The old gentleman thanked him briefly, and said, “What was it you were going to ask me yesterday evening, when it struck eleven and I sent you off to bed?”
The youth, with a modest smile, replied, “I was going to beg leave, my father, if your time permitted, to present to you the young man I would like to have for my teacher on the piano.”
“Very well; after noon I shall be at liberty; but who has recommended him to you?”
“An admirable piece which I was yesterday so fortunate as to hear him play at the house of Mlle. de Martinez.”
“Ah! your honor means young Haydn,” cried Puderlein, unwittingly, and then became suddenly silent, expecting nothing less than that his temerity would draw down a thunderbolt on his head. But contrary to his expectation, the old gentleman merely looked at him a moment, as if in surprise, from head to foot, then said mildly, “You are acquainted with the young man then: what do you know of him?”
“I know him!” answered Puderlein; “Oh, very well, your honor; I know him well. What I know of him? Oh, much; for observe, your honor, I have had the honor to be hairdresser for many years to the chapel-master, von Reuter, in whose house Haydn has long been an inmate—it must now be ten or eleven years. I have known him, so to speak, from childhood. Besides I have heard him sing a hundred times at St. Stephen’s, where he was chorister, though it is now a couple of years since he was turned off.”
“Turned off? and wherefore?”
“Aye; observe, your honor, he had a fine clear voice, such as no female singer in the Opera; but getting a fright, and being seized with a fever—when he recovered, his fine soprano was gone! And because they had no more use for him at St. Stephen’s, they turned him off.”
“And what does young Haydn now?” asked the Baron.
“Ah, your honor, the poor fellow must find it hard to live by giving lessons, playing about, and picking up what he can; he also composes sometimes, or what do they call it? Well, what helps it him, that he torments himself? he lives in the house with Metastasio, not in the first story, like the court poet, but in the fifth; and when it is winter, he has to lie in bed and work, to keep himself from freezing; for, observe, he has indeed a fire-place in his chamber, but no money to buy wood to burn therein.”