"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.
Temptation had arrived with Gaston, but was going to make a longer stay at Santa Ysabel del Mar. Yet it was something like a week before the priest knew what guest he had in his house now. The guest was not always present—made himself scarce quite often.
Sail away on the barkentine? That was a wild notion, to be sure, although fit enough to enter the brain of such a young scapegrace. The padre shook his head and smiled affectionately when he thought of Gaston Villere. The youth's handsome, reckless countenance would come before him, and he repeated Auber's old remark, "Is it the good Lord, or is it merely the devil, that always makes me have a weakness for rascals?"
Sail away on the barkentine! Imagine taking leave of the people here—of Felipe! In what words should he tell the boy to go on industriously with his music? No, this could not be imagined. The mere parting alone would make it forever impossible that he should think of such a thing. "And then," he said to himself each new morning, when he looked out at the ocean, "I have given my life to them. One does not take back a gift."
Pictures of his departure began to shine and melt in his drifting fancy. He saw himself explaining to Felipe that now his presence was wanted elsewhere; that there would come a successor to take care of Santa Ysabel—a younger man, more useful, and able to visit sick people at a distance. "For I am old now. I should not be long here in any case." He stopped and pressed his hands together; he had caught his temptation in the very act. Now he sat staring at his temptation's face, close to him, while there in the triangle two ships went sailing by.
One morning Felipe told him that the barkentine was here on its return voyage south. "Indeed?" said the padre, coldly. "The things are ready to go, I think." For the vessel called for mail and certain boxes that the mission sent away. Felipe left the room, in wonder at the padre's manner. But the priest was laughing alone inside to see how little it was to him where the barkentine was, or whether it should be coming or going. But in the afternoon, at his piano, he found himself saying, "Other ships call here, at any rate." And then for the first time he prayed to be delivered from his thoughts. Yet presently he left his seat and looked out of the window for a sight of the barkentine; but it was gone.