At noon, when at length I roused myself, we were no longer upon the
sea. We swept on tranquilly between banks more picturesque, more
glorious, more laden with spells for me, than any haven I had
fortified with Spanish castles. Castles there were too, or what I took
for castles,--silvery gray amidst leafless trees, and sometimes
softest pine woods with their clinging mist. Then came shining
country, where the sky met the sun-bright slopes, and then a quiet
sail at rest in the tiny harbor. But an hour or two brought me to the
idea of cities, though even they were as cities in a dream. And yet
this was not the Rhine; but I made sure it was so, having forgotten
Clo's geography lessons, and that there could be any other river in
Germany,--so that when Santonio told me its real name I was very angry
at it. After I had wearied myself with gazing, he drew me back to my
seat, and began to speak more consecutively than he had done yet.
"Now, sir," said he, "do you see that castle?" pointing to something
in the prospect which may or may not have been a castle, but which I
immediately realized as one. "You are to be shut up there. Really and
seriously, you have more faith than any one I ever had the honor of
introducing yet, under any circumstances whatever. Pray don't you feel
any curiosity about your destination?"
"Yes, sir, plenty; but I forgot what I was going for."
"And where you were going to?"
"Sir, I did not know where. I thought you would tell me when you
liked."
"I don't know myself, but I daresay we shall fall in with your
favorite 'Chevalier.'"
"My favorite who, sir?"
"The gentleman who enslaved you at the performance of the 'Messiah,'
in your part of the world."
"Oh, sir! what can I ever say to you? I cannot bear it."
"Cannot bear what? Nay, you must not expect too much of him now you
know who he is. He is merely a very clever composer."
"Oh, sir! how did you ever find out?"
"By writing to Milans-Andre,--another idol for you, by the way."
"Oh! I know all about Milans-Andre."
"Indeed! and pray what is all about him?"
"I know he plays wonderfully, and fills a large theatre with one
pianoforte. Stop! He has a handsome face and long arms,--rather too
long for his body. He is very--let me see--something, but not
something else; very famous, but not beloved."
"Who told you that? A most coherent description, as it happens."
"Miss Lawrence."
"Miss Lawrence is a blab. So you have no curiosity to learn your
fate?"
"I know _that_; but I should like to know where I am going."
"To an old gentleman in a hollow cave."
"I wish I were, and then perhaps he would teach me to make gold."
"That is like a Jew, fie! But the fiddle has made gold."
"Why like a Jew? Because they are rich,--Jews, I mean?"
"Richer generally than most folks, but not all either."
"Oh, sir! I did not mean money." But as I looked at him, I felt he
would not, could not, understand what I meant, so I returned to the
former charge.
"Does he live in a cellar, sir, or in a very old house?"
"In an old house, certainly. But you won't like him, Auchester,--at
least not at first; only he will work you rightly, and take care of
your morals and health."
"How, sir?"
"By locking you up when you are at home, and sending you to walk out
every day."
"Don't they all send the boys out to walk in Germany then?"
"I suppose so. But how shall you like being locked up?"
"In the dark, sir, do you mean?"
"No, boy; to practise in a little cave of your own."
"What _does_ make you call it a cave?"
"Because great treasures are hidden there for such as like the bore of
grubbing them up. You have no idea, by the way, how much dirty work
there is to do anything at all in music."
"I suppose you mean, to _get_ at anything. But it cannot be worse than
what people go through to get to heaven."
"If that is your notion, you are all right. I have taken some trouble
to get you into this place, for the old gentleman is a whimsical one,
and takes very few pupils now."
"Did you know him, sir, before you heard of him for me?"
"He taught me all I know, except what I taught myself, and that was
preciously little. But that was before he came to Lorbeerstadt. I knew
nothing about this place. Your favorite learned of him when he was
your age, and long afterwards."
"Who, sir,--the same?"
"The conductor."
"Oh, sir!" It was a dreadful thing to feel I had, as it were, got hold
of him and lost him again; but Santonio's manner was such that I did
not think he could mean the same person.
"Are you sure it is the same, Mr. Santonio?" I reiterated again, and
yet again, while my companion, whose laugh had passed into a yawn, was
gazing at the smoke.
