Master Pérez the Organist · II

The church was illuminated with an astonishing profusion. The torrent of light that poured from the altars to fill its spaces sparkled on the rich jewels of the ladies who, kneeling upon the velvet cushions laid down by the pages and taking their prayer books from the hands of the duennas, came to form a brilliant circle around the railing of the chancel. Beside that railing, standing, wrapped in their laced colored cloaks, allowing the red and green crosses of their orders to be glimpsed with studied carelessness, in one hand their felt hats whose plumes brushed the tapestries, the other resting upon the burnished cross-guards of their rapiers or caressing the pommel of their chased daggers, the town aldermen, along with much of the finest nobility of Seville, seemed to form a wall designed to defend their daughters and wives from contact with the mob. The latter, stirring in the depths of the naves with a murmur like that of a troubled sea, broke out into a joyful acclamation, accompanied by the discordant sound of rattles and tambourines, upon seeing the archbishop appear, who, after seating himself near the high altar beneath a crimson canopy surrounded by his attendants, bestowed his blessing upon the people three times.

It was time for Mass to begin.

Several minutes passed, however, without the celebrant appearing. The multitude began to stir, showing its impatience; the gentlemen exchanged a few words in undertones, and the archbishop sent one of his familiars to the sacristy to inquire why the ceremony was not commencing.

“Maese Pérez has fallen ill, very ill, and it will be impossible for him to attend midnight Mass tonight.”

This was the familiar’s reply.

The news spread instantaneously among the crowd. To paint the unpleasant effect it caused in everyone would be an impossible task; suffice it to say that such a commotion began to be noted in the temple that the magistrate stood up and the bailiffs entered to impose silence, blending into the piled waves of the multitude.

At that moment, a poorly proportioned, dry, bony, and cross-eyed man to boot, stepped forward to the spot occupied by the prelate.

“Maese Pérez is ill,” he said; “the ceremony cannot begin. If you wish, I will play the organ in his absence; for neither is maese Pérez the first organist in the world, nor upon his death will this instrument cease to be played for lack of a skilled player...”

The archbishop made a sign of assent with his head, and already some of the faithful who knew that strange personage to be an envious organist, an enemy of the one from Santa Inés, were beginning to break out in expressions of displeasure, when suddenly a frightful noise was heard in the atrium.

“Maese Pérez is here!... Maese Pérez is here!...”

At these shouts from those crowded in the doorway, everyone turned their face.

Maese Pérez, pale and haggard, was indeed entering the church, borne in an armchair that everyone contended for the honor of carrying on their shoulders.

The doctors’ prescriptions, his daughter’s tears—nothing had been enough to keep him in bed.

“No,” he had said; “this is the last one, I know it, I know it, and I do not want to die without visiting my organ, and tonight above all, Christmas Eve. Come, I want it, I command it; let us go to the church.”

His wishes had been fulfilled; those present carried him up in their arms to the loft, and Mass began.

At that point the cathedral clock struck twelve.

The introit passed, and the Gospel and the offertory, and the solemn moment arrived when the priest, having consecrated it, takes the Sacred Host with the tips of his fingers and begins to elevate it.

A cloud of incense unfurling in bluish waves filled the expanse of the church; the little bells chimed with a vibrant sound, and maese Pérez placed his cramped hands upon the keys of the organ.

The hundred voices of its metal pipes resounded in a majestic and prolonged chord that faded away little by little, as if a gust of wind had snatched away its last echoes.

To this first chord, which seemed a voice rising from earth to heaven, another distant and soft one replied that grew and grew until it became a torrent of thundering harmony.

It was the voice of the angels traversing space and reaching the world.

Then there began to be heard like distant hymns intoned by the hierarchies of seraphim; a thousand hymns at once which, upon blending, formed a single one that, nonetheless, was no more than the accompaniment of a strange melody that seemed to float upon that ocean of mysterious echoes like a shred of mist over the waves of the sea.

Then some chants began to fade, afterwards others; the combination simplified. They were no more than two voices whose echoes blended with one another; then one remained isolated, sustaining a note as brilliant as a thread of light... The priest bowed his forehead, and above his white-haired head and as if through a blue gauze feigned by the smoke of the incense, the Host appeared to the eyes of the faithful. At that instant the note that maese Pérez was sustaining while trilling opened, opened, and an explosion of giant harmony shook the church, in whose corners the compressed air hummed and whose stained-glass windows trembled in their narrow mullioned arches.

From each of the notes forming that magnificent chord, a theme developed; and some close by, others far away, these brilliant, those muffled, one might say that the waters and the birds, the breezes and the leafy branches, men and angels, the earth and the heavens, each in its own language sang a hymn to the birth of the Savior.

