persons; they did not rise to greet the imperial couple and the
archdukes. No one had perceived their arrival, for all eyes were
steadfastly fixed on the large folding-doors by which Joseph Haydn
was to enter the hall.

He had been expected already for some time, and the audience began
to whisper anxiously: "Will he, perhaps, not come, after all? Will
his physician not permit him to go to the concert because the
excitement might be injurious to him?"

But all at once the silence was broken by a noise in the street,
which sounded like the roar of the stormy ocean; it rent the air,
and caused the windows of the hall to rattle. And the audience was
joyfully moved; all faces became radiant, all turned their eyes
toward the door.

Now this door opened, and a beautiful though strange group appeared
in it. In its midst, on the shoulders of eight strong young men,
arose an easy chair, festooned with flowers, and in this chair sat
the small, bent form of an old man. His face was pale and wan, and
in his forehead the seventy-seven years of his life had drawn deep
furrows; but from his large blue eyes beamed the eternal fire of
youth, and there was something childlike and touching in the smile
of his mouth. On the right side of his easy-chair was seen the
imposing form of a gentleman, plainly dressed, but with a head full
of majestic dignity, his face gloomy and wild, his high forehead,
surrounded by dense dishevelled hair, his eyes now gleaming with
sombre fires, now glancing mildly and amiably. It was Louis von
Beethoven, whom Haydn liked to call his pupil, and whose fame had at
that time already penetrated far beyond the frontiers of Austria. On