"Sure? Of course I am sure. I know every conductor in Europe."
"I daresay you do, sir; but this is not a common conductor."
"No conductors are common, my friend. He is very clever, a genius too,
and will do a great deal; but he is too young at present to be talked
of without caution."
"Why, sir?"
"Because we may spoil him."
I was indignant, I was sick, but so impotent I could only say, "Sir,
has he ever heard _you_ play?"
"I cannot tell really all the people who hear me play. I don't know
who they are in public."
"Have you ever heard _him_ play?"
"No."
"Oh, sir! then how _can_ you know? What makes you call him Chevalier?
Is that his real name?"
"I tell you precisely what I was told, my boy; Milans-Andre calls him
'My young friend the Chevalier,'--nothing else. Most likely they gave
him the order."
Santonio was now talking Dutch to me, and yet I could not bring myself
to detain him by further questioning, for he had strolled to the
staircase. Soon afterwards the dinner-bell rang. The afternoon being a
little spent, we came up again and rested. It was twilight now, and my
heart throbbed as it ever does in that intermediate dream. Soon
Santonio retired to smoke, and I then lay all along a seat, and looked
to heaven until I fell into a doze; and all I felt was real, and I
knew less of what was passing around me than of that which stirred
within. Long it may have been, but it seemed very soon and suddenly
that I was rudely brought to myself by a sound and skurry, and a
suspension of our progress. It was dark and bleak besides, and as
foggy as I had ever seen it in England,--the lamp at our head was like
a moon; and all about me there were shapes, not sights, of houses, and
echoes, not sounds, of voices from the shore.
The shore, indeed! And my first impression of Germany was one of
simple astonishment to find it, on the whole, so much like, or so
little unlike, England. I told Santonio so much, as he stood next me,
and curbed me with his arm from going forwards. He answered that he
supposed I thought they all lived in fiddle-cases and slept upon
pianofortes. I was longing to land indefinably. I knew not where I
was, how near or how far from my appointed place of rest. I will not
say my heart was sad, it was only sore, to find Santonio, though so
handsome, not quite so beautiful a spirit as my first friend, Lenhart
Davy. We watched almost half the passengers out of the boat; the rest
were to continue their fresh-water route to a large city far away, and
we were the last to land of all who landed there.
In less than an hour, thanks to Santonio's quickening of the pulses of
existence at our first landing-place, we were safe in a hackney-coach
(very unlike any other conveyance), if indeed it could be called
"safe" to be so bestowed, as I was continually precipitated against
Santonio. His violin-case had never left his hand since we quitted the
vessel,--and this was just as well, for it might have suffered from
the jolting. Its master was all kindness now. "Cheer up," said he; "do
not let your idea of German life begin here. You will soon find plenty
to amuse you." He rubbed the reeking fog from one glass with his
handkerchief forthwith, and I, peeping out, saw something of houses
drawing near. They were dim and tall and dark, as if they had never
fronted daylight. It took us quite half an hour to reach the village,
notwithstanding, for our pace was laboriously tardy; and again and
again I wished I had stayed with Santonio at the little inn where we
took the coach, and to which he was himself to return to sleep, having
bespoken a bed there; for I felt that day would have done everything
for me in manning and spiriting me, and that there was too much
mystery in my transition state already to bear the surcharging mystery
of night with thought undaunted. Coming into that first street, I
believed we should stop every instant, for the faint few lamps, strung
here and there, gave me a notion of gabled windows and gray-black
arches, nothing more definite than any dream; so much the better.
Still we stopped not anywhere in that region, nor even when, having
passed the market-place with its little colonnade, we turned, or were
shaken, into a quiet square. It came upon me like a nook of panorama;
but I heard the splash of falling water before I beheld, starting from
the mist, its shape, as it poured into a basin of shadowy stone
beneath a skeleton tree, whose lowest sprays I could have touched as
we drove near the fountain, so close we came. And then I saw before me
a church, and could discern the stately steps and portico, even the
crosses on the graves, which bade me remember that they died also in
Germany. No organ echoes pealed, or choral song resounded, no chime
struck; but my heart beat all these tunes, and for the first time I
associated the feeling of religion with any earth-built shrine.
