CHAPTER LXXVI

IT is not a very alarming predicament to find one's self without money when near the end of a journey, but even though our young artists had still been very far from their destination, they would not have felt less gay than they were on finding themselves entirely penniless. One must thus be without resources in an unknown country (Joseph was almost as much a stranger at this distance from Vienna as Consuelo) to know what a marvelous sense of security, what an inventive and enterprising genius, is revealed as if by magic in the artist who has just spent his last farthing. Until then, it is a species of agony, a constant fear of want, a gloomy apprehension of sufferings, embarrassments, and humiliations, which disappear as soon as you have heard the ring of your last piece of money. Then, for romantic spirits, a new world begins—a holy confidence in the charity of others, and numberless charming illusions; but also an aptitude for labor and a feeling of complacency which soon enabled them to triumph over the first obstacles. Consuelo, who experienced a feeling of romantic pleasure in this return to the indigence of her earlier days, and who felt happy at having done good by the exercise of self-denial, immediately found an expedient to ensure their supper and night's lodging. "This is Sunday," said she to Joseph; "you shall play some dancing tunes in passing through the first village we come to; we shall find people who want to dance before we have gone through two streets, and we shall be the minstrels. Do you know how to make an oaten pipe? I can soon learn to use it, and if I can draw some sounds from it, it will serve very well as an accompaniment to you."

"Do I know how to make a pipe?" replied Joseph; "you shall see!"

They soon found a fine reed growing at the river's side, and having pierced it carefully, it sounded wonderfully well. A perfect unison was obtained, the rehearsal followed, and then our young people marched off very tranquilly until they reached a small hamlet three miles off, into which they made their entrance to the sound of their instruments, and crying before each door, "Who wishes to dance? Who wishes to dance? Here is the music, the ball is going to begin."

They reached a little square planted with lofty trees, escorted by a troop of children, who followed them, marching, shouting, and clapping their hands. In a short time some joyous couples came to raise the first dust by opening the dance; and before the soil was well trodden, the whole population assembled and made a circle around a rustic ball, got up impromptu, without preparation or delay, After the first waltzes, Joseph put his violin under his arm, and Consuelo, mounting upon her chair, made a speech to the company to prove to them that fasting artists had weak fingers and short breath. Five minutes afterward they had as much as they wished of bread and cheese, beer and cakes. As to the salary, that was soon agreed upon; a collection was to be made, and each was to give what he chose.

After having eaten, they mounted upon a hogshead which had been rolled triumphantly into the middle of the square, and the dance began afresh; but, after the lapse of two hours, they were interrupted by a piece of news which made every body anxious, and passed from mouth to mouth until it reached the minstrels. The shoemaker of the place, while hurriedly finishing a pair of shoes for an impatient customer, had just stuck his awl into his thumb.

"It is a serious matter, a great misfortune," said an old man, who was leaning against the hogshead which served them as a pedestal. "Gottlieb, the shoemaker, is the organist of our village, and tomorrow is the fête-day of our patron saint. Oh, what a grand fête! what a beautiful fête! There is nothing like it for ten leagues round. Our mass especially is a wonder, and people come a great distance to hear it. Gottlieb is a real chapel-master; he plays the organ, he makes the children sing, he sings himself; there is nothing he does not do, especially on that day. He is the soul of every thing; without him all is lost. And what will the canon say, the canon of St. Stephen's, who comes himself to officiate at the mass, and who is always so well pleased with our music? For he is music-mad, the good canon, and it is a great honor for us to see him at our altar, he who hardly ever leaves his benefice, and does not put himself out of his way for a trifle."

"Well!" said Consuelo, "there is one means of arranging all this; either my comrade or myself will take charge of the organ, of the direction—in a word, of the mass; and if the canon is not satisfied, you shall give us nothing for our pains."

"Oh, ho!" said the old man, "you talk very much at your ease, young man; our mass cannot be played with a violin and a flute. Oh no! it is a serious matter, and you do not understand our scores."

"We will understand them this very evening," said Joseph, affecting an air of disdainful superiority which imposed upon the audience grouped around him."

