ey
looked at each other, and cast a glance at their auditors who were
taking their seats. They said a few words to each other, and the music
began. They played Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata.' Do you know the first
presto? Do you know it? Ah!" . . .

Posdnicheff heaved a sigh, and was silent for a long time.

"A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the presto! And a terrible
thing is music in general. What is it? Why does it do what it does?
They say that music stirs the soul. Stupidity! A lie! It acts, it acts
frightfully (I speak for myself), but not in an ennobling way. It acts
neither in an ennobling nor a debasing way, but in an irritating
way. How shall I say it? Music makes me forget my real situation. It
transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of
music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do
not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to
act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when
I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others
laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul
in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become
confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition
to another. But why that? I know nothing about it? But he who wrote
Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata' knew well why he found himself in a
certain condition. That condition led him to certain actions, and for
that reason to him had a meaning, but to me none, none whatever. And
that is why music provokes an excitement which it does not bring to a
conclusion. For instance, a military march is played; the soldier
passes to the sound of this march, and the music is finished. A dance
is played; I have finished dancing, and the music is finished. A mass is
sung; I receive the sacrament, and again the music is finished. But
any other music provokes an excitement, and this excitement is not
accompanied by the thing that needs properly to be done, and that is why
music is so dangerous, and sometimes acts so frightfully.

"In China music is under the control of the State, and that is the way
it ought to be. Is it admissible that the first comer should hypnotize
one or more persons, and then do with them as he likes? And especially
that the hypnotizer should be the first immoral individual who happens
to come along? It is a frightful power in the hands of any one, no
m