There you have the whole story. It is but an _état d'âme_--a little love scene, simple enough in a way, yet so delicate and so full of colour. It was a matter of "atmosphere," not of structure, a masterpiece of style rather than of situation; and from its first rehearsal as an opera it was doomed. In truth, these rehearsals were amusing. There was old Avocat--they used to call him Victor--the typical _régisseur_ of tradition; a man who could tell of the _premières_ of "Pré-aux-Clercs" and "La Dame Blanche," and, what is more, expected to be asked to tell of them. From his corner in the wings he listened to the music of this "Djamileh," his face expressive of a pity far too keen for words. But it was a matter of minutes only before his pity turned to rage, and eventually he stumped off to his sanctum, banging his door behind him with a vehemence that augured badly for poor Bizet. As for De Leuven, his co-director: had he not written. "Postillon de Lonjumeau"? and was it not the most successful work of Boiledieu's successor? The fact had altered his 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 très drôle," said a third. "Quelle cacophonie, quelle audace, c'est se moquer du monde. Voilà, où mène le culte de Wagner à la folie. Ni tonalité, 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 rich 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 Théophile Gautier--whether the natural attitude of the man was not to recline 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 Pêcheurs 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 element 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 vulgar gaze, their indiscriminating comment. And Reyer, farseeing amongst his fellows, spoke truth when he said in the _Débats_: "I feel sure that if M. Bizet knows that his work has been appreciated by a small number of musicians--being _cognoscenti_--he will be more proud of that fact