It was in a street beyond the square, and overlooked by the tower of
the church itself, that at length we stopped indeed, and that I found
myself bewildered at once by darkness and expectation, standing upon
the pavement before a foreign doorway, enough for any picture of the
brain.
"Now," said my escort, "I will take you upstairs first,--for you would
never find your way,--and then return and see after all these things.
The man won't run away with them, I believe,--he is too ugly to be
anything but honest. I hope you do not expect a footman to open the
door?"
"I dislike footmen, but there is no knocker. Please show me the bell,
Mr. Santonio."
"Please remember that this is a mountain which contains many caves
besides that to which we are about to commit you. And if you interfere
with anybody else's cave, the inhabitant will spring up yours with
gunpowder."
"I know that a great many people live in one house,--my mother said
so; but she never told me how you got into the houses."
"I will tell you now. You see the bells here, like organ-stops: this
is yours. Number I cannot read, but I know it from the description I
took care to procure. I will ring now, and they will let us in."
I found, after waiting in profound expectation, that the door had set
itself open, just as the gate of the London Temple Garden is wont to
do; but instead of finding access to sunshine and beds of flowers, we
were plunged, on our entrance, into darkness which might be felt.
Santonio, evidently accustomed to all conventionalities of all
countries, expressed no astonishment, and did not even grumble, as I
should have expected a person of his temperament to do. I was so
astonished that I could not speak. How soon I learned to love that
very darkness, and to leap up and down those very stairs even in the
darkness! though I now held Santonio's hand so tightly that I could
feel the lissom muscles double up and bend in. He drew me after him
gently and carefully to the first floor, and again to the second
without speaking, and then we stood still to take breath.
"That was a pull!" he observed. "Suppose the old gentleman has gone to
bed?"
"Oh, sir! then I will go back with you until to-morrow."
"No, indeed." He laid hold upon my arm. "Listen! hush!"
I stood listening from head to foot. I heard the beloved but
unfamiliar voice; creeping down another story, it came--_my_ violin,
or _the_ violin, somewhere up in the clouds. I longed to rush forward
now, and positively ran up the stairs yet remaining. There upon my one
hand was the door through whose keyhole, whose every crack, that sound
had streamed, and I knew it as I passed, and waited for Santonio upon
the haunted precinct.
"Now," said he, arriving very leisurely at the top, "we shall go in to
see the old gentleman."
"Will he have a beard, sir, as he is a Jew?"
"Who told you he has a Jew-beard? Nevertheless he has a beard; but
pray hold your tongue about the Jews,--at least till you know him a
little better."
"I do not mean," thought I diffidently, "to talk to the old gentleman.
If he is a Jew I shall know it, and it will be enough;" but I did not
say so to Santonio, who did not appear to prize his lineage as I did
the half of mine. My heart began to beat faster than from the steep
ascent, when he, without preparing me further, rapped very vigorously
upon another unseen door. I heard no voice reply, but I concluded he
did, as he deliberately turned the lock, and drew me immediately after
him as I had shrunk behind him. I need not have been afraid,--the room
was empty. It was a room full of dusky light; that is, all tones which
blended into it were dim, and its quaint nicety put every new-world
notion out of the way for the time. The candles upon the table were
brightly trimmed, but not wax,--only slender wax ones beamed in
twisted sconces from the desk of an organ that took up the whole side
of the room, opposing us as we entered, and whose pipes were to my
imagining childhood lost in the clouds, indeed, for the roof of the
room had been broken to admit them. The double key-board, open,
glittered black and white, and I was only too glad to be able to
examine it as closely as I wished. The room had no carpet, but I did
not miss it or want it, for the floor was satin bright with polish,
and its general effect was ebony, while that of the furniture was oak.
There was a curious large closet in a corner, like another little room
put away into this one; but what surprised me most was that the
chamber was left to itself.
"Where is he?" said Santonio, appealing to the silence; but then he
seemed to be reminded, and shouted very loud in German some name I
could not realize, but which I write, having since realized.
"Aronach![13] where art thou?"
