"Good-evening, my Señora Doña Baltasara; are you here, too, for
midnight Mass? For my part I had intended going to the parish, but
you see how it is,--one goes where everybody goes. And yet, to tell
you the truth, since Maese Pérez's death I feel as though there were
a tombstone on my heart every time I enter Santa Inés. Poor dear man!
Truly he was a saint. I have a little scrap of his doublet which I
preserve like a relic, and which surely deserves it; for I believe,
by my soul, that if the archbishop would only take a hand in the
matter, our grandchildren would see him canonized. But why expect
it? The dead and the absent have no friends. Novelty is what is in
favor now,--you understand me, of course. What! You do not know what
is going on? True, we are alike in that respect,--from our house to
church, and from church back again, without inquiring into what is
said or what is not said. However, on the wing, catching a word here,
a word there, without the least interest in the matter, I sometimes
happen to know the news.
"Well, yes, it seems to be a settled thing that the organist of San
Ramón, that squint-eye who is always abusing other organists, and
who looks more like a butcher from the Puerta de la Carne than like
a musician, is going to play this Christmas Eve on Maese Pérez's
organ. You know, of course,--for everybody knows it in Seville,--that
no musician would accept the undertaking. Not even his daughter,
who is a professor of music. After her father's death she entered
the convent as a novice. Her refusal was natural enough. Accustomed
as we were to hearing such marvels, anything else would seem poor,
no matter how desirous we might be to avoid comparisons; and so the
sisterhood had determined that in honor of the dead musician, and
in token of respect to his memory, the organ should remain dumb
to-night, when here comes our man, and declares that he is willing to
play it.
"There is nothing so bold as ignorance. To be sure, the fault is not
his, but theirs, who permit such a profanation. But that is the way
of the world--but, I say, it is no small crowd that has flocked here
to-night. One might think that nothing had changed from last year to
this,--the same fine people, the same splendor, the same crush at the
door, the same excitement under the portico, the same throng in the
temple. Ah, if the dead man were to rise, he would die a second death
rather than witness the profanation of his organ. But the best of it
is that if what the neighbors have told me is true, the intruder is
going to meet with a fine reception. When the time comes for him to
lay his hands on the keys, there are those who mean to make a hubbub
with tambourines, timbrels, and drums. But hold! there is the hero
of the occasion going into the church now. Holy saints! How gaudily
he has arrayed himself What a ruff, and what grand airs he assumes!
Come, come! the archbishop arrived some time ago, and Mass will soon
begin. Come! for I fancy this night will give us food for talk."
And saying this, the good woman penetrated into the church, opening a
way for herself through the crowd, according to her habit, by dint of
pushing and elbowing.
The ceremony had already begun.
The temple was as brilliant as it had been the year before. The new
organist pushed through the crowd that filled the naves, went up to
kiss the bishop's ring, then made his way to the organ-loft, where
he took his seat, and began to try the stops of the organ one after
another with much affectation of gravity. From the compact mass of
people in the rear of the church rose a muffled, confused sound,--a
sure augury that the storm was brewing and would not be long in
making itself felt.
"He is an impostor who cannot do anything straight, not even look
straight," said some.
"He is an ignorant lout, who has turned the organ of his own parish
into a rattle, and comes here now to profane Maese Pérez's," said
others. And while one relieved himself of his cloak the better to
thump his tambourine, and another took hold of his timbrels, and all
made ready to greet the first notes of music with a deafening clamor,
there were but very few who ventured mildly to defend the strange
man, whose proud and pedantic bearing was so strongly in contrast
with the modest appearance and affable kindness of the former
organist.
The longed-for moment came at last,--the solemn moment when the
priest, after bowing his brow and murmuring the sacred words, took
the wafer between his fingers. The little bells rang at the foot of
the altar, shaking out a shower of crystal notes. The diaphanous
waves of incense rose in the air and the organ burst into sound.
A terrible uproar filled the church and drowned its first chords.
Horns, bagpipes, timbrels, tambourines,--all the instruments of the
populace lifted their discordant voices at once. But the clamor
only lasted a minute. It all stopped simultaneously, just as it had
begun. The second chord, full, bold, magnificent, sustained itself. A
torrent of sonorous harmony gushed from the metal pipes of the organ.
There were celestial chants like those which caress the ear in
moments of ecstasy; chants which the soul perceives, but which the
lip cannot repeat; single notes of a distant melody sounding at
intervals, brought by a gust of wind; the sound of leaves that kiss
each other on the limbs of trees with a murmur like rain; trills of
the lark, that rises singing from the flower-covered land, like an
arrow shot into the clouds; terrible bursts of sound, imposing like
the roaring of a tempest; choruses of seraphim, without cadence or
rhythm, unknown music of another world, which only the imagination
can comprehend; winged canticles that seemed to rise to the throne of
the Almighty in a whirl of light and sound,--all these things were
expressed by the thousand voices of the organ, with a power and
poetry more intense, more mystic than had ever been heard before.
* * * * *
When the organist came down, such was the crowd that pushed toward
the stairway, and such was the desire to see and admire him, that the
officer of justice, fearing and not without reason that he would be
smothered, sent his beadles, in order that, stick in hand, they might
open a way for him to the high altar, where the bishop awaited him.
"You see," said the prelate, when the musician was introduced into
his presence, "I came all the way from my palace to hear you. Will
you be as cruel as Maese Pérez, who would never once spare me the
journey by consenting to play on Christmas Eve for midnight Mass at
the Cathedral?"
"Next year," answered the organist, "I will give you that pleasure,
for I would not touch this organ again for all the gold in the world."
"Why not?" interrupted the prelate.
"Because," said the organist, trying to control the emotion which was
revealed by the pallor of his countenance,--"because it is old and
poor, and with such an instrument one cannot express all that one
would like."
The archbishop retired, followed by his attendants. One by one the
litters of the noblemen disappeared in the curves of the neighboring
streets. The crowd around the portico was dissolved; and the faithful
dispersed, taking their various directions. The church was about to
be locked when two women, who had lingered to murmur a prayer before
the altar of San Felipe, crossed themselves and went their way,
turning into the Alley of the Dueñas.
"You may say what you choose, my dear Doña Baltasara," said one of
them, "but that is my opinion. Every madman with his whim. I would
not believe it if I heard it from the lips of a barefooted Capuchin.
It is not possible for this man to have played what we have just
heard. I tell you, I heard him a thousand times at San Bartolomé,
which was his parish, and from which he was turned out by the priest
because his music was so poor; my dear, it made you feel like
stopping your ears up with cotton. And then you have only to look at
his face. The face, they say, is the mirror of the soul. Think of
Maese Pérez. Poor dear man! On a night like this, when he came down
from the organ-loft after having held the congregation spell-bound,
what a kind smile he wore! What a happy flush on his countenance! He
was old, and yet he looked like an angel! As for this fellow, he came
stumbling down the stairs as though a dog were barking at him from
the landing, and with a face as pale as that of a corpse. Believe
me, my dear, in all truth, there is some mystery here."