"Oh! you make me very happy," faltered he.
"I am glad of it, for now I am going to say something painful."
Mara hung his head.
"Nay, I reproach myself as much as you. We both behaved ill, last night; we both forgot the dignity of the artist and the man."
Again the poor violoncellist looked bewildered.
"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 stimulants 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 life long—which I shall teach to others. You have done me good—I will do something for you. Come with me to Vienna."