In German, and very loud, a voice replied, as coming down the
organ-pipes: "I am aloft chastising an evil spirit; nor will I descend
until I have packed the devil downstairs." At this instant, more at
hand than the sound I had met upon the staircase, there was a wail as
of a violin in pain; but I could not tell whether it was a fiddle or a
child, until the wail, in continuing, shifted from semitone to
semitone.
Santonio sat down in one of the chairs and laughed; then arose, having
recovered himself, and observed, "If this is his behavior, I may as
well go and see after your boxes. Keep yourself here till I come back;
but if he come down, salute him in German, and it will be all right."
He retired and I remained; and now I resolved to have another good
look. One side of the room I had not yet examined. Next the door I
found a trio or quartet of three-legged stools, fixed one into the
other, and nearest them a harpsichord,--a very harpsichord with
crooked legs. It was covered with baize, and a pile of music-books
reposed upon the baize, besides some antique instrument-cases. Other
and larger cases were on the floor beneath the harpsichord; there
hung a talisman or two of glittering brass upon the wall, by floating
ribbons of red.
Then I fastened myself upon the pictures, and those strange wreaths of
withered leaves that waved between them, and whose searest hues
befitted well their vicinage. As I stood beneath those pictures, those
dead-brown garlands rustled as if my light breath had been the autumn
wind. I was stricken at once with melancholy and romance, but I
understood not clearly the precise charm of those relics, or my
melancholy would have lost itself in romance alone.
There was one portrait of Bach. I knew it again, though it was a
worthier hint of him than Davy's; and underneath that portrait was
something of the same kind, which vividly fascinated me by its
subject. It was a very young head, almost that of an infant, lying,
rather than bending, over an oblong book, such in shape as those
represented in pictures of literary cherubs. The face was more than
half forehead, which the clustering locks could not conceal, though
they strove to shadow; and in revenge, the hair swept back and tumbled
sideways, curling into the very swell of the tender shoulder. The
countenance was of sun-bright witchery, lustrous as an elf of summer
laughing out of a full-blown rose. Tiny hands were doubled round the
book, and the lips wore themselves a smile that seemed to stir and
dimple, and to flutter those floating ringlets. It was strange I was,
though so unutterably drawn to it, in nothing reminded of any child or
man I had ever seen, but merely thought it an ideal of the infant
music, if music could personate infancy. After a long, long gaze I
looked away, expressly to have the delight of returning to it; and
then I saw the stove and approved of it, instead of missing, as I was
told at home I should miss, the hearthrug and roseate fire-shine.
Indeed, the stove was much more in keeping here, according to my
outlandish taste.
Before I returned to the picture Santonio re-entered, and finding me
still alone, took up a broom which he discovered in some region, and,
mounted on a chair, made with it no very gentle demonstrations upon
the ceiling, which was low, and which he could thus easily reach. In
about ten minutes more, I could feel, no less than hear, a footstep I
did not know, for I am generally cognizant of footsteps. This was
cautious and slow, yet not heavy; and I was aware it could be none
other than that of my master presumptive. If I could have turned
myself into a mustard-pot, to delay my introduction, I would have done
so without the slightest hesitation; but no! I remained myself, and
he, all himself, opened the door and came in. I had expected a tall
man,--broad; here was a little gentleman no bigger than Davy, with a
firm and defiant tread, clad in a garment that wrapped about his feet,
in color brown, that passed well into the atmosphere of his cave. He
confronted Santonio as if that wonder were a little girl in
petticoats, with no more reverence and not less benevolence, for he
laid one arm upon his shoulder and embraced him, as in England only
very young and tender brothers embrace, or a son embraces his father.
There was complaisance together with condescension in his aspect; but
when he turned upon me, both complaisance and condescension were
overpast, and a lour of indifference clouded my very faculties as with
a film of worldly fear. Then he chucked me under the chin, and held me
by it a moment without my being aware whether he examined me or not,
so conveniently disposed were his black eye-lashes; and then he let
me go again, and turned his back upon me.
