It was now quite necessary that Wolfgang should leave Paris; and in anticipating what he had to expect in Salzburg, he began to feel what he was leaving in Paris. He PARIS, 1778. was angry with Grimm, who desired that he should be ready for his journey in a week, which was impossible, since he had still claims on the Duc de Guines and on Le Gros, and must wait to correct the proofs of his sonatas, and to sell the compositions he had with him.[ 40 ] He had no small desire to write six more trios, for which he might expect good payment. Grimm's evident wish that he should go, and his offer to pay the journey to Strasburg (which seemed to the father a proof of friendship) was considered by Wolfgang as distrust and insincerity. Grimm no doubt wished to be relieved of the responsibility he had undertaken as soon as possible, and may have offended his protégé by too open an expression of his desire; but there is no doubt that he acted according to the mind of the father, and in the sincere opinion that the unpractical and vacillating young man required decided treatment. But Wolfgang was so firmly convinced that his departure from Paris was premature, that he wrote to his father from Strasburg (October 15, 1778), that it was the greatest folly in the world to go to Salzburg now, and only his love to his father had induced him to set aside the representations of his friends. He had been praised for this, but with the remark that—
If my father had known my present good circumstances and prospects, and had not believed the reports of certain false friends, he would not have written to me in a way that I could not withstand. And I think myself that if I had not been so annoyed in the house where I was staying, and if the whole thing had not come upon me like a thunderbolt, so that there was no time to consider it in cool blood, I should certainly have begged you to have a little more patience, and to leave me in Paris; I assure you I should have gained both money and fame, and been able to extricate you from all your embarrassments. But it STRASBURG, 1778. is done now. Do not imagine that I repent the step, for only you, my dear father, only you can sweeten for me the bitterness of Salzburg, and we shall do it—I know we shall; but I must frankly own that I should come to Salzburg with a lighter heart if I did not know that I was to be in the service of the court. The idea is intolerable to me.
In the meantime business was wound up, the mother's property and the heavy baggage was sent direct to Salzburg; and on September 26 Wolfgang left Paris, having gained much experience but little satisfaction, as depressed and out of humour as he had entered it.
CHAPTER XX. THE RETURN HOME.
WOLFGANG'S father expected that he would perform his homeward journey without any unnecessary delay, and his anxiety became serious when day after day passed and he received no tidings of his son's approach to Strasburg.
"I confessed and communicated together with your sister," he writes (October 19, 1778), "and earnestly prayed for your preservation; good old Bullinger prayed for you daily in the holy mass." The fact was, that instead of providing Mozart with means to travel by the diligence, which accomplished the journey to Strasburg in a week, Grimm had satisfied himself with an ordinary conveyance, which occupied twelve days on the road. Mozart's patience was tired out in a week, and he halted at Nancy. Here he met with a German merchant, the best man in the world, who at once conceived a paternal attachment for him, and wept at the idea of their parting. With this new friend Wolfgang, determined to travel to Strasburg as soon as an opportunity of doing so cheaply should occur. They were obliged to wait a considerable time, and it was the middle of October before they reached Strasburg:—
Things are not promising here; but the day after to-morrow (Saturday, October 17) I intend, quite alone (to avoid expense), to give a subscription concert to certain friends and connoisseurs; if I had engaged any other instruments it would, with the lighting, have cost me more than three louis-d'or; and who knows if it will bring in so much?
It was a shrewd guess, THE RETURN HOME. for his next letter had to announce three louis-d'or as the exact sum made by this "little model of a concert":—
