairground on the ramparts. After all, there were some impressive things in the opera: the nervous tension of Grossgemuth’s orchestration, for instance, the singers always at full tilt at the tops of their voices, and above all the insistent hammering of the chorus. Albeit in brutal fashion, the public had certainly been stirred, that was beyond question. Surely the accumulated tension which had driven the audience to applaud and shout excited “bravos” at the first moment of silence was a most satisfying reward for a composer?
But they were roused to their greatest pitch of enthusiasm by the cumulative effect of the long last scene of the “oratorio,” which reached its climax as Herod’s soldiery burst into Bethlehem in search of the children, and the mothers fought for them on the thresholds till they were overpowered; at that instant the sky went dark, and a high trumpet call from the back of the stage announced that the Lord was safe. One should add that the stage and costume designer, and in particular the choreographer Johan Monclar (who was the genius behind the entire production), had managed to avoid any ambiguous interpretations: the near scandal in Paris had put them on their guard. So Herod was not a close copy of Hitler, but he had a Nordic look about him, and was more like Siegfried than the Tetrarch of Galilee. And the soldiers, and especially the shape of the helmets, allowed no room for doubt. “Wait a moment,” said Cottes, “that’s not Herod’s
