III.
"Good-evening, my Señora Doña Baltasara; are you here, too, for midnight Mass? For my part I had intended going to the parish, but you see how it is,—one goes where everybody goes. And yet, to tell you the truth, since Maese Pérez's death I feel as though there were a tombstone on my heart every time I enter Santa Inés. Poor dear man! Truly he was a saint. I have a little scrap of his doublet which I preserve like a relic, and which surely deserves it; for I believe, by my soul, that if the archbishop would only take a hand in the matter, our grandchildren would see him canonized. But why expect it? The dead and the absent have no friends. Novelty is what is in favor now,—you understand me, of course. What! You do not know what is going on? True, we are alike in that respect,—from our house to church, and from church back again, without inquiring into what is said or what is not said. However, on the wing, catching a word here, a word there, without the least interest in the matter, I sometimes happen to know the news.
"Well, yes, it seems to be a settled thing that the organist of San Ramón, that squint-eye who is always abusing other organists, and who looks more like a butcher from the Puerta de la Carne than like a musician, is going to play this Christmas Eve on Maese Pérez's organ. You know, of course,—for everybody knows it in Seville,—that no musician would accept the undertaking. Not even his daughter, who is a professor of music. After her father's death she entered the convent as a novice. Her refusal was natural enough. Accustomed as we were to hearing such marvels, anything else would seem poor, no matter how desirous we might be to avoid comparisons; and so the sisterhood had determined that in honor of the dead musician, and in token of respect to his memory, the organ should remain dumb to-night, when here comes our man, and declares that he is willing to play it.
"There is nothing so bold as ignorance. To be sure, the fault is not his, but theirs, who permit such a profanation. But that is the way of the world—but, I say, it is no small crowd that has flocked here to-night. One might think that nothing had changed from last year to this,—the same fine people, the same splendor, the same crush at the door, the same excitement under the portico, the same throng in the temple. Ah, if the dead man were to rise, he would die a second death rather than witness the profanation of his organ. But the best of it is that if what the neighbors have told me is true, the intruder is going to meet with a fine reception. When the time comes for him to lay his hands on the keys, there are those who mean to make a hubbub with tambourines, timbrels, and drums. But hold! there is the hero of the occasion going into the church now. Holy saints! How gaudily he has arrayed himself What a ruff, and what grand airs he assumes! Come, come! the archbishop arrived some time ago, and Mass will soon begin. Come! for I fancy this night will give us food for talk."
And saying this, the good woman penetrated into the church, opening a way for herself through the crowd, according to her habit, by dint of pushing and elbowing.
The ceremony had already begun.
The temple was as brilliant as it had been the year before. The new organist pushed through the crowd that filled the naves, went up to kiss the bishop's ring, then made his way to the organ-loft, where he took his seat, and began to try the stops of the organ one after another with much affectation of gravity. From the compact mass of people in the rear of the church rose a muffled, confused sound,—a sure augury that the storm was brewing and would not be long in making itself felt.
"He is an impostor who cannot do anything straight, not even look straight," said some.
"He is an ignorant lout, who has turned the organ of his own parish into a rattle, and comes here now to profane Maese Pérez's," said others. And while one relieved himself of his cloak the better to thump his tambourine, and another took hold of his timbrels, and all made ready to greet the first notes of music with a deafening clamor, there were but very few who ventured mildly to defend the strange man, whose proud and pedantic bearing was so strongly in contrast with the modest appearance and affable kindness of the former organist.
The longed-for moment came at last,—the solemn moment when the priest, after bowing his brow and murmuring the sacred words, took the wafer between his fingers. The little bells rang at the foot of the altar, shaking out a shower of crystal notes. The diaphanous waves of incense rose in the air and the organ burst into sound.
A terrible uproar filled the church and drowned its first chords. Horns, bagpipes, timbrels, tambourines,—all the instruments of the populace lifted their discordant voices at once. But the clamor only lasted a minute. It all stopped simultaneously, just as it had begun. The second chord, full, bold, magnificent, sustained itself. A torrent of sonorous harmony gushed from the metal pipes of the organ.
There were celestial chants like those which caress the ear in moments of ecstasy; chants which the soul perceives, but which the lip cannot repeat; single notes of a distant melody sounding at intervals, brought by a gust of wind; the sound of leaves that kiss each other on the limbs of trees with a murmur like rain; trills of the lark, that rises singing from the flower-covered land, like an arrow shot into the clouds; terrible bursts of sound, imposing like the roaring of a tempest; choruses of seraphim, without cadence or rhythm, unknown music of another world, which only the imagination can comprehend; winged canticles that seemed to rise to the throne of the Almighty in a whirl of light and sound,—all these things were expressed by the thousand voices of the organ, with a power and poetry more intense, more mystic than had ever been heard before.
When the organist came down, such was the crowd that pushed toward the stairway, and such was the desire to see and admire him, that the officer of justice, fearing and not without reason that he would be smothered, sent his beadles, in order that, stick in hand, they might open a way for him to the high altar, where the bishop awaited him.
"You see," said the prelate, when the musician was introduced into his presence, "I came all the way from my palace to hear you. Will you be as cruel as Maese Pérez, who would never once spare me the journey by consenting to play on Christmas Eve for midnight Mass at the Cathedral?"
"Next year," answered the organist, "I will give you that pleasure, for I would not touch this organ again for all the gold in the world."
"Why not?" interrupted the prelate.
"Because," said the organist, trying to control the emotion which was revealed by the pallor of his countenance,—"because it is old and poor, and with such an instrument one cannot express all that one would like."
The archbishop retired, followed by his attendants. One by one the litters of the noblemen disappeared in the curves of the neighboring streets. The crowd around the portico was dissolved; and the faithful dispersed, taking their various directions. The church was about to be locked when two women, who had lingered to murmur a prayer before the altar of San Felipe, crossed themselves and went their way, turning into the Alley of the Dueñas.
"You may say what you choose, my dear Doña Baltasara," said one of them, "but that is my opinion. Every madman with his whim. I would not believe it if I heard it from the lips of a barefooted Capuchin. It is not possible for this man to have played what we have just heard. I tell you, I heard him a thousand times at San Bartolomé, which was his parish, and from which he was turned out by the priest because his music was so poor; my dear, it made you feel like stopping your ears up with cotton. And then you have only to look at his face. The face, they say, is the mirror of the soul. Think of Maese Pérez. Poor dear man! On a night like this, when he came down from the organ-loft after having held the congregation spell-bound, what a kind smile he wore! What a happy flush on his countenance! He was old, and yet he looked like an angel! As for this fellow, he came stumbling down the stairs as though a dog were barking at him from the landing, and with a face as pale as that of a corpse. Believe me, my dear, in all truth, there is some mystery here."