“We forgot that such as we, are set up for an example to the uninitiated, and yielded to the tempter, wine! Art—our mother—has reason to blush for us.”
“For me,” cried Mara, deeply moved. “But not for you.”
“Yes, for me,” repeated Mozart; “and for all who were there. It was a shameful scene. What,” he continued, with rising indignation, “what would the true friends of art have thought of such beastly orgies, celebrated in her name? Why, they would have said, perhaps, ‘these men are wild fellows, but we must let them have their way; we owe the fine music they give us to their free living; they must have stimulus to compose or play well.’ No, no, no! it is base to malign the holy science we love. Such excesses but unfit us for work. I have never owed a good thought to the bottle. I tell you I hate myself for last night’s foolery.”
“Ah, master; you who are so far above me!” sighed Mara.
“And lo, here, the wreck of a noble being!” said the composer, in a low voice and with much bitterness; then resuming, “Listen to me, Mara. You have been your own enemy; but your fall is not wholly your own work. You are wondrously gifted; you can be, you shall be, snatched from ruin. You can, you shall, rise above those who would trample on you now; become renowned and beloved and leave an honored name to posterity. You have given me a lesson, Mara—a lesson which I shall remember my lifelong—which I shall teach to others. You have done me good—I will do something for you. Come with me to Vienna.”
The poor violoncellist had eagerly listened to the words of him he so venerated—whom he looked on as a superior being. While he talked to him as an equal, while he acknowledged his genius, lamented his faults and gave him hope that all was not yet lost, the spirit of the degraded creature revived within him. It was the waking of his mind’s energies; the struggle of the soul for life against the lethargy of a mortal malady. Life triumphed! Mara was once more a man; but overcome by the conflict and by the last generous offer, he sank back, bowed his face upon his hands and wept aloud.
“Come,” cried Mozart, after a pause, during which his own eyes were moistened, “come, we have no time to lose. I go out to-night by the evening post for Vienna; you must accompany me. Take this purse, put your dress in order and make haste. I will call for you at eight. Be ready then. Not a word more.”
And forcing a well filled purse into his trembling hands, the master hastened away too quickly to hear a word of thanks from the man he had saved from worse than death.
The great composer was early summoned from this and many other works of mercy and benevolence. But if his noble design was unaccomplished, at least good seed was sown, and Mara placed once more within view of the goal of virtuous hope. Rescued from the mire of degradation, he might, by perseverance, have won the prize; if he did not, the fault was this time wholly his own. Whatever the termination of his career, the moral lesson is for us the same.