"Well, but let us keep to the point. I left off at the funerals, I think. I was struck by the frequent mortality among our little ones, and set in movement a project among the ladies of the town for starting a crèche. The idea found zealous partisans. We soon found a large meeting-room; the ladies supplied linen in large quantities; milk and other necessary aliments were provided by public subscription; money we resolved to collect in the usual way."
"I see that you are a practical man. A charitable concert was indeed arranged, and a committee of seven appointed to manage it. The sessions of this committee were held in my house; mine was the most convenient locality, and I had a piano besides. Each member of the committee had her part assigned to her: one was to recite, another to sing a solo, a third to give a comic reading, a fourth to play a piece on the piano, a fifth to dance a Hungarian dance; I was to fiddle, Esaias was to sing the high priest's aria from the opera of Nabucco: 'He who trusts in the Lord!'—You know the rest."
"Of course I do. At the first meeting of the committee one of the members had a slight misunderstanding with another member, at the second meeting a second member had a second misunderstanding, and by the time the fifth meeting was held Esaias and yourself were left to practise alone."
"That is, word for word, what did happen, with this little difference, that we never had any practice at all. On the fifth occasion, four of the six members of the committee sent letters of excuse. Every one of them was ill. It was a veritable epidemic. Only the dancing master found no excuse for himself. As he was the only dancing-master in the town he could not go and lie that he had sprained his foot.
"Esaias walked three times up and down in front of my house, puffing away at his big pipe. Every time he passed he looked up at the window, and, seeing nobody there, went on farther.
"At last the dancing-master came chassé-ing up; I could see from his grinning face that he had some ill-tidings to tell me. Only people who have found some excuse for covering their retreat come smiling like that.
"'My lady! I am inconsolable'—('I know all about that!' thought I)—'but I can't come to the concert. Our gipsy musicians have gone to Pest.' ('What do they want there?' I asked.) 'All the gipsy bands in the kingdom have assembled together for a grand competition.... Now, without gipsy music I can't dance. Who can play me the "Bihari Kesergó," I should like to know?' ('I will!' I said.) 'Ha! ha! ha! that wouldn't do at all! What? one dancer and one violin-player!—it would be a mere farce.'
"Hereupon Esaias popped in. Seeing through the window that I was no longer alone, he took heart and came in. He had not dared to do so before."
Here I intervened: "If I am not very much mistaken, I know this dear Esaias of yours. It once happened to him, while still a student, that he sat beside the priest's daughter at supper. He did not dare to say a word to her; but in the afternoon he went up the church tower and courted the young lady from one of the windows."