"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.