"Come," said Consuelo, "conduct us to the church; let some one blow the organ, and if you are not satisfied with our style of playing, you shall be at liberty to refuse our aid."

"But the score? Gottlieb's master-piece of arrangement?"

"We will go and see Gottlieb, and if he does not declare himself satisfied with us, we renounce our pretensions. Besides, a wound in his finger will not prevent Gottlieb from directing the choir and singing his part."

The elders of the village, who were assembled around them, took counsel together and determined to make the trial. The ball was abandoned; the canon's mass was quite a different amusement, quite another affair from dancing!

Haydn and Consuelo, after playing the organ alternately and singing together and separately, were pronounced to be very passable musicians for want of better. Some mechanics even dared to hint that their playing was preferable to Gottlieb's, and that the fragments of Scarlatti, of Pergolese, and of Bach, which they produced, were at least as fine as the music of Holzbaüer, which Gottlieb always stuck to. The curate, who hastened to listen to them, went so far as to say that the canon would much prefer these airs to those with which they usually regaled him. The sacristan, who was by no means pleased with this opinion, shook his head sorrowfully; and not to make his parishioners discontented, the curate consented that the two virtuosi sent by Heaven should come to an understanding if possible with Gottlieb to accompany the mass.

They proceeded in a body to the shoemaker's house; he was obliged to display his inflamed hand to every one in order that they might see plainly he could not fill his post of organist. The impossibility was only too apparent. Gottlieb had a certain amount of musical capacity, and played the organ passably; but spoiled by the praises of his fellow-citizens, and the somewhat mocking flatteries of the canon, he displayed an inconceivable amount of conceit in his execution and management. He lost temper when they proposed to replace him by two birds of passage; he would have preferred that there had been no fête at all, and that the canon had gone without music, rather than share the honors and triumph. Nevertheless he had to yield the point; he pretended for a long time to search for the different parts, and it was only when the curate threatened to give up the entire choice of the music to the two young artists that he at last found them. Consuelo and Joseph had to prove their acquirements by reading at sight the most difficult passages in that one of the twenty-six masses of Holzbaüer which was to be performed next day. This music, although devoid of genius and originality, was at least well written and easy to comprehend, especially for Consuelo, who had surmounted much more difficult trials. The auditors were enraptured, and Gottlieb, who grew more and more out of sorts, declared he had caught fever, and that he was going to bed, delighted that every body was content.

As soon as the voices and instruments were assembled in the church, our two little chapel-masters directed the rehearsal. All went on well. The brewer, the weaver, the school-master, and the baker of the village, played the four violins. The children, with their parents, all good-natured, attentive, and phlegmatic artisans and peasants, made up the choir. Joseph had already heard Holzbaüer's music at Vienna, where it was in vogue. They set to work, and Consuelo, taking up the air alternately in the different parts, led the choristers so well that they surpassed themselves. There were two solos, which the son and niece of Gottlieb, his favorite pupils, and the first singers in the parish, were to perform; but the neophytes did not appear, alleging as a reason that they were already sure of their parts.

Joseph and Consuelo went to sup at the parsonage, where an apartment had been prepared for them. The good curate was delighted from his heart, and it was clear that he set great store by the beauty of his mass, in the hopes of thereby pleasing his reverend superior.

Next day all the village was astir. The bells were chiming, and the roads were covered with the faithful from the surrounding country, flocking in to be present at the solemnity. The canon's carriage approached at a slow and majestic pace. The church was decked out in its richest ornaments, and Consuelo was much amused with the self-importance of every one around her. It almost put her in mind of the vanities and rivalries of the theater, only here matters were conducted with more openness, and there was more to occasion laughter than arouse indignation. Half-an-hour before the mass commenced, the sacristan came in a dreadful state of consternation to disclose a plot of the jealous and perfidious Gottlieb. Having learned that the rehearsal had been excellent, and that the parish was quite enraptured with the new-comers, he had pretended to be very ill, and forbid his son and niece, the two principal performers, to leave his bedside for a moment; so that they must want Gottlieb's presence to set things a-going, as well as the solos, which were the most beautiful morceaux in the mass. The assistants were so discouraged, that the precise and bustling sacristan had great difficulty to get them to meet in the church in order to hold a council of war.

