"Donizetti I have always admitted. There, at least, is refinement. If the world has taken to this Verdi, with his street-band music--But there, now! Sit down and convert me. Only don't crush my poor little Erard with Verdi's hoofs. I brought it when I came. It is behind the times too. And, oh, my dear boy, our organ is still worse. So old, so old! To get a proper one I would sacrifice even this piano of mine in a moment--only the tinkling thing is not worth a sou to anybody except its master. But there! Are you quite comfortable?" And having seen to his guest's needs, and placed spirits and cigars and an ash-tray within his reach, the padre sat himself luxuriously in his chair to hear and expose the false doctrine of "Il Trovatore."By midnight all of the opera that Gaston could recall had been played and sung twice. The convert sat in his chair no longer, but stood singing by the piano. The potent swing and flow of tunes, the torrid, copious inspiration of the South, mastered him. "Verdi has grown," he cried.
"Verdi has become a giant." And he swayed to the beat of the melodies, and waved an enthusiastic arm. He demanded every crumb. Why did not Gaston remember it all? But if the barkentine would arrive and bring the whole music, then they would have it right! And he made Gaston teach him what words he knew."'Non ti scordar,"' he sang--"'non ti scordar di me.'
That is genius. But one sees how the world; moves when one is out of it.
'A nostri monti ritorneremo'; home to our mountains. Ah, yes, there is genius again." And the exile sighed and his spirit went to distant places, while Gaston continued brilliantly with the music of the final scene.
Then the host remembered his guest. "I am ashamed of my selfishness," he said. "It is already to-morrow.""I have sat later in less good company," answered the pleasant Gaston.
"And I shall sleep all the sounder for making a convert.""You have dispensed roadside alms," said the padre, smiling. "And that should win excellent dreams."Thus, with courtesies more elaborate than the world has time for at the present day, they bade each other good-night and parted, bearing their late candles along the quiet halls of the mission. To young Gaston in his bed easy sleep came without waiting, and no dreams at all. Outside his open window was the quiet, serene darkness, where the stars shone clear, and tranquil perfumes hung in the cloisters. And while the guest lay sleeping all night in unchanged position like a child, up and down between the oleanders went Padre Ignazio, walking until dawn.
Day showed the ocean's surface no longer glassy, but lying like a mirror breathed upon; and there between the short headlands came a sail, gray and plain against the flat water. The priest watched through his glasses, and saw the gradual sun grow strong upon the canvas of the barkentine.
The message from his world was at hand, yet to-day he scarcely cared so much. Sitting in his garden yesterday he could never have imagined such a change. But his heart did not hail the barkentine as usual. Books, music, pale paper, and print--this was all that was coming to him, and some of its savor had gone; for the siren voice of life had been speaking with him face to face, and in his spirit, deep down, the love of the world was restlessly answering that call. Young Gaston showed more eagerness than the padre over this arrival of the vessel that might be bringing "Trovatore" in the nick of time. Now he would have the chance, before he took his leave, to help rehearse the new music with the choir. He would be a missionary too. A perfectly new experience.
"And you still forgive Verdi the sins of his youth?" he said to his host.
"I wonder if you could forgive mine?"
"Verdi has left his behind him," retorted the padre.
"But I am only twenty-five," explained Gaston, pathetically.
"Ah, don't go away soon!" pleaded the exile. It was the plainest burst that had escaped him, and he felt instant shame.
But Gaston was too much elated with the enjoyment of each new day to understand. The shafts of another's pain might scarcely pierce the bright armor of his gayety. He mistook the priest's exclamation for anxiety about his own happy soul.
"Stay here under your care?" he said. "It would do me no good, padre.
Temptation sticks closer to me than a brother!" and he gave that laugh of his which disarmed severer judges than his host. "By next week I should have introduced some sin or other into your beautiful Garden of Ignorance here. It will be much safer for your flock if I go and join the other serpents at San Francisco."Soon after breakfast the padre had his two mules saddled, and he and his guest set forth down the hills together to the shore. And beneath the spell and confidence of pleasant, slow riding, and the loveliness of everything, the young man talked freely of himself.
"And, seriously," said he, "if I missed nothing else at Santa Ysabel, Ishould long to hear the birds. At home our gardens are full of them, and one smells the jasmine, and they sing and sing! When our ship from the Isthmus put into San Diego, I decided to go on by land and see California. Then, after the first days, I began to miss something. All that beauty seemed empty, in a way. And suddenly I found it was the birds. For these little scampering quail are nothing. There seems a sort of death in the air where no birds ever sing.""You will not find any birds at San Francisco," said the padre.
"I shall find life!" exclaimed Gaston. "And my fortune at the mines, Ihope. I am not a bad fellow, father. You can easily guess all the things that I do. I have never, to my knowledge, harmed any one. I did not even try to kill my adversary in an affair of honor. I gave him a mere flesh wound, and by this time he must be quite recovered. He was my friend. But as he came between me--"Gaston stopped; and the padre, looking keenly at him, saw the violence that he had noticed in church pass like a flame over the young man's handsome face.
"There's nothing dishonorable," said Gaston, answering the priest's look.
