Howards End by E. M. Forster Read Free Book Online

your umbrella?" he said, "Thank you," peaceably, and followed her out of the Queen’s Hall. She wished that he was not so anxious to hand a lady downstairs, or to carry a lady’s programme for her—his class was near enough her own for its manners to vex her. But she found him interesting on the whole—every one interested the Schlegels on the whole at that time—and while her lips talked culture, her heart was planning to invite him to tea.
    "How tired one gets after music!" she began.
    "Do you find the atmosphere of Queen’s Hall oppressive?"
    "Yes, horribly."
    "But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more oppressive."
    "Do you go there much?"
    "When my work permits, I attend the gallery for the Royal Opera."
    Helen would have exclaimed, "So do I. I love the gallery," and thus have endeared herself to the young man. Helen could do these things. But Margaret had an almost morbid horror of "drawing people out," of "making things go." She had been to the gallery at Covent Garden, but she did not "attend" it, preferring the more expensive seats; still less did she love it. So she made no reply.
    "This year I have been three times—to 'Faust,' 'Tosca,' and—" Was it "Tannhouser" or "Tannhoyser"? Better not risk the word.
    Margaret disliked "Tosca" and "Faust." And so, for one reason and another, they walked on in silence, chaperoned by the voice of Mrs. Munt, who was getting into difficulties with her nephew.
    "I do in a WAY remember the passage, Tibby, but when every instrument is so beautiful, it is difficult to pick out one thing rather than another. I am sure that you and Helen take me to the very nicest concerts. Not a dull note from beginning to end. I only wish that our German friends had stayed till it finished."
    "But surely you haven’t forgotten the drum steadily beating on the low C, Aunt Juley?" came Tibby’s voice. "No one could. It’s unmistakable."
    "A specially loud part?" hazarded Mrs. Munt. "Of course I do not go in for being musical," she added, the shot failing. "I only care for music—a very different thing. But still I will say this for myself—I do know when I like a thing and when I don’t. Some people are the same about pictures. They can go into a picture gallery—Miss Conder can—and say straight off what they feel, all round the wall. I never could do that. But music is so different from pictures, to my mind. When it comes to music I am as safe as houses, and I assure you, Tibby, I am by no means pleased by everything. There was a thing—something about a faun in French—which Helen went into ecstasies over, but I thought it most tinkling and superficial, and said so, and I held to my opinion too."
    "Do you agree?" asked Margaret. "Do you think music is so different from pictures?"
    "I—I should have thought so, kind of," he said.
    "So should I. Now, my sister declares they’re just the same. We have great arguments over it. She says I’m dense; I say she’s sloppy." Getting under way, she cried: "Now, doesn’t it seem absurd to you? What is the good of the Arts if they 're interchangeable? What is the good of the ear if it tells you the same as the eye? Helen’s one aim is to translate tunes into the language of painting, and pictures into the language of music. It’s very ingenious, and she says several pretty things in the process, but what’s gained, I’d like to know? Oh, it’s all rubbish, radically false. If Monet’s really Debussy, and Debussy’s really Monet, neither gentleman is worth his salt—that’s my opinion."
    Evidently these sisters quarrelled.
    "Now, this very symphony that we’ve just been having—she won’t let it alone. She labels it with meanings from start to finish; turns it into literature. I wonder if the day will ever return when music will be treated as music. Yet I don’t know. There’s my brother—behind us. He treats music as music, and oh, my goodness! He makes me angrier than any one, simply furious. With him I