“Pah! one year sufficed to spread your fame in music through Europe! Who knows not the name of Friedemann Bach? You have but one rival, the admirable Sebastian, your father!”
Friedemann colored deeply as he replied, “How durst I think of comparing myself with my father? If my name is celebrated, whom have I to thank but my father? Beside him, I feel, with pride as well as pain, his greatness and my own insignificance. Ah! my love for him elevates me; his love crushes me to the dust, for I know myself unworthy of it!”
“Nay, you are too conscientious,” observed Scherbitz.
“Too conscientious!” repeated Friedemann, with a bitter smile.
“Yes!” returned Scherbitz, “I know not how otherwise to express it. What is the head and front of the matter? The old gentleman is, in certain respects, a little strict; pourquoi? because he is old! you are young, impetuous; have your adventures, and your liberal views, and conceal them from him; not, mark me, out of apprehension, but because things he has no power to change, might cause him chagrin. Enfin! where is the harm in all this?”
Friedemann was sitting with his head resting on his open palm. At the last question he sighed deeply, and seemed about to make a quick reply, but on a second thought, only said, passing his hand over his brow, “Let it alone, Scherbitz; it is as silly as useless to discuss certain matters. Enough, that I have strength, or if you will have it—perverseness, to enjoy life after my own heart. Let us be merry, for here comes the punch!”
Signor Seconda entered, followed by two attendants carrying the hot punch, with glasses; serving his guests at the round table in the midst of the apartment, and providing for the new comers, who entered one after another. These consisted of several officers, and some of the most distinguished musicians and painters then living in the capital.
“Said I not—mon frère?” whispered Scherbitz to his companion, “said I not, they would be here presently? See: Monsieur Hasse,” he said aloud, as he rose to greet a distinguished looking man, who just then came in. Hasse returned his salutation, and after a rapid glance round the company, seated himself at a distant corner table, and motioned to an attendant to take away the light just placed on it. The man obeyed, and set before him a cup and a flask of burgundy.
“The poor fellow,” observed Scherbitz, in a low tone to Friedemann, “dismisses the old year with an ‘Alas!’ and greets the new with an ‘Ah, me!’ tout comme chez nous! If he drink much to-night, ’tis all in honor of his fair Faustina. Well—” he lifted his glass, to drink with Friedemann.
“I am sorry for him,” replied Bach; “but why not separate himself from the wife no longer worthy his esteem and love? they say it is out of gratitude for her having taken care of him when an unknown youth; but this gratitude is weakness, and will be the destruction not only of the man, but of the artist. All his works show too well what is wanting in him—namely: strength. In everything he writes there is a softness, the offspring of deep, hidden sorrow. But not the grief of a man; it is, if not thoroughly womanish, the sorrow of a stripling!”