"'It is _Bach_, my dear and revered Sebastian Bach,--of all the Bachs alone _the_ Bach; though indeed to any one Bach, one of us present is not fit to hold a candle. You do not love Bach,--I do. You do not reverence him,--he is in my religion. You do not understand him,--I am very intimate with him. If you knew him, you too would love and worship and desire of him to know more and more. Ladies and gentlemen, you are all just. He has no one to take his part, as has your nondescript modern Orpheus. I shall give a lecture on Bach in this theatre to-morrow evening. Everybody comes in free. Only come!' "Who could refuse him? Who could have refused him as he stood there, and flying behind the curtain, peeped again between the folds of it and bowed? Besides, there was a strong curiosity at work,--a curiosity of which many were ashamed. Do I tire you?" "More likely yourself. Do finish about the lecture." "The supper-bell will be soon ringing, and will shake the story out of me, so I must make haste. I can tell it you properly some time. The next evening there was such a crowd at the door that they kicked it in, and stood listening outside. The curtain was done away with, and we never could make out how that organ came there which towered behind; but there it stood, and a pianoforte in front. The Chevalier appeared dressed in black, with nothing in his arms but a heap of programmes, written in his own hand, which he distributed himself, for he had no assistant. You know that Forkel has written a life of Bach? Well, I have since read this, and have been puzzled to find how such a poem as we listened to could have sprung from the prose of those dry memoirs. The voice was enough, if it had not said what it did say,--so delicious a voice to hear that no one stirred for fear of losing it.