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"After the duet, a universal chorus of applause! And now
arriettas and duettinos succeed each other, and right merrily I
hammer away at the thousand-times-repeated accompaniment. During the
singing, the Finanzräthin Eberstein, by coughing and humming, has
given to understand that she also sings. Fräulein Nanette says;

"'But, my dear Finanzräthin, now you must let us hear your
exquisite voice.'

"A new tumult arises. She has a bad cold in her head,--she does
not know anything by heart! Gottlieb brings straightway two armfuls
of music-books; and the leaves are turned over again and again.
First she thinks she will sing Der Hölle Rache, etc., then Hebe
sich, etc., then Ach, Ich liebte, etc. In this embarrassment, I
propose, Ein Veilchen auf der Wiese, etc. But she is for the heroic
style; she wants to make a display, and finally selects the aria in
Constantia.

"O scream, squeak, mew, gurgle, groan, agonize, quiver, quaver,
just as much as you please, Madam,--I have my foot on the fortissimo
pedal, and thunder myself deaf! O Satan, Satan! which of thy goblins
damned has got into this throat, pinching, and kicking, and cuffing
the tones about so! Four strings have snapped already, and one
hammer is lamed for life. My ears ring again,--my head hums,--my
nerves tremble! Have all the harsh notes from the cracked trumpet of
a strolling-player been imprisoned in this little throat! (But this
excites me,--I must drink a glass of Burgundy.)

"The applause was unbounded; and some one observed, that the
Finanzräthin and Mozart had put me quite in a blaze. I smiled with
downcast eyes, very stupidly. I could but acknowledge it. And now
all talents, which hitherto had bloomed unseen, were in motion,
wildly flitting to and fro. They were bent upon a surfeit of music;
tuttis, finales, choruses must be performed. The Canonicus Kratzer
sings, you know, a heavenly bass, as was observed by the gentleman
yonder, with the head of Titus Andronicus, who modestly remarked
also, that he himself was properly only a second-ratetenor; but,
though he said it, who should not say it, was nevertheless member of
several academies of music. Forthwith preparations are made for the
first chorus in the opera of Titus. It went off gloriously. The
Canonicus, standing close behind me, thundered out the bass over my
head, as if he were singing with bass-drums and trumpet obbligato in
a cathedral. He struck the notes gloriously; but in his hurry he got
the tempo just about twice too slow. However, he was true to himself
at least in this, that through the whole piece he dragged along just
half a beat behind the rest. The others showed a most decided
penchant for the ancient Greek music, which, as is well known,
having nothing to do with harmony, ran on in unison or monotone.
They all sang treble, with slight variations, caused by accidental
rising and falling of the voice, say some quarter of a note.

"This somewhat noisy affair produced a universal tragic state of
feeling, namely a kind of terror, even at the card-tables, which for
the momentcould no longer, as before, chime in melodramatic, by
weaving into the music sundry exclamations; as, for instance;

" 'O! I loved,--eight and forty,--was so happy,--I pass,--then I
knew not,--whist,--pangs of love,--follow suit,' etc.--It has a very
pretty effect. (I fill my glass.)

"That was the highest point of the musical exhibition this
evening. 'Now it is all over,' thought I to myself. I shut the book,
and got up from the piano-forte. But the baron, my ancient tenor,
came up to me, and said;

" 'My dear Herr Capellmeister, they say you play the most
exquisite voluntaries! Now do play us one; only a short one, I
entreat you!'

"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.

They drove leisurely down the steep hill, and stopped at the
village inn. Before the door was a magnificent, broad-armed tree,
with benches and tables beneath its shadow. On the front of the
house was written in large letters, "Post-Tavern by Franz
Schoendorfer"; and over this was a large sun-dial, and a
half-effaced painting of a bear-hunt, covering the whole side of the
house, and mostly red. Just as they drove up, a procession of
priests with banners, and peasants with their hats in their hands,
passed by towards the church. They were singing a solemn psalm. At
the same moment, a smart servant girl, with a black straw hat, set
coquettishly on her flaxen hair, and a large silver spoon stuck in
her girdle, came out of the tavern, and asked Flemming what he would
please to order for breakfast.

