There was no acceleration. That was the whole of it, and it was enough. Pallor set the tempo in the first minute and refused every opportunity the night offered to change it, holding one hundred and forty for a full hour while the room slowly understood that no relief was coming.
The discipline of it was the violence of it. Crowds are accustomed to being released. This one was not, and by the fortieth minute the front of the room had stopped watching the booth entirely and was simply enduring, which is a rarer and more serious thing than dancing.
The rig held. The room did not empty. When the hour closed there was a pause of several seconds before anyone made a sound, and those who were there have described that silence more often than they have described the music. †