'He paid no heed to the entry of a servant.'[ToList]
The old servitor was puzzled, and somewhat troubled in mind as well, by the boy's deep abstraction. That his master the Archbishop cherished any feelings of harshness or resentment towards the solitary little prisoner Hans refused to believe. Indeed, the Archbishop had confided to him that he merely desired to test the child's powers of writing original music. But to the old man's mind such a test was far too severe to be applied to one so young, and something in the boy's far-away look had touched his heart and tempted him to disobey the stringent command which he had received not to converse with the little writer. Even now, as he was descending the stairs, he felt almost like a criminal in leaving the boy locked in his room without a word of comfort or encouragement, and he was half inclined to turn back on some excuse to speak with the prisoner and inquire how he felt. At that moment, however, the ringing of a distant bell summoned him to his master's presence.
From Photo Rischgitz.
Mozart.[ToList]
Archbishop Sigismund was pacing to and fro in the dining-room when his servant entered, his forehead puckered with a frown, and his eyes fixed on the carpet. But he at once checked himself in his walk, and, turning to Hans, said abruptly: 'Have you taken the child his food?' 'Yes, your Grace,' was the reply. 'And—er—how did he seem—well, eh?' 'Quite well, your Grace.' 'You are sure of that?' a trifle anxiously. 'Perfectly sure, your Grace,' replied the old man, though he would have liked to have added a word as to his doubts concerning the child's happiness; but the Archbishop dismissed him with a wave of the hand, and, turning away, seated himself at the breakfast-table.
Several floors above that on which Archbishop Sigismund was eating his breakfast the little captive sat patiently toiling at his allotted task. In a sense the old man was right; for the test was as severe a one as the mind of a man who was a good judge of music, and who doubted the truth of what he had heard concerning his little captive's astonishing genius, could well have devised. The boy was required to set to music the first part of a sacred cantata founded upon the 'First and greatest Commandment'—'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength' (Mark xii. 30). The Archbishop fully realised the magnitude of the test, and he expected failure—he looked for the child to break down. The time allotted for its fulfilment was one week, at the expiration of which he would find a few boyish attempts at composition, and nothing more.