"Sit!" said he to Santonio; and then he threw his hand behind him, and
pointing, without turning his head, indicated the group of stools. I
nervously disentangled one and sat down upon it then and there by the
side of the very harpsichord. Santonio being also seated, and wearing,
though as cool as usual, a less dominant aspect, the brisk demon
marched to the bureau, which I had taken little heed of, under the
window, but which, upon his opening, I discovered to be full of all
sorts of drawers and pigeon-holes, where a family of young mice would
have enjoyed a game at hide-and-seek. He stood there writing, without
any apology, for some time, and only left off when a female servant,
brilliant and stolid as a Dutch doll, threw the door open again to
bring in supper.
She carried both tureens and dishes, and went into the closet after
bottles of wine and a tablecloth; and everything she did was very
orderly, and done very quietly. She spoke to Aronach, having arranged
the table; and he arose, wiped his pen, and closed the bureau. Then he
came to Santonio, and addressed him in most beautiful clear German,
such German as was my mother's mother-tongue.
"I travelled very comfortably, thank you," said Santonio, in reply to
some inquiry suggestive of the journey, "and I am glad to see you
younger than ever."
"Oh! my sort don't die; we are tough as hempen cloth. It is _that_
make which frets itself threadbare,"--he pointed obviously at me.
"What is to be done with him, eh?"
"To be left here, of course, as we agreed."
"Recollect my conditions. I turn him out if he become ill."
"Oh! he is very well indeed; they are all pale in England, they have
no sun."
"_Be_ well then!" said Aronach, threateningly, yet not terrifyingly,
"and _keep_ well!"
What a silvery stream swept over his shirt-bosom! it was soft as
whitest moonlight. "Is that a beard?" thought I--"how beautiful must
the high-priest have looked!" This thought still touched me, when in
came a boy in a blouse, and I heard no more of his practice as I now
recognized it, though the wail still came from above, fitful and
woebegone. This boy was tall and slender, and his face, though he had
an elegant head, was too formed and adult to be agreeable or very
taking for me. His only expression was that of haughty self-content;
but there was no real pride in his bearing, and no reserve. His hands
were large, but very well articulated and extremely white; there was
no spirit in them, and no spirituality in his aspect. He took no
notice of me, except to curl his upper lip--which was not short, and
which a curl did not become--as he lifted a second stool and carried
it up to the table; nor did he wait to be asked to sit down upon it,
and having done so, to smooth his hair off his forehead and lean his
elbows upon the table. Then Aronach took a chair, and admonished
Santonio to do the same. The latter made himself instantly at home,
but most charmingly so, and began to help himself from a dish
directly. The young gentleman upon the stool was just about to lift
the cover from the tureen in the same style, when Aronach roused, and
looking grandly upon him said, or rather muttered, "Where are thy
manners? Is it thy place in my house to ape my guests? See to thy
companion there, who is wearier than thou, and yet he waits. Go and
bring him up, or thou shalt give thy supper to the cat's daughter."
"So I will," responded the blouse, with assurance; and leaving his
stool abruptly, he ran into the closet aforementioned, and brought
back a kitten, which as he held it by the nape of its neck came
peaceably enough, but upon his dropping it roughly to the floor, set
up a squeak. Now the wrath of Aronach appeared too profound for
utterance. Raising his deep-set but lightsome eyes from a perfect
thicket of lashes, he gave the impertinent one look which reminded me
of Van Amburgh in the lion's den. Then, ladling three or four
spoonfuls of soup or broth into a plate, he set the plate upon the
floor and the kitten at it, so seriously, that I dared not laugh. The
kitten, meantime, unused to strong meats, for it was not a week-old
mite, mewed and whined in antiphon to the savage lamentations of
another cat in the closet, its maternal parent. The blouse never
stirred an inch, save carelessly to sneer over his shoulder at me; and
I never loved him from that moment. But Santonio nodded to me
significantly, as to say, "Come here!" and I came and planted my stool
at his side.
Aronach took no notice, but went on pouring coffee, one cup of which
he set by the kitten. Again she piteously smelled, but finding it even
worse than the broth, she crept up to the closet-door and smelled at
that.
"Go up!" said Aronach, to the blouse, "and send Burney to his supper.
He shall have the cat's supper, as thou hast given thine to the cat."
He went out sulkily, and the wail above ceased. I also heard
footsteps, but he came back again alone.
"He won't come down."
"Won't! Did he say 'won't,' Iskar? Have a care!"
"He says he wants no supper."
