parrot. The cat followed them gravely and solemnly, and with an air
as though it had taken the liveliest interest in the conversation,
and thought it might greatly assist them in pacifying the screaming
bird.



CHAPTER VI

JOSEPH HAYDN


While the parrot's screams had rendered the mistress and her maid so
uneasy, the most profound stillness and quiet reigned in the upper
rooms of the little house. Not a sound interrupted the silence of
this small, elegantly-furnished sitting-room. Even the sun
apparently dared only to send a few stealthy beams through the
windows, and the wind seemed to hold its breath in order not to
shake the panes of the small chamber adjoining, venerated by all the
inmates of the house as a sacred temple of art.

In this small chamber, in this temple of art, a gentleman,
apparently engaged in reading, was seated at a table covered with
papers and music-books, close to an open piano. He was no longer
young; on the contrary, beholding only the thin white hair hanging
down on his expansive and wrinkled forehead, and his stooping form,
it became evident that he was an old man, nearly seventy years of
age. But as soon as he raised his eyes from the paper, as soon as he
turned them toward heaven with an air of blissful enthusiasm, the
fire of eternal youth and radiant joyousness burst forth from those