"Now," said he, arriving very leisurely at the top, "we shall go in to see the old gentleman."
"Will he have a beard, sir, as he is a Jew?"
"Who told you he has a Jew-beard? Nevertheless he has a beard; but pray hold your tongue about the Jews,—at least till you know him a little better."
"I do not mean," thought I diffidently, "to talk to the old gentleman. If he is a Jew I shall know it, and it will be enough;" but I did not say so to Santonio, who did not appear to prize his lineage as I did the half of mine. My heart began to beat faster than from the steep ascent, when he, without preparing me further, rapped very vigorously upon another unseen door. I heard no voice reply, but I concluded he did, as he deliberately turned the lock, and drew me immediately after him as I had shrunk behind him. I need not have been afraid,—the room was empty. It was a room full of dusky light; that is, all tones which blended into it were dim, and its quaint nicety put every new-world notion out of the way for the time. The candles upon the table were brightly trimmed, but not wax,—only slender wax ones beamed in twisted sconces from the desk of an organ that took up the whole side of the room, opposing us as we entered, and whose pipes were to my imagining childhood lost in the clouds, indeed, for the roof of the room had been broken to admit them. The double key-board, open, glittered black and white, and I was only too glad to be able to examine it as closely as I wished. The room had no carpet, but I did not miss it or want it, for the floor was satin bright with polish, and its general effect was ebony, while that of the furniture was oak. There was a curious large closet in a corner, like another little room put away into this one; but what surprised me most was that the chamber was left to itself.
"Where is he?" said Santonio, appealing to the silence; but then he seemed to be reminded, and shouted very loud in German some name I could not realize, but which I write, having since realized. "Aronach![13] where art thou?"
In German, and very loud, a voice replied, as coming down the organ-pipes: "I am aloft chastising an evil spirit; nor will I descend until I have packed the devil downstairs." At this instant, more at hand than the sound I had met upon the staircase, there was a wail as of a violin in pain; but I could not tell whether it was a fiddle or a child, until the wail, in continuing, shifted from semitone to semitone.
Santonio sat down in one of the chairs and laughed; then arose, having recovered himself, and observed, "If this is his behavior, I may as well go and see after your boxes. Keep yourself here till I come back; but if he come down, salute him in German, and it will be all right."
He retired and I remained; and now I resolved to have another good look. One side of the room I had not yet examined. Next the door I found a trio or quartet of three-legged stools, fixed one into the other, and nearest them a harpsichord,—a very harpsichord with crooked legs. It was covered with baize, and a pile of music-books reposed upon the baize, besides some antique instrument-cases. Other and larger cases were on the floor beneath the harpsichord; there hung a talisman or two of glittering brass upon the wall, by floating ribbons of red.
Then I fastened myself upon the pictures, and those strange wreaths of withered leaves that waved between them, and whose searest hues befitted well their vicinage. As I stood beneath those pictures, those dead-brown garlands rustled as if my light breath had been the autumn wind. I was stricken at once with melancholy and romance, but I understood not clearly the precise charm of those relics, or my melancholy would have lost itself in romance alone.
There was one portrait of Bach. I knew it again, though it was a worthier hint of him than Davy's; and underneath that portrait was something of the same kind, which vividly fascinated me by its subject. It was a very young head, almost that of an infant, lying, rather than bending, over an oblong book, such in shape as those represented in pictures of literary cherubs. The face was more than half forehead, which the clustering locks could not conceal, though they strove to shadow; and in revenge, the hair swept back and tumbled sideways, curling into the very swell of the tender shoulder. The countenance was of sun-bright witchery, lustrous as an elf of summer laughing out of a full-blown rose. Tiny hands were doubled round the book, and the lips wore themselves a smile that seemed to stir and dimple, and to flutter those floating ringlets. It was strange I was, though so unutterably drawn to it, in nothing reminded of any child or man I had ever seen, but merely thought it an ideal of the infant music, if music could personate infancy. After a long, long gaze I looked away, expressly to have the delight of returning to it; and then I saw the stove and approved of it, instead of missing, as I was told at home I should miss, the hearthrug and roseate fire-shine. Indeed, the stove was much more in keeping here, according to my outlandish taste.