Joseph and Consuelo ran to find them, made them repeat over the more intricate passages, sustained the flagging, and gave confidence and courage to all. As for the solos, they quickly arranged to perform them themselves. Consuelo consulted her memory, and recollected a religious solo by Porpora, suitable to the air and words of the part. She wrote it out on her knee, and rehearsed it hastily with Joseph, so as to enable him to accompany her. She also turned to account a fragment of Sebastian Bach which he knew, and which they arranged as they best could to suit the occasion.

The bell tolled for mass while they were yet rehearsing, and almost drowned their voices with its din. When the canon, clothed in all his robes of state, appeared at the altar, the choir had already commenced, and was getting through a German fugue in very good style. Consuelo was delighted in listening to these good German peasants with their grave faces, their voices in perfect tune, their accurate time, and their earnestness, well sustained because always kept within proper bounds.

"See!" said she to Joseph during a pause, "those are the people to perform this music. If they had the fire which the composer was deficient in, all would go wrong; but they have it not, and his forced and mechanical ideas are repeated as if by mechanism. How does it happen that the illustrious Count Hoditz-Roswald is not here to conduct these machines? He would have taken a world of trouble, been of no use whatever, and remained the best satisfied person in the world."

The male solo was awaited with much anxiety and some uneasiness. Joseph got well through his part, but when it came to Consuelo's turn, her Italian manner first astonished the audience, then shocked them a little, and at last ended by delighting them. The cantatrice sung in her best style, and her magnificent voice transported Joseph to the seventh heaven.

"I cannot imagine," said he, "that you ever sang better than at this poor village mass today—at least with more enthusiasm and delight. This sort of audience sympathizes more than that of a theater. In the meantime, let me see if the canon be satisfied. Ah! the good man seems in a state of placid rapture, and from the way in which every one looks to his countenance for approbation and reward, it is easy to perceive that heaven is the last thing thought of by any present, except yourself, Consuelo! Faith and divine love could alone inspire excellence like yours."

When the two virtuosi left the church after mass was over, the people could scarcely be dissuaded from bearing them off in triumph. The curate presented them to the canon, who was profuse in his eulogiums upon them, and requested to hear Porpora's solo again. But Consuelo, who was surprised, and with good reason, that no one had discovered her female voice, and who feared the canon's eye, excused herself on the plea that the rehearsal and the different parts she sang in the choir had fatigued her. The excuse was overruled, and they found themselves obliged to accept the curate's invitation to breakfast with the canon.

The canon was a man about fifty years of age, with a benevolent expression and handsome features, and remarkably well-made, although somewhat inclined to corpulence. His manners were distinguished, even noble, and he told every one in confidence that he had royal blood in his veins, being one of the numerous illegitimate descendents of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of of Poland.

He was gracious and affable, as a man of the world and a dignified ecclesiastic should be. Joseph observed along with him a layman whom he appeared to treat at once with consideration and familiarity. Joseph thought he had seen this person at Vienna, but he could not recollect his name.

"Well, my children," said the canon, "you refuse me a second hearing of Porpora's composition. Here is one of my friends, a hundred times a better musician and judge than I am, who was equally struck with your execution of the piece. Since you are tired," added he, addressing Joseph, "I shall not torment you further, but have the goodness to inform me what is your name, and where you have studied music?"

Joseph perceived that he got the credit of Consuelo's performance, and he saw at a glance that he was not to correct the canon's mistake.

"My name is Joseph," replied he, briefly, "and I studied at the free school of St. Stephen's."

"And I also," replied the stranger; "I studied with the elder Reuter, as you probably with the younger."

"Yes, sir."

"But you have had other lessons? You have studied in Italy?"

"No, sir."

"It was you who played the organ?"

"Sometimes I played it, and sometimes my companion?"

