The lieutenant started, and said, soothingly—“Give not so much heed to my idle talk, my friend! I am old, melancholy—have no hope of a brighter future; but you, you are young, can yet do much—so much—”
“What can I do?” cried Friedemann, with harrowing laughter. “Nothing—nothing—nothing! With me at five and thirty, all is dead! All—more than with you at fifty! Ha! mark you not, where madness lurks yonder, behind the door, and makes ready to spring upon my neck, as I go out? He dares not seize on me when my father is near; but shrinks up, till he is little, very little, then hides himself in an old spider’s web over the window. But he shall not get hold of me so easily! ha, ha, ha! I am cunning! I will not leave the chamber without my father! Look you, old page, I understand a feint as well as you!”
“Mon ami! mon ami! what is the matter?” cried the lieutenant, and seizing his friend by the shoulders, he shook him vehemently. “Friedemann Bach, do you not hear me?”
Friedemann stared at him vacantly a moment. At length his face lost its unnatural expression, his eyes looked like living eyes again, and he asked softly—“What would M. Scherbitz?”
“What would I? man! what makes you such an idiot? Recollect yourself.”
“Eh!” said Friedemann, smiling; “Eh, M. Scherbitz, who takes a jest so deeply? And you really believe, that I am sometimes mad? Ah! not yet; I am rational, more rational than ever!”
“Well, well! mon ami, it was your jest, but one should not paint Satan on the wall. Pry’thee, sit you down, and play me something, that I may recover myself; you acted your part so naturally.”
Friedemann sat down in silence to the instrument and began to play.
“I dreamt not of this!” muttered the lieutenant, while Friedemann, after having played half an hour, suddenly let his hands drop down, sank back, and fell fast asleep.
On the morning of the 21st July, 1750, the church-bells rang a solemn, yet cheerful peal, inviting the pious inhabitants of the city to the house of God. The sky was perfectly cloudless; the glad Sabbath sun shone brightly, and the pious heart felt strengthened anew in faith and devotion. Into Friedemann’s heart also this day penetrated a beam of comfort, of joy, of love. He had spent a part of the preceding night in studying a masterpiece of his father’s—the great Passions Music. Full of the grandeur of the work, his face animated with serene delight, he was walking to and fro in the chamber of the old man, pondering in his mind a similar work, which he had thought of undertaking.