"I answered very drily, that to-day my fantasies had all gone a wool-gathering; and, while we are talking about it, a devil, in the shape of a dandy, with two waistcoats, had smelt out Bach's Variations, which were lying under my hat in the next room. He thinks they are merely little variations, such as Nel cor mio non più sento, or Ah, vous dirai-je, maman, etc., and insists upon it, that I shall play them. I try to excuse myself, but they all attack me. So then, 'Listen, and burst with ennui,' think I to myself,--and begin to work away.
"When I had got to variation number three, several ladies departed, followed by the gentleman with the Titus-Andronicus head. The Rödeleins, as their teacher was playing, stood it out, though not without difficulty, to number twelve. Number fifteen made the man with two waistcoats take to his heels. Out of most excessive politeness, the Baron stayed till number thirty, and drank up all the punch, which Gottlieb placed on the piano-forte for me.
"I should have brought all to a happy conclusion, but, alas! this number thirty,--the theme,--tore me irresistibly away. Suddenly the quarto leaves spread out to a gigantic folio, on which a thousand imitations and developments of the theme stood written, and I could not choose but play them. The notes became alive, and glimmered and hopped all round about me,--an electric firestreamed through the tips of my fingers into the keys,--the spirit, from which it gushed forth, spread his broad wings over my soul, the whole room was filled with a thick mist, in which the candles burned dim,--and through which peered forth now a nose, and anon a pair of eyes, and then suddenly vanished away again. And thus it came to pass, that I was left alone with my Sebastian Bach, by Gottlieb attended, as by a familiar spirit. (Your good health, Sir.)
"Is an honest musician to be tormented with music, as I have been to-day, and am so often tormented? Verily, no art is so damnably abused, as this same glorious, holy Musica, who, in her delicate being, is so easily desecrated. Have you real talent,--real feeling for art? Then study music;--do something worthy of the art,--and dedicate your whole soul to the beloved saint. If without this you have a fancy for quavers and demi-semi-quavers, practise for yourself and by yourself, and torment not therewith the Capellmeister Kreisler and others.
"Well, now I might go home, and put the finishing touch to my sonata for the piano-forte; but it is not yet eleven o'clock, and, withal, a beautiful summer night. I will lay any wager, that, at my next-door neighbour's, (the Oberjägermeister,) the young ladies are sitting at the window, screaming down into the street, for the twentieth time, with harsh, sharp, piercing voices, 'When thine eye is beaming love,'--but only the first stanza, over and over again. Obliquely across the way, some one is murdering the flute, and has, moreover, lungs like Rameau's nephew; and, in notes of 'linked sweetness long drawn out,' his neighbour is trying acoustic experiments on the French horn. The numerous dogs of the neighbourhood are growing unquiet, and my landlord's cat, inspired by that sweet duet, is making close by my window (for, of course, my musico-poetic laboratory is an attic,) certain tender confessions,--upward through the whole chromatic scale, soft complaining, to the neighbour's puss, with whom he has been in love since March last! Till this is all fairly over, II think will sit quietly here. Besides, there is still blank paper and Burgundy left, of which I forthwith take a sip.
"There is, as I have heard, an ancient law, forbidding those, who followed any noisy handicraft, from living near literary men. Should not then musical composers, poor, and hard beset, and who, moreover, are forced to coin their inspiration into gold, to spin out the thread of life withal, be allowed to apply this law to themselves, and banish out of the neighbourhood all ballad-singers and bagpipers? What would a painter say, while transferring to his canvass a form of ideal beauty, if you should hold up before him all manner of wild faces and ugly masks? He might shut his eyes, and in this way, at least, quietly follow out the images of fancy. Cotton, in one's ears, is of no use; one still hears the dreadful massacre. And then the idea,--the bare idea, 'Now they are going to sing,--now the horn strikes up,'--is enough to send one's sublimest conceptions to the very devil."
[CHAPTER V. SAINT GILGEN.]
It was a bright Sunday morning when Flemming and Berkley left behind them the cloud-capped hills of Salzburg, and journeyed eastward towards the lakes. The landscape around them was one to attune their souls to holy musings. Field, forest, hill and vale, fresh air, and the perfume of clover-fields and new-mown hay, birds singing, and the sound of village bells, and the moving breeze among the branches,--no laborers in the fields, but peasants on their way to church, coming across the green pastures, with roses in their hats,--the beauty and quiet of the holy day of rest,--all, all in earth and air, breathed upon the soul like a benediction.
They stopped to change horses at Hof, a handfulof houses on the brow of a breezy hill, the church and tavern standing opposite to each other, and nothing between them but the dusty road, and the churchyard, with its iron crosses, and the fluttering tinsel of the funeral garlands. In the churchyard and at the tavern-door, were groups of peasants, waiting for divine service to begin. They were clothed in their holiday dresses. The men wore breeches and long boots, and frock-coats with large metal buttons; the women, straw hats, and gay calico gowns, with short waists and scant folds. They were adorned with a profusion of great, trumpery ornaments, and reminded Flemming of the Indians in the frontier villages of America. Near the churchyard-gate was a booth, filled with flaunting calicos; and opposite sat an old woman behind a table, which was loaded with ginger-bread. She had a roulette at her elbow, where the peasants risked a kreutzer for a cake. On other tables, cases of knives, scythes, reaping-hooks, and other implements of husbandry were offered for sale.
The travellers continued their journey, without stopping to hear mass. In the course of the forenoon they came suddenly in sight of the beautiful Lake of Saint Wolfgang, lying deep beneath them in the valley. On its shore, under them, sat the white village of Saint Gilgen, like a swan upon its reedy nest. They seemed to have taken it unawares, and as it were clapped their hands upon it in its sleep, and almost expected to see it spread its broad, snow-white wings, and fly away. The whole scene was one of surpassing beauty.