"But who sang?"

"We both sang."

"Yes; but I mean Porpora's theme; was it not you?" said the unknown, glancing at Consuelo.

"Bah! it was that child!" said the canon, also looking at Consuelo; "he is too young to be able to sing in that style."

"True, sir; it was not I, but he," she replied quickly, looking at Joseph. She was anxious to get rid of these questions, and turned impatiently toward the door.

"Why do you tell fibs, my child?" said the curate. "I saw and heard you sing yesterday, and I at once recognized your companion's voice in Bach's solo."

"Come, you are deceived, Mr. Curate," continued the stranger, with a knowing smile, "or else this young man is unusually modest. However it may be, you are both entitled to high praise."

Then drawing the curate aside, he said, "You have an accurate ear, but your eyes are far from being equally so; it speaks well for the purity of your thoughts. But I must not the less inform you that this little Hungarian peasant is a most able Italian prima donna."

"A woman in disguise!" cried the curate, endeavoring to repress an exclamation of surprise.

He looked attentively at Consuelo, while she stood ready to reply to the canon's questions, and whether from pleasure or indignation, the good curate reddened from his skull-cap to his hands.

"The fact is as I have informed you," replied the unknown. "I cannot imagine who she is, and as to her disguise and precarious situation, I can only ascribe them to madness or to some love affair. But such things concern us not, Mr. Curate."

"A love affair?" exclaimed the excited curate. "A runaway match—an intrigue with this youth? Oh! it is shocking to be so taken in! I who received them in my abode! Fortunately, however, from the precautions which I took, no scandal can occur here. But what an adventure! How the free-thinkers of my parish—and I know several, sir—would laugh at my expense if they knew the truth!"

"If your parishioners have not recognized her woman's voice, neither have they, it is probable, detected her features or her form. But what pretty hands, what silken hair, and what little feet, in spite of the clumsy shoes which disfigure them!"

"Do not speak of them," exclaimed the curate, losing all command of himself; "it is an abomination to dress in man's attire. There is a verse in the Holy Scriptures which condemns every man and woman to death who quits the apparel of their sex—you understand me, sir—to death. That indicates what a heinous sin it is. And yet she dared to enter the church and to sing the praises of the Lord sullied with such a crime!"

"Yes, and sang divinely! Tears flowed from my eyes, never did I hear any thing like it. Strange mystery! Who can she be? Those whom I should be inclined to guess are all much older."

"But she is a mere child, quite a young girl," replied the curate, who could not help looking at Consuelo with a heartfelt interest which his severe principles combated. "What a little serpent! See with what a sweet and modest air she replies to the canon! Ah! I am a lost man if any one finds it out. I shall have to fly the country."

"What! have neither you nor any of your parishioners detected a woman's voice? Why, you must be very simple."

"What would you have? We thought there was certainly something strange in it; but Gottlieb said it was an Italian voice, one from the Sistine chapel, and that he had often heard the like! I do not know what he meant by that; I know no music except what is contained in my ritual, and I never suspected. What am I to do, sir?—what am I to do?"

"If nobody suspects, I would have you say nothing about it. Get rid of them as soon as you can. I will take charge of them if you choose."

"Oh, yes! you will do me a great service! Stay! Here is money—how much shall I give them?"

"Oh! that is not my business. Besides, you know we pay artists liberally. Your parish is not rich, and the church is not bound to act like the theater."

"I will act handsomely—I will give them six florins! I will go at once. But what will the canon say? He seems to suspect nothing. Look at him speaking to her in so fatherly a manner! What a pious man he is!"

"Frankly, do you think he would be much scandalized?"

"How should he be otherwise? But I am more afraid of his raillery than of his reproaches. Oh! you do not know how dearly he loves a joke—he is so witty! Oh! how he would ridicule my simplicity!"

"But if he shares your error, as he seems to do, he will not be able to ridicule you. Come, appear to know nothing, and seize a favorable moment to withdraw your musicians."

