“True, my dear son,” replied Father Doles, with a smile, “and if you really enjoyed yourself, the gayety of last night could do you no harm. Only, I beg of you in future, to leave off in time, and carry nothing to excess! Your health is feeble, and will not bear much: take good care of it, for the powers of body and mind are but too easily exhausted. Remember poor Mara!”
Mozart looked very grave, and said, somewhat sadly, “Ah! there are the ruins of a noble creature! Let me die, rather than fall thus! No, I shall remember last night—the mischief take such hospitality!”
“Why, what happened?” asked Doles, anxiously.
“You know, father, the invitation was given by the friends of art,” said Mozart, with an emphasis of some bitterness; “I accepted it as such; the concert elevated my spirits, and I went with them. All was well at first—we were a set of rational men, met together in the spirit of social enjoyment. When the toasts were going round, one of the company went out and returned with Mara, already half drunk, and set him up to make sport for the rest. The poor wretch made me a very ridiculous speech, and when he was animated by a few more glasses of champagne, they brought him a violincello, and invited him to play. I wished for some cotton in my ears, for I thought nothing else but that I was to suffer torture; but it was far otherwise; indeed I cannot describe to you my sensations, when he began to play—I never heard the like before. It was music to stir the inmost soul. I could not refrain from tears through the adagio, and thought of the witch-music Tartini heard in his dreams—so moving, so entrancing! At the wild concluding allegro, I could have embraced the performer. I did not attempt to conceal what I felt.” The composer stopped suddenly, as if even the recollection moved him.
“Well, and what then?” asked Doles, at length.
Mozart bit his lips. “Mara then played the variations in my duet from Don Giovanni—‘La ci darem la mano!’ I assure you, even had I not heard his previous splendid performance, these variations, played in such a manner as showed the most thorough appreciation of the whole work, would have convinced me of his being a perfect master of his art, and of his instrument, and led me to reverence him as such. But how did the friends of art take it?” here Mozart sprang up highly excited, his eyes flashing fire, though his face was paler than ever, “how did they applaud his playing? with huzzas and toasts! and when he ceased, they plied him with more and more wine, till he was beastly drunk and beside himself, and then they set him upon all sorts of foolery, and made him imitate on his instrument, from which he had just drawn such matchless tones, the mewing of cats, the braying of an ass, the crowing of a cock, and the like, and they laughed to see him degrade himself. Oh, shame! shame! And they laughed the more when Mara, unable to stand any longer on his feet, fell on the floor—and then I, like the rest, drank till I was reeling,” concluded he, with a bitter expression of self-contempt.
“Do you not think, my dear son,” asked Doles, mildly, after a pause, “that the time will come when the true artist’s worth will be estimated properly, and he assume the dignity he deserves?”
“It is possible,” answered Mozart, gloomily, “but the artist will never live to feel it.”
“You certainly do, Wolfgang?”
The composer shook his head with a melancholy smile—“You are mistaken, my dear friend, I do not. But I am satisfied that some few appreciate and are faithful to me, and I can depend upon them; you for example, father, and my fair friends here!”