"Wait another moment," Valentine at last said to her husband; "I told
Celeste to bring the children, so that we might kiss them before
starting."
Mathieu wished to profit by this fresh delay, and sought to renew his
request; but Valentine was already rattling on again, talking of dining
at the most disreputable restaurant possible, and asking if at the first
performance which they were to attend they would see all the horrors
which had been hissed at the dress rehearsal the night before. She
appeared like a pupil of the two men between whom she stood. She even
went further in her opinions than they did, displaying the wildest
pessimism, and such extreme views on literature and art that they
themselves could not forbear laughing. Wagner was greatly over-estimated,
in her opinion; she asked for invertebrate music, the free harmony of the
passing wind. As for her moral views, they were enough to make one
shudder. She had got past the argumentative amours of Ibsen's idiotic,
rebellious heroines, and had now reached the theory of pure intangible
beauty. She deemed Santerre's last creation, Anne-Marie, to be far too
material and degraded, because in one deplorable passage the author
remarked that Norbert's kisses had left their trace on the Countess's
brow.
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