Breakfast was soon ready, and was served up at the head of the
stairs, on an old-fashioned oaken table in the great hall, into
which the chambers opened. Berkley ordered at the same time a tub of
cold water, in which he seated himself, with his coat on, and a
bed-quilt thrown round his knees. Thus he sat for an hour; ate his
breakfast, and smoked a pipe, and laughed a good deal. He then went
to bed and slept till dinner time. Meanwhile Flemming sat in his
chamber and read. It was a large room in the front of the house,
looking upon the village and the lake. The windows were latticed,
with small panes, and the window-sills filled with fragrant
flowers.

At length the heat of the noon was over. Day, like a weary
pilgrim, had reached the westerngate of Heaven, and Evening stooped
down to unloose the latchets of his sandal-shoon. Flemming and
Berkley sallied forth to ramble by the borders of the lake. Down the
cool, green glades and alleys, beneath the illuminated leaves of the
forest, over the rising grounds, in the glimmering fretwork of
sunshine and leaf-shadow,--an exhilarating walk! The cool evening
air by the lake was like a bath. They drank the freshness of the
hour in thirsty draughts, and their breasts heaved rejoicing and
revived, after the feverish, long confinement of the sultry summer
day. And there, too, lay the lake, so beautiful and still! Did it
not recall, think ye, the lake of Thun?

On their return homeward they passed near the village
churchyard.

"Let us go in and see how the dead rest," said Flemming, as they
passed beneath the belfry of the church; and they went in, and
lingered among the tombs and the evening shadows.

How peaceful is the dwelling-place of those who inhabit the green
hamlets, and populous cities of the dead! They need no antidote for
care,--nor armour against fate. No morning sun shines in at the
closed windows, and awakens them, nor shall until the last great
day. At most a straggling sunbeam creeps in through the crumbling
wall of an old neglected tomb,--a strange visiter, that stays not
long. And there they all sleep, the holy ones, with their arms
crossed upon their breasts, or lying motionless by their sides,--not
carved in marble by the hand of man, but formed in dust, by the hand
of God. God's peace be with them. No one comes to them now, to hold
them by the hand, and with delicate fingers smooth their hair. They
heed no more the blandishments of earthly friendship. They need us
not, however much we may need them. And yet they silently await our
coming.

Beautiful is that season of life, when we can say, in the
language of Scripture, "Thou hast the dew of thy youth." But of
these flowers Death gathers many. He places them upon his bosom, and
his form becomes transformed into somethingless terrific than
before. We learn to gaze and shudder not; for he carries in his arms
the sweet blossoms of our earthly hopes. We shall see them all
again, blooming in a happier land.

Yes, Death brings us again to our friends. They are waiting for
us, and we shall not live long. They have gone before us, and are
like the angels in heaven. They stand upon the borders of the grave
to welcome us, with the countenance of affection, which they wore on
earth; yet more lovely, more radiant, more spiritual! O, he spake
well who said, that graves are the foot-prints of angels.

Death has taken thee, too, and thou hast the dew of thy youth. He
has placed thee upon his bosom, and his stern countenance wears a
smile. The far country, toward which we journey, seems nearer to us,
and the way less dark; for thou hast gone before, passing so quietly
to thy rest, that day itself dies not more calmly!

It was in an hour of blessed communion with the souls of the
departed, that the sweet poet Henry Vaughan wrote those few lines,
whichhave made death lovely, and his own name immortal!

"They are all gone into a world of light,

And I alone sit lingering here!

Their very memory is fair and bright,

And my sad thoughts doth clear.

"It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,

Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which the hill is dressed,

After the sun's remove.

"I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days,

My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,

Mere glimmerings and decays.

"O holy hope, and high humility,

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and ye have showed them me,

To kindle my cold love.

"Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just!

