The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories by Owen Wister (the best novels to read TXT) 📗

but a trap? You cannot teach such a doctrine with your library there. And how about all the cultivated men and women away from whose quickening society the brightest of us grow numb? You have held out. But will it be for long? Do you not owe yourself to the saving of higher game henceforth? Are not twenty years of mesclados enough? No, no!” finished young Gaston, hot with his unforeseen eloquence; “I should ride down some morning and take the barkentine.”

Padre Ignazio was silent for a space.

“I have not offended you?” said the young man.

“No. Anything but that. You are surprised that I should—choose—to stay here. Perhaps you may have wondered how I came to be here at all?”

“I had not intended any impertinent—”

“Oh no. Put such an idea out of your head, my son. You may remember that I was going to make you a confession about my operas. Let us sit down in this shade.”

So they picketed the mules near the stream and sat down.

“You have seen,” began Padre Ignazio, “what sort of a man I—was once. Indeed, it seems very strange to myself that you should have been here not twenty-four hours yet, and know so much of me. For there has come no one else at all”—the padre paused a moment and mastered the unsteadiness that he had felt approaching in his voice—“there has been no one else to whom I have talked so freely. In my early days I had no thought of being a priest. My parents destined me for a diplomatic career. There was plenty of money and—and all the rest of it; for by inheritance came to me the acquaintance of many people whose names you would be likely to have heard of. Cities, people of fashion, artists—the whole of it was my element and my choice; and by-and-by I married, not only where it was desirable, but where I loved. Then for the first time Death laid his staff upon my enchantment, and I understood many things that had been only words to me hitherto. Looking back, it seemed to me that I had never done anything except for myself all my days. I left the world. In due time I became a priest and lived in my own country. But my worldly experience and my secular education had given to my opinions a turn too liberal for the place where my work was laid. I was soon advised concerning this by those in authority over me. And since they could not change me and I could not change them, yet wished to work and to teach, the New World was suggested, and I volunteered to give the rest of my life to missions. It was soon found that some one was needed here, and for this little place I sailed, and to these humble people I have dedicated my service. They are pastoral creatures of the soil. Their vineyard and cattle days are apt to be like the sun and storm around them—strong alike in their evil and in their good. All their years they live as children—children with men's passions given to them like deadly weapons, unable to measure the harm their impulses may bring. Hence, even in their crimes, their hearts will generally open soon to the one great key of love, while civilization makes locks which that key cannot always fit at the first turn. And coming to know this,” said Padre Ignazio, fixing his eyes steadily upon Gaston, “you will understand how great a privilege it is to help such people, and hour the sense of something accomplished—under God—should bring contentment with renunciation.”

“Yes,” said Gaston Villere. Then, thinking of himself, “I can understand it in a man like you.”

“Do not speak of me at all!” exclaimed the padre, almost passionately. “But pray Heaven that you may find the thing yourself some day —contentment with renunciation—and never let it go.”

“Amen!” said Gaston, strangely moved.

“That is the whole of my story,” the priest continued, with no more of the recent stress in his voice. “And now I have talked to you about myself quite enough. But you must have my confession.” He had now resumed entirely his half-playful tone. “I was just a little mistaken, you see too self-reliant, perhaps—when I supposed, in my first missionary ardor, that I could get on without any remembrance of the world at all. I found that I could not. And so I have taught the old operas to my choir—such parts of them as are within our compass and suitable for worship. And certain of my friends still alive at home are good enough to remember this taste of mine, and to send me each year some of the new music that I should never hear of otherwise. Then we study these things also. And although our organ is a miserable affair, Felipe manages very cleverly to make it do. And while the voices are singing these operas, especially the old ones, what harm is there if sometimes the priest is thinking of something else? So there's my confession! And now, whether 'Trovatore' has come or not, I shall not allow you to leave us until you have taught all you know of it to Felipe.”

The new opera, however, had duly arrived. And as he turned its pages Padre Ignazio was quick to seize at once upon the music that could be taken into his church. Some of it was ready fitted. By that afternoon Felipe and his choir could have rendered “Ah! se l'error t' ingombra” without slip or falter.

Those were strange rehearsals of “Il Trovatore” upon this California shore. For the padre looked to Gaston to say when they went too fast or too slow, and to correct their emphasis. And since it was hot, the little Erard piano was carried each day out into the mission garden. There, in the cloisters among the oleanders, in the presence of the tall yellow hills and the blue triangle of sea, the “Miserere” was slowly learned. The Mexicans and Indians gathered, swarthy and black-haired, around the tinkling instrument that Felipe played; and presiding over them were young Gaston and the pale padre, walking up and down the paths, beating time, or singing now one part and now another. And so it was that the wild cattle on the uplands would hear “Trovatore” hummed by a passing vaquero, while the same melody was filling the streets of the far-off world.

For three days Gaston Villere remained at Santa Ysabel del Mar; and though not a word of the sort came from him, his host could read San Francisco and the gold-mines in his countenance. No, the young man could not have stayed here for twenty years! And the padre forbore urging his guest to extend his visit.

“But the world is small,” the guest declared at parting. “Some day it will not be able to spare you any longer. And then we are sure to meet. And you shall hear from me soon, at any rate.”

Again, as upon the first evening, the two exchanged a few courtesies, more graceful and particular than we, who have not time, and fight no duels, find worth a man's while at the present day. For duels are gone, which is a very good thing, and with them a certain careful politeness, which is a pity; but that is the way in the general profit and loss. So young Gaston rode northward out of the mission, back to the world and his fortune; and the padre stood watching the dust after the rider had passed from sight. Then he went into his room with a drawn face. But appearances at least had been kept up to the end; the youth would never know of the old man's discontent.