"That I have taken away his stomach, eh? Come hither, thou black and
white bird that art not yet a pyet."
This was to me; I was just sliding from my stool.
"Eat and drink first, and then thou shalt carry it to him. Thou
lookest better brought up. Don't grimace, Iskar, or thou shalt sleep
in the cupboard with the cat, and the rats shall dance in thy fine
curls. So now eat, Aukester, if that be thy name."
"Sir, I am Carl; will you please to call me Carl?"
He gave me a glance from behind the coffee-stand. Sparks as from steel
seemed to come out of his orbs and fly about my brain; but I was not
frightened the least, for the lips of this austerest of autocrats were
smiling like sunlight beneath the silver hair. I saw at this moment
that Aronach had a bowl of smoking milk crammed with bread by his
side, and believing it to be for the violin up in the clouds, and
concluding inferentially that the unseen was some one very small, I
entreated Aronach without fear to let me carry it to him while yet it
smoked.
He did not object, but rather stared, and observed to Santonio, "His
father makes a baby of him; to give a boy such stuff is enough to make
a girl grow up instead." Still he handed it to me with the caution,
"If thou fallest on thy nose in going up to heaven, the kitten will
lose her supper, for the milk is all used up in the town." I could
just see a very narrow set of steps, exactly like a belfry-stair, when
I opened the door, and having shut it again and found myself in
darkness, I concluded to leave the bowl on the ground till I had
explored to the top. I did so, and spun upwards, discovering another
door, to which, though also in darkness, the wail of the violin became
my light. I just unlatched it, and returned for my burden, carefully
adjusting spoon and basin on the road back. I knocked first, not to
alarm the semi-tonic inhabitant; and then, receiving no intimation,
entered of my own accord. It was a queer region, hardly so superior as
a garret, extremely low and vast, with mountains of lumber in every
corner, and in the midst a pile of boxes with a portmanteau or two,
and many items of property which for me were nondescript. It had no
furniture of its own besides, but to do it justice it was
weather-proof. I could see all this rugged imagery on the instant, but
not so easily I discerned a little figure in the very centre of the
boxes, sitting upon the least of the boxes, and solitarily regaling
the silence, without either desk or book, with what had made me suffer
below stairs. The organ-pipes came up here, and reached to the very
roof; they gave me a strange feeling as of something misplaced and
mangled, but otherwise I was charmed to discover them. I hastened
across the floor. The player was certainly not an adept,--a tiny,
lonely looking boy, who as I went up to him almost let his fiddle fall
with fright, and shrank from me as some little children do from dogs.
I was as tall again as he, and felt quite manly. "I am only come," I
said, "to bring your supper,--have it while it is hot; it is so good
then!"
Do not believe, sweet reader, that my German was more polished than my
English,--it was quite the same. He dropped his bow upon the nearest
box, and depressing his violin so that it touched the ground while he
still held it, looked up at me with such a wistful wonder, his lip
still quivering, his pretty hair all ruffled up.
"I don't want it, thank you."
"You must eat it; you have been up here ever so long."
"Yes, a good while; please take it away. Are you the new one who was
coming?"
"Who said I was coming?"
"The master. He said you would beat us both, and get first to
Cecilia."
"That is because I am older. I can't play the least in the world. I
don't know even how to hold the bow. Come, _do_ eat this good-looking
stuff."
"I don't think I can, I feel so sick."
"That is because you _do_ want something to eat."
"It is not that"--he touched my jacket. "This is what they wear in
England. I do wish you would talk English to me."
I was touched almost into tears. "You are such a little darling!" I
exclaimed; and I would have given anything to fondle him, but I was
afraid of staying, so I took a spoonful of the milk and put it to his
lips, still another and another, till he had taken it all; and then I
said, "Do not practise any more;" for he was disconsolately gathering
up his bow.
"I must until bed-time; but I am so sleepy."
"Why are you left up here? I will stay with you."
"No, no, you must not. I only came up here because the master caught
me looking out of the window this morning, and the windows here don't
show you anything but the sky."
As I went out at the door I looked after him again. He was just
finishing one of those long yawns that babies delight in. The moment I
found my way below, I marched to the master's chair. He was awful in
his dignity then, with the wine-bottle beside him and a glass held
half-way to his lips.