They left the recess of the window where they had been conversing, and the curate gliding up to Joseph, who appeared to occupy the canon's attention much less than Signor Bertoni, slipped the six florins into his hands. As soon as he received this modest sum, Joseph signed to Consuelo to disengage herself and follow him out; but the canon called Joseph back, still believing, after his answers in the affirmative, that it was he who had the female voice.

"Tell me then," said he, "why did you choose this piece of Porpora's in preference to Holzbaüer's solo?"

"We were not acquainted with it," said Joseph. "I sang the only thing which I remembered perfectly."

The curate hastened to relate Gottlieb's ill-natured trick, whose pedantic jealousy made the canon laugh heartily.

"Well," said the unknown, "your good shoemaker has rendered us an essential service. Instead of a poor solo, we have had a masterpiece by a great composer. You have displayed your taste," said he, addressing Consuelo.

"I do not think," replied Joseph, "that Holzbaüer's solo was bad; what we sang of his was not without merit."

"Merit is not genius," said the unknown, sighing; then seemingly anxious to address Consuelo, he added, "What do you think, my little friend? Do you think they are the same?"

"No, sir; I do not," she answered briefly and coldly; for this man's look irritated and annoyed her more and more.

"But nevertheless you found pleasure in singing this mass of Holzbaüer's?" resumed the canon. "It is well written, is it not?"

"I neither felt pleasure nor the reverse," said Consuelo, whose increasing impatience rendered her incapable of concealing her real sentiments.

"That is to say that it is neither good nor bad," replied the unknown, laughing. "It is well answered, and I am quite of your opinion."

The canon burst out laughing, the curate seemed very much embarrassed, and Consuelo, following Joseph, disappeared without heeding in the least this musical discussion.

"Well, Mr. Canon," said the unknown, maliciously, "how do you like these young people?"

"They are charming! admirable! Excuse me for saying so after the rebuff which the little one dealt you just now."

"Excuse you? Why, I was lost in admiration of the lad. What precious talents! It is truly wonderful! How powerful and how early developed are these Italian natures!"

"I cannot speak of the talent of one more than the other," replied the canon, with a very natural air, "for I could not distinguish your young friend's voice in the choruses. It is his companion who is the wonder, and he is of our own country—no offense to your Italianomania."

"Oh!" said the unknown, winking at the curate, "then it is the eldest who sang from Porpora?"

"I think so," replied the curate, quite agitated at the falsehood into which he was led.

"I am sure of it," replied the canon; "he told me so himself."

"And the other solo," said the unknown, "was that by one of your parishioners?"

"Probably," replied the curate, attempting to sustain the imposture.

Both looked at the canon to see whether he was their dupe or whether he was mocking them. He did not appear even to dream of such a thing. His tranquility reassured the curate. They began to talk of something else, but at the end of a quarter of an hour the canon returned to the subject of music, and requested to see Joseph and Consuelo, in order to bring them to his country-seat and hear them at his leisure. The terrified curate stammered out some unintelligible objections, while the canon asked him, laughing, if he had popped his little musicians in the stew-pan to add to the magnificence of the breakfast, which seemed sufficiently splendid without that. The curate was on the tenter-hooks, when the unknown came to his assistance.

"I shall find them for you," said he to the canon; and he left the room, signing to the good curate to trust his discovering some expedient. But there was no occasion to employ his inventive powers. He learned from the domestic that the young people had set off through the fields, after generously handing over to him one of the florins they had just received.

"How! set out?" exclaimed the canon, with the utmost mortification; "you must run after them. I positively must hear them and see them again."

They pretended to obey, but took care not to follow them. They had, besides, flown like birds, anxious to escape the curiosity which threatened them. The canon evinced great regret, and even some degree of ill-temper.

"Heaven be praised! he suspects nothing," said the curate to the unknown.

"Mr. Curate," replied the latter, "do you recollect the story of the bishop who, inadvertently eating meat one Friday, was informed of it by his vicar-general. "The wretch!' exclaimed the bishop, 'could he not have held his tongue till after dinner!' We should perhaps have let the canon undeceive himself at his leisure."