The multitude listened astonished and spellbound. In every eye there was a tear, in every spirit a profound recollection.

The officiating priest felt his hands tremble because He whom he lifted in them, He whom men and archangels saluted, was his God, was his God, and it seemed to him he had seen the heavens open and the Host transfigured.

The organ continued playing; but its voices died out gradually, like a voice that is lost from echo to echo and distances itself and weakens as it distances itself, when suddenly a cry rang out in the loft, a heartbreaking, sharp cry, a woman’s cry.

The organ exhaled a discordant and strange sound, akin to a sob, and fell mute.

The multitude crowded toward the staircase of the loft, toward which, torn from their religious ecstasy, all the faithful anxiously turned their gaze.

“What has happened? What is going on?” they said to one another, and no one knew how to answer, and everyone strove to guess it, and the confusion grew, and the uproar began to rise a notch, threatening to disturb the order and recollection proper to the church.

“What has happened?” the ladies asked the magistrate who, preceded by the bailiffs, was one of the first to go up to the loft, and who, pale and with signs of profound sorrow, headed toward the post where the archbishop awaited him, anxious like everyone to know the cause of that disorder.

“What is it?”

“That maese Pérez has just died.”

Indeed, when the first of the faithful, after trampling one another on the stairs, reached the loft, they saw the poor organist fallen face down upon the keys of his old instrument, which still vibrated dully, while his daughter, kneeling at his feet, called to him in vain amid sighs and sobs.

“Good evening, my lady doña Baltasara; are you too coming to Midnight Mass tonight? For my part, I had fully intended to go hear it at the parish church; but as the saying goes... Where goes Vicente? Where goes the people. And yet, if I am to tell the truth, ever since master Pérez died, it feels as though a tombstone is laid upon my heart whenever I enter Santa Inés... Poor little man! He was a saint!... I for one can say that I keep a piece of his doublet like a relic, and he deserves it... for by God and my soul, if the Lord Archbishop were to take a hand in it, it is certain our grandchildren would see him on the altars... But how can it be!... Out of sight, out of mind... Now the only thing that rules is the novelty... you take my meaning. What! You know nothing of what is going on? True it is that we are alike in that: from our little house to the church, and from the church to our little house, without caring for what is said or left unsaid... only that I, just... in passing... a word from here, another from there... without even wishing to find out, happen to be up to date on certain news... Well, yes, lady; it seems a settled thing that the organist of San Román, that squinting fellow who is always cursing the other organists; that good-for-nothing scoundrel, who looks more like a butcher from the Puerta de la Carne than a master of solfa, is going to play this Christmas Eve in place of master Pérez. You will surely know, because everyone has known this and it is public knowledge in Seville, that no one wanted to undertake to do it. Not even his daughter, who is a musician, and after her father’s death entered the convent as a novice. And it was natural: accustomed to hearing those wonders, anything else was bound to seem poor to us, no matter how much comparisons were sought to be avoided. Well, when the community had already decided that, in honor of the deceased and as a sign of respect for his memory, the organ would remain silent on this night, behold our man presents himself, saying that he dares to play it... There is nothing more daring than ignorance... True it is that the fault is not his, but of those who permit him this desecration... but that is how the world goes... and I say, it is no small crowd coming... one would say nothing has changed from one year to the next. The same personages, the same luxury, the same shoves at the door, the same bustle in the atrium, the same multitude in the temple... Oh, if the dead man were to raise his head! He would die all over again just not to hear his organ played by such hands. The thing is, if what the neighborhood folk have told me is true, they are preparing a fine welcome for the intruder. When the moment comes to place his hand upon the keys, a great uproar of rattles, tambourines, and zambombas is going to begin, the likes of which you’ve never heard... but hush! here enters the hero of the show into the church. Jesus, what a colorful doublet, what a ruff of stiff pleats, what airs of a personage! Come, come, the archbishop arrived a while ago, and mass is about to begin... come, for it seems to me tonight will give us plenty to talk about for many days.”

Saying this, the good woman, whom our readers already know by her outbursts of loquacity, pushed her way into Santa Inés, clearing a path through the multitude by dint of shoves and elbows, as is the custom.

The ceremony had already begun.

The temple was as brilliantly lit as the previous year.

The new organist, after making his way through the faithful who occupied the naves to go kiss the prelate’s ring, had climbed to the loft, where he pulled out the organ stops one after another with an air of gravity as affected as it was ridiculous.

Among the ordinary folk crowding at the foot of the church, a dull and confused murmur could be heard, a certain omen that the storm was beginning to brew and would not take long to make itself felt.