The tapping of shoes on the marble floor announced Count Carl Arco, the chamberlain, a thin, fussy young man with a bad complexion and much lace at his throat. “We expected you earlier, Mozart,” he said. “His Holiness is at dinner. Never mind, come in; you’ve already put him off by being late.” He dropped his voice to a low warning. “Your absence this year and a half has not sat well with him. I speak in friendship, of course. My aunt sends her condolences on your loss.”
He opened the door and whispered to the footman, who sang out the visitor’s name.
At the end of a very long, polished table that could have easily dined twenty and was loaded with platters of meat and noodles, Hieronymus Colloredo, Archbishop of Salzburg, was eating alone. His Grace looked up, fork in his hand, and grunted, then began to cut a smallish piece of meat into even smaller bits. He drank two or three thoughtful sips of wine, and the footman hurried forward and refilled the glass. The mouth was small, rosy, feminine.
Mozart said, “Your Princely Grace, it is my joy to greet you.”
“As you say it I will take it, but I am surprised you did not come these twelve months sooner. So the prodigy has soon discovered how difficult the world can be, eh? Full of false promises, dangled hopes that you ran after in your youth. I’m happy though to see you return. I bear no grudge.”
Mozart bowed again. “Your Grace,” he said, his voice echoing across the plates of food. He stood, having been offered no chair. “You know how I and my family have honored you, and how much I honor you for all these years my father has been happy in your service.”
“Your father is a good man.”
“If I might know the duties expected of me ...”
“Why, much the same as your father’s: to train the choir of men and boys, to write church music and whatever other small pieces I may need, to play violin in the orchestra during church masses as you did when you were in my service before. I am in need of a violinist.”
“I beg you, Your Grace, to be released from that duty. I am but a tolerable violinist. I assure you that my talents could be better used elsewhere.”
“As I have specified, but what have you in mind?”
As some servants came to clear away the meats and bring the stewed fruit, Mozart braced his hands on the far end of the table where he stood. His voice was clear if respectful. “Your Grace,” he said, “it would be to the honor of Your Grace to improve the music of this court. I am thinking first of a full and first-rate orchestra, not the small one we have at present. If we could perhaps have an orchestra here to your honor, and, with it, to make an opera house, renowned singers would come. I could compose for you in the Italian or German school. I have brought my music portfolio to show you some examples.”
“What? But I do not like opera,” said the Archbishop without raising his head from his fruit. “I’ve no use for these things. I need a violinist in my small chamber orchestra for masses and a composer for brief liturgical music, and it is that for which I engage you, perhaps later to promote you to the post of court organist. An opera, pah! What, to have my court flooded with licentious Italians all shrieking away?” All the time he spoke, he lifted spoonful after spoonful of the fruit to his