Shining nowhere but in the dark!

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,

Could man outlook that mark!

"He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know,

At first sight, if the bird be flown;

But what fair field or grove he sings in now,

That is to him unknown.

"And yet as angels, in some brighter dreams,

Call to the soul, when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,

And into glory peep!"

Such were Flemming's thoughts, as he stood among the tombs at
evening in the churchyard of Saint Gilgen. A holy calm stole over
him. The fever of his heart was allayed. He had a moment's rest from
pain; and went back to his chamber in peace. Whence came this holy
calm, this long-desired tranquillity? He knew not; yet the place
seemed consecrated. He resolved to linger there, beside the lake,
which was a Pool of Bethesda for him; and let Berkley go on alone to
the baths of Ischel. He would wait for him there in the solitude of
Saint Gilgen. Long after they had parted for the night, he sat in
his chamber, and thought of what he had suffered, and enjoyedthe
silence within and without. Hour after hour, slipped by unheeded, as
he sat lost in his reverie. At length, his candle sank in its
socket, gave one flickering gleam, and expired with a sob. This
aroused him.

He went to the window, and peered out into the dark night. It was
very late. Twice already since midnight had the great pulpit-orator
Time, like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned the
hour-glass on his high pulpit, the church belfry, and still went on
with his sermon, thundering downward to the congregation in the
churchyard and in the village. But they heard him not. They were all
asleep in their narrow pews, namely, in their beds and in their
graves. Soon afterward the cock crew; and the cloudy heaven, like
the apostle, who denied his Lord, wept bitterly.




CHAPTER VI. SAINT WOLFGANG.



The morning is lovely beyond expression. The heat of the sun is
great; but a gentle wind cools the air. Birds never sang more loud
and clear. The flowers, too, on the window-sill, and on the table,
rose, geranium, and the delicate crimson cactus, are all so
beautiful, that we think the German poet right, when he calls the
flowers "stars in the firmament of the earth." Out of doors all is
quiet. Opposite the window stands the village schoolhouse. There are
two parasite trees, with their outspread branches nailed against the
white walls, like the wings of culprit kites. There the rods grow.
Under them, on a bench at the door, sit school-girls; and barefoot
urchins in breeches are spelling out their lessons. The clock
strikestwelve, and one by one they disappear, and go into the hive,
like bees at the sound of a brass pan. At the door of the next house
sits a poor woman, knitting in the shade; and in front of her is an
aqueduct pouring its cool, clear water into a rough wooden trough. A
travelling carriage without horses, stands at the inn-door, and a
postilion in red jacket is talking with a blacksmith, who wears blue
woollen stockings and a leather apron. Beyond is a stable, and still
further a cluster of houses and the village church. They are
repairing the belfry and the bulbous steeple. A little farther, over
the roofs of the houses, you can see Saint Wolfgang's Lake. Water so
bright and beautiful hardly flows elsewhere. Green, and blue, and
silver-white run into each other, with almost imperceptible change,
like the streaks on the sides of a mackerel. And above are the
pinnacles of the mountains; some bald, and rocky, and cone-shaped,
and others bold, and broad, and dark with pines.

Such was the scene, which Paul Flemming beheldfrom his window a
few mornings after Berkley's departure. The quiet of the place had
soothed him. He had become more calm. His heart complained less
loudly in the holy village silence, as we are wont to lower our
voices when those around us speak in whispers. He began to feel at
times an interest in the lowly things around him. The face of the
landscape pleased him, but more than this the face of the poor woman
who sat knitting in the shade. It was a pale, meek countenance, with
more delicacy in its features than is usual among peasantry. It wore
also an expression of patient suffering. As he was looking at her, a
deformed child came out of the door and hung upon her knees. She
caressed him affectionately. It was her child; in whom she beheld
her own fair features distorted and hardly to be recognised, as one
sometimes sees his face reflected from the bowl of a spoon.

