As I had not sufficient self-control to watch the two singers with a sober face, I turned my eyes toward that young woman who was close beside me; that was the best way to forget the music. She was not laughing, but I fancied that I could see that she was biting her lips. It is a fact that one is sometimes sorely embarrassed to keep a sober face in a salon. She had raised her eyes toward me; she seemed more embarrassed than before, and turned her head away. Perhaps my persistent scrutiny had offended her; perhaps it was ill-bred to gaze at her so fixedly. I did not think of that. I did it, not so that she should notice me, but because I took pleasure in looking at her. I made haste to turn my eyes in another direction, to give attention to the music. That wretched duet went on and on. The husband and wife perspired profusely. It occurred to me that they should be treated like those gymnasts to whom the spectators shout to stop when their performances become too terrifying. I was amusing myself by watching our melomaniacs, when the lights suddenly went down; Montausol leaned over the music, and during the pauses in his part exclaimed impatiently: “Snuff the candles, snuff the candles, I say! We can’t see at all.” But the darkness was not due to the candles; it was the lamp which Giraud had fixed, which had suddenly lost all its brilliancy. Madame Giraud hastily summoned her husband, who was still busy over the other lamp. Giraud appeared with a huge pair of scissors in his hand and exclaimed: “I don’t understand it at all; it can’t be the oil, for that is new.” “Papa,” said the little girl, “I saw my brother Alexandre putting little lead men in the lamp yesterday.” “Parbleu! if that little rascal has been playing with the lamps, I don’t wonder they won’t burn. My wife lets him play with everything! Some day he’ll upset my desk.” “It is impossible for me to scold my children,” said Madame Giraud to the people nearest her. “As soon as they seem to be unhappy, I am ready to be ill. And then little Alexandre is so cunning, so sweet!” The mother was interrupted by a loud noise in the reception room; the dog barked and the little girl appeared at the door of the salon, crying: “My little brother just upset the waiter with the glasses on it.” This incident turned the whole household topsy-turvy: the mother ran to her broken glasses; the father left his lamps to try to catch his son; and little Alexandre ran between everybody’s legs and finally crawled under a sofa, sticking his tongue out at his father. The duet came to an end amid this uproar; indeed the singers had continued to sing after the other guests had ceased to pay any heed to them. So the Montausols left the piano, in evident ill humor. They took seats behind me, saying to each other: “They won’t catch me singing at their house again!” “I should think not. These people don’t know what good music is.” “No, they must always have something new! We will go away after the punch.”