Joseph cheerfully resigned himself to the purposes of his friend, and was only too happy to be able undisturbed to study Sebastian Bach’s works, to try his skill in quartettos—to eat as much as he wished, and day after day to see and chat with the fair Nanny. It never occurred to him, under such circumstances, to notice that he lived in a manner as a prisoner in Puderlein’s house; that all day he was banished to the garden behind the house, or to his snug chamber, and only permitted to go out in the evening with Wenzel and his daughter. It never occurred to him to wish for other acquaintance than the domestics and their nearest neighbors, among whom he was known only as “Master Joseph;” and he cheerfully delivered every Saturday to Master Wenzel the stipulated number of minuets, waltzes, &c., which he was ordered to compose. Puderlein carried the pieces regularly to a dealer in such things in Leopoldstadt, who paid him two convention guilders for every full toned minuet—and for the others in proportion. This money the hairdresser conscientiously locked up in a chest, to use it, when the time should come, for Joseph’s advantage. With this view, he enquired earnestly about Joseph’s greater works, and whether he would not soon be prepared to produce something which would do him credit in the eyes of the more distinguished part of the public.
“Ah—yes—indeed!” replied Joseph; “this quartetto, when I shall have finished it, might be ventured before the public; for I hope to make something good of it! Yet what shall I do? No publisher will take it; it is returned on my hands, because I am no great lord, and because I have no patron to whom I could dedicate it!”
“That will all come in time,” said Puderlein, smiling; “do you get the thing ready, yet without neglecting the dances; I tell you a prudent man begins with little, and ends with great; so to work!”
And Joseph went to work; but he was every day deeper and deeper in love with the fair Nanny; and the damsel herself looked with very evident favor on the dark, though handsome youth.—Wenzel saw the progress of things with satisfaction; the lovers behaved with great propriety, and he suffered matters to go on in their own way, only interfering with a little assumed surliness, if Joseph at any time forgot his tasks in idle talk, or Nanny her housekeeping.
But not with such eyes saw Mosjo Ignatz, Puderlein’s journeyman and factotum hitherto; for he thought himself possessed of a prior claim to the love of Nanny. No one knows how much or how little reason he had to think so, for it might be reckoned among impossibilities for a young girl of Vienna, who has reached the age of fourteen, to determine the number of her lovers. The Viennese damsels are remarkable for their prudence in what concerns a love affair. However that may have been, it is certain that it was gall and wormwood to Ignatz to see Joseph and the fair Nanny together. He would often fain have interposed his powder-bag and curling irons between them, when he heard them singing tender duets; for it must be owned that Nanny had a charming voice, was very fond of music, and was Joseph’s zealous pupil in singing.
At length he could endure no longer the torments of jealousy; and one morning he sought out the master of the house, to discover to him the secret of the lovers. How great was his astonishment, when Master Wenzel, instead of falling into a violent passion, and turning Joseph out of doors without further ado, replied with a smile,
“What you tell me, Mosjo ’Natz, look you, I have long known, and am well pleased that it is so.”
“Nein!” cried Ignatz, after a long pause of speechless astonishment; “Nein, Master von Puderlein! you should not be pleased. You seem as if you knew not that I—I, for several years have been the suitor of your daughter.”
It was Wenzel’s turn to be astonished, and he angrily replied, “I knew no such thing; I know not, nor will I know any such thing. What—Natz! is he mad? the suitor of my daughter! What has come into the man? Go to! Mind your powder-bag and your curling irons, and serve your customers, and set aside thoughts too high for you; for neither my daughter nor myself will wink at such folly.”
“Oho, and have you not both promised? There was a time, Master von Puderlein, when you and mademoiselle your daughter—”