The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (2.1894)

y6 The Composer of " Carmen "

Lonjumeau" ? and was it not the most successful work of
Boiledieu's successor ? The fact had altered Iiis whole life.
Ever after, all he sought in opera was some similarity with
Le Postillon. And there was nothing of Adam in this music,
still less anything of De Leuven in the poem. That was sufficient
for him. " Allons," said he one day to Gallet, who arrived at
rehearsal just as Djamileh was about to sing her lamento :
"allons, vous arrivez pour le De Profundis."

As for the public, they understood it not at all, this charming
miniature. " C'est indigne," cried one; " c'est odieux," from
another ; " c'est tres drole," said a third. " Quelle cacophonie,
quelle audace, c'est sc moquer du monde. Voilä, oü mcne le culte
de Wagner ä la folie. Ni tonalite, ni mesure, ni rythme ; ce
n'est plus de la musique," and the rest. The press itself was
no better, no whit more rational. Yet this " Djamileh" was
rieh in premonition of those very qualities that go to make
" Carmen" the immortal work it is. It so glows with true
Oriental colour, is so saturate with the true Eastern spirit, as to
make us wonder for the moment—as did Mr. Henry James about
Theophile Gautier—whether the natural attitude of the man was
not to rechne in the perfumed dusk of a Turkish divan, puffing a
chibouque. Here the tints are stronger, mellower, and more
carefully laid on than in " Les Pecheurs des Perles." There is,
too, all the bizarrerie, as well as all the sensuousness of the East.
Yet there is no obliteration of the human dement for sake of the
picturesque. Wagnerism was the cry raised against it on all
sides ; yet, if it be anything but Bizet, it is surely Schumann. It
was, in effect, all too good for the public—too fine for their vulgär
gaze, their indiscriminating comment. And Reyer, farseeing
amongst bis fellows, spoke truth when he said in the Dibats:
" I feel sure that if M. Bizet knows that his work has been

appreciated