All the same, when the day came my throat tightened, as it did in times of great excitement, when this devil of a thing came on. First the trumpets gave out the rhythm, then the flutes and clarinets, with a pizzicato accompaniment of strings—softly outlining the air—the audience remaining calm and judicial. Then, as there came a long crescendo, broken by the dull beats of the big drum (as of distant cannon) a strange restless movement was perceptible among them—and, as the orchestra let itself go in a cataclysm of sweeping fury and thunder, they could contain themselves no longer.
Their overcharged souls burst with a tremendous explosion of feeling that raised my hair with terror.
I lost all hope of making the end audible,[22] and in the encore it was no better; hardly could they contain themselves long enough to hear a portion of the coda.
Horwath, in his box, was like one possessed, and I could not resist a smiling glance at him to ask—
“Are you still afraid or are you content with your forte?”
It was lucky that this was the end of the programme, for certainly these excitable people would have listened to nothing more.
As I mopped my face in the little room set apart for me, a poorly dressed man slipped quietly in. He threw himself upon me, his eyes full of tears, and stammered out:
“Ah, monsieur—the Hungarian—poor man—not speak French—Forgive, excited—understood your cannon—Yes, big battle—Dogs of Germans!” Striking his chest vehemently—“In heart of me you stay—ah, French—Republican—know to make music of Revolution!”
I cannot describe his frenzy; it was almost sublime.
After that, of course, the Rakoczy ended every concert, and on leaving I had to present the town with my MS.