A remarkable difference can be observed between the activities of musicians in Paris at the present time and the way they behaved twenty years ago. In those days they almost all believed in themselves and in the results of their efforts; today they’ve almost all lost that belief. Nonetheless they soldier on.

Their courage is similar to that of the crew of a ship exploring the seas around the South Pole. At first the hardy seamen brave the dangers of floes and icebergs quite cheerfully. Bit by bit, as the cold redoubles in intensity, the blocks of ice surround their vessel and its progress becomes slower and more difficult. The moment approaches when the frozen sea will hold it captive in a silent immobility similar to death.

The danger becomes plain; almost all living things have disappeared— no more great birds with enormous wings in the grey sky, from which a thick mist descends, nothing more except flocks of penguins, standing stupidly on islands of ice, fishing for their meagre prey, flapping the featherless stumps of wings which are incapable of bearing them aloft. The sailors have become taciturn, their mood is sombre, and the few words they exchange when they meet on the bridge of the ship are little different from the funereal phrase of the Trappist monks: “Brother, we must die!”

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But let’s not fall victim to their melancholy.