"Sir, he has eaten it all, but he is so very sleepy; mayn't he go to
bed?"
Santonio was so overcome with laughter at my audacity, though I was
really very much alarmed, that he leaned back in his chair and shook
again. Aronach bent upon me his flowing beard: "Dost thou know to
refrain thyself, as well as thou knowest to rebuke thine elders?" But
I could plainly see he was not angry, for he arose and tapped upon the
ceiling with a stout oak staff that he fished from the unimagined
closet. Then the little one came down and into the room, shy of
Santonio, and keeping behind his chair, as he murmured "Good-night" to
Aronach. The latter gave him a nod which would not have disgraced Jove
in full council. Santonio requested very kindly that I too might go to
bed; and in a few minutes I found myself in that little cave of my own
of which he had made mention.
Its entrance was hard by, through one of the very doors I had noticed
when the glimmer showed me the staircase, and it entirely answered my
expectations, in so far as it was very dim and haunted-looking, very
unlike my own room in England, or any of our rooms at home. It had a
stove, a looking-glass, and a press large enough to contain a bride's
trousseau complete. There was also a recess which seemed lined with
London fog, but which, on examination by the light of my candle, I
found to contain the bed in a box of which my mother had forewarned
me. I could no more have slept in it than if it had been a coffin, and
for the first time I fully appreciated her provision for my comfort in
this particular. My boxes were all there, and I uncorded them and drew
forth my keys. My excellent sister Clo had packed in one trunk the bed
and bedding, and one set of night-clothes, also a variety of
toilet necessaries in holland bags. It was quite an affair to lift out
the pieces; they were fitted into each other so beautifully that it
was natural to imagine they could never be got back again. None but an
experienced feminine hand could have accomplished such a feat, and
very carefully had I been inducted into the puzzlement of putting the
parts together. I had just unfolded the tight white mattress, so
narrow, but so exactly wide enough, when Santonio knocked at the door
to bid me good-night and farewell; and as he came in he assisted me in
the accomplishment of my plans with that assiduous deftness which
pre-eminently distinguishes the instrumental artist. He most kindly
offered to see me into bed; but that was out of the question, so I let
him go with my hearty thanks. It was not the least a melancholy
feeling with which I stretched myself, all tingling with my rapid
ablutions, beneath my home-blanket. I did not the least long after
home, nor the least experience the mother-sickness that is the very
treble-string of humility to many a hero in his inaugurative exile;
but I felt extremely old, grand, and self-reliant, especially
satisfied, in spite of my present ignorance, that by some means or
other this Aronach would make a man of me, and not a trifler. I was
just asleep when I heard a hand on the lock, and that no dream, for a
voice vociferated, roughly enough,--"Out with the light!" I sprang up
and opened the door.
"It is only my little lamp, sir, that I brought with me, and it is
very safe, as you see; but still, if you wish it, I will try to sleep
in the dark. I have never liked to do so, because it excites me."
"Bah! thou art too young to know the meaning of excitement. But for
the sake of some one else who loves the night-lamp, thou mayest keep
thine eyes open with it, and thank him too, for it is his doing. Now
get back to bed! and don't come out again,--the quick and living walk
not about in night-smocks here."
I heard him bolt me in as soon as I shut the door. I cannot say this
proceeding pleased me, but on the contrary cost me many a cold sweat
until I became accustomed to it. I lay a little while awake, now
spying out such variations from English style as had escaped me on my
first acquaintance with my quarters; then reverted to Aronach's dark
hint about the person who, like me, was excited by the darkness; and
at last recollected my contemporaries, and speculated upon their
present circumstantials. Most softly did that poor little soul present
himself to mine as he played with my buttons, and I secretly
determined to become his protector and ally. As for the imp in the
blouse, I abjured him at first sight; perhaps because he was, though
repugnant to my taste, handsome and elegant, and I was neither.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] It is generally accepted that Aronach is a portrait of Zelter,
the friend of Goethe and teacher of Mendelssohn, who was for many
years director of the Sing Akademie at Berlin. He was the first who
inspired Mendelssohn with his love for John Sebastian Bach's music.