The child's deformity and the mother's tenderness interested the
feelings of Flemming. The landlady told him something of the poor
woman's history. She was the widow of a blacksmith, who had died
soon after their marriage. But she survived to become a mother, just
as, in oaks, immediately after fecundation, the male flower fades
and falls, while the female continues and ripens into perfect fruit.
Alas! her child was deformed. Yet she looked upon him with eyes of
maternal fondness and pity, loving him still more for his deformity.
And in her heart she said, as the Mexicans say to their new-born
offspring, "Child, thou art come into the world to suffer. Endure,
and hold thy peace." Though poor, she was not entirely destitute;
for her husband had left her, beside the deformed child, a life
estate in a tomb in the churchyard of Saint Gilgen. During the week
she labored for other people, and on Sundays for herself, by going
to church and reading the Bible. On one of the blank leaves she had
recorded the day of her birth, and that of her child's, likewise her
marriage and her husband's death. Thus she lived, poor, patient and
resigned. Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the
crown of thorns and the cross of Christ. Her ideas of Heaven were
few and simple. She rejected the doctrine that it was a place of
constant activity, and not of repose, and believed, that, when she
at length reached it, she should work no more, but sit always in a
clean white apron, and sing psalms.

As Flemming sat meditating on these things, he paid new homage in
his heart to the beauty and excellence of the female character. He
thought of the absent and the dead; and said, with tears in his
eyes;

"Shall I thank God for the green Summer, and the mild air, and
the flowers, and the stars, and all that makes this world so
beautiful, and not for the good and beautiful beings I have known in
it? Has not their presence been sweeter to me than flowers? Are they
not higher and holier than the stars? Are they not more to me than
all things else?"

Thus the morning passed away in musings; andin the afternoon,
when Flemming was preparing to go down to the lake, as his custom
was, a carriage drew up before the door, and, to his great
astonishment, out jumped Berkley. The first thing he did was to give
the Postmaster, who stood near the door, a smart cut with his whip.
The sufferer gently expostulated, saying,

"Pray, Sir, don't; I am lame."

Whereupon Berkley desisted, and began instead to shake the
Postmaster's wife by the shoulders, and order his dinner in English.
But all this was done so good-naturedly, and with such a rosy,
laughing face, that no offence was taken.

"So you have returned much sooner than you intended;" said
Flemming, after the first friendly salutations.

"Yes," replied Berkley; "I got tired of Ischel,--very tired. I
did not find the friends there, whom I expected. Now I am going back
to Salzburg, and then to Gastein. There I shall certainly find them.
You must go with me."

Flemming declined the invitation; and proposedto Berkley, that he
should join him in his excursion on the lake.

"You shall hear the grand echo of the Falkenstein," said he, "and
behold the scene of the Bridal Tragedy; and then we will go on as
far as the village of Saint Wolfgang, which you have not yet seen,
except across the lake."

"Well, this afternoon I devote to you; for to-morrow we part once
more, and who knows when we shall meet again?"

They went down to the water's side without farther delay; and,
taking a boat with two oars, struck across an elbow of the lake
towards a barren rock by the eastern shore, from which a small white
monument shone in the sun.

"That monument," said one of the boatmen, a stout young lad in
leather breeches, "was built by a butcher, to the glory of Saint
Wolfgang, who saved him from drowning. He was one day riding an ox
to market along the opposite bank; when the animal taking fright,
sprang into the water, and swam over to this place, with the butcher
on his back."

"And do you think he could have done this," asked Berkley; "if
Saint Wolfgang had not helped him?"

"Of course not!" answered leather-breeches; and the Englishman
laughed.

From this point they rowed along under the shore to a low
promontory, upon which stood another monument, commemorating a more
tragical event.

"This is the place I was speaking of," said Flemming, as the
boatmen rested on their oars. "The melancholy and singular event it
commemorates happened more than two centuries ago. There was a
bridal party here upon the ice one winter; and in the midst of the
dance the ice broke, and the whole merry company were drowned
together, except the fiddlers, who were sitting on the shore."

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