"There is such a one to every bed," continued he; "and if you draw them on either hand, you will hear nothing, at least nothing to disturb you. Come away now; I have not much time to spare, and must leave you elsewhere."
He led me from the chambers, and down the stairs again, and here and there, so that I heard an organ playing in one region, and voices that blended again to another idea; and then all was stillness, except the rustle of his gown. But before I could make up my mind to approve or criticise the arrangements which struck me on every hand, I found myself in another room,—this vaulted, and inspiring as nothing I had met with in that place. How exquisite was the radiant gloom that here pervaded within, as within a temple; for the sunshine pierced through little windows of brown and amber, and came down in wavering dusky brightness on parchment hues and vellum, morocco, and ruddy gold. Here a thick matting returned no footfall; and although the space was small, and very crowded too, yet it had an air of vastness, from the elevated concave of the roof. Benches were before each bookcase, that presented its treasury of dread tomes and gigantic scores; also reading-desks; and besides such furniture, there were the quaintest little stalls between each set of shelves,—shrine-like niches one could just sit in, or even at pleasure lie along; for seats were in them of darkest polished wood. Some were already occupied, and their occupants were profoundly quiet,—perhaps studying, perhaps asleep.
"Here," observed my guide, "you are only allowed to come and remain in silence. If one word be spoken in the library, expulsion of the speaker follows. The book-keeper sits out there," pointing to an erection like a watch-box, "and hears, and is to observe all. You may use any book in this place, but never carry it away; and if required for quotation as well as for reference, you may here make your extracts, but never elsewhere. There are ink-bottles in every desk. And if you take my advice, you will remain here until the supper-bell; for while here, you will at least be out of mischief. We are not to-day in full routine; but that makes it the more dangerous to be at large."
"Will you set me some task, then, sir? I do want something to be at."
He seemed only to sneer at such a desire. "Nonsense! there is enough for to-day in mastering all those names;" and he took down a catalogue and handed it to me.
I ran into one of those dear, dark recesses, and there he left me.
When he had gone, I did not open my book for a time. I was in a highly wrought mood, which was induced by that sombre-tinted, struggling sunshine, whose beams played high in the ceiling, like fireflies in a cedar shade, so fretted and so far. It was delicious as a dream to be safe and solitary in that dim palace of futurity, whose vistas stretched before me into everlasting lengths of light. I read not for a long, long hour; and when I did open my book (itself no mean volume as to size), I was bewildered and bedimmed by a swarm of names, both of works and authors, I had never heard of,—Huygens, Martini, Euler, Pfeiffer, and Marpurg alone meeting me as distant acquaintances, and Cherubini as a dear old friend.
This was, in fact, a catalogue raisonné, and I was not in a very rational mood. I therefore shut the book, and began to pace the library. It is extraordinary how intense is the power of application in the case of those who are apprenticed to a master they can worship as well as serve. I thought so then. Nothing could divert the attention of those supine students in the recesses, nor of the scribes at the desks. I went quite close to many of them, and could have looked into their eyes, but that they were, for the most part, closed; and I should have accused them of being asleep but that their lips were moving, and I knew they were learning by heart. Great black-letter was the characteristic of one huge volume I stayed to examine as it lay upon a desk, and he who sat before it had a face sweeter than any present, sensible as interesting; and I did not fear him, though his eyes were wide open and alert. He was making copious extracts, and as I peeped between the pages he held by his thumb and a slight forefinger, he observed me and gave me a smile, at the same time turning back the title-page for my inspection. That was encircled by a wreath of cherubs' faces for flowers, and musical instruments for leaves, old and droll as the title, "Caspar Bartholin, his Treatise on the Wind Music of the Ancients."
I smiled then, and nodded, to express my thanks; but a moment afterwards he wrote for me, on a sheet in his blotting-case, which he carried with him,—
"We may write, though we may not speak. Are you just arrived?"