The boy became purple. "What!" he said, "send him to the devil?—him, the great violinist, the successor of Czemak, of Bihary!"
"Is your master a gypsy?"
"No, but he is the only living violinist who possesses the authentic tradition of gypsy music."
"I love this music; therefore I will get up and go down to the garden."
"Oh no, sir: go into the fields. See!" and he opened the window, "every one has left the castle." And actually the master of the house and his guests were all defiling through the garden-gate, having had only three hours' sleep. M. Franz soon joined them, and heard from them the story of Remenyi.
At the age of seventeen he had been attached to the person of Görgey during the Hungarian war. Leaving his country with the emigration, he had shared the exile of Count Teleki, Sandor and others; then passed some time at Guernsey, where he knew Victor Hugo. He had afterward performed with brilliant success in London, Hamburg, etc., and his renown, after his return to Hungary, went on increasing. He traveled about the country in every direction, astonishing nobles and peasants, and playing with the same enthusiasm and poetry in barns as in palaces. On hearing this our author slipped back to the garden, where he hid himself to listen to Remenyi, who, to his great disgust, was playing a concerto of Bach's.
At breakfast, Remenyi appeared, a very commonplace-looking man, full of his own praises, and always speaking himself in the third person. "Remenyi practiced well this morning," said he.
"Yes, a concerto of Bach's!" Franz.
Thereupon Remenyi asked for his violin, and they heard a marvelous specimen of real Tzigany inspiration. Vanity disappeared—passion, nerve and sentiment took its place. He had all the qualities demanded by science, together with those of imagination. It was the passionate inspiration of genius. After his performance was over, he went gravely to the mantelpiece, stopped the clock, and said to the master of the house, "Let this hand mark for ever the hour when Remenyi played at your house."
M. Franz taking no pains to disguise; his admiration, Remenyi, gratified by it, invited him to accompany him home. Wherever he went he received a perfect ovation. At one place he ordered a pair of boots, which were sent home, paid for by the municipality. Art is a national glory in Hungary, especially that of the gypsies, which has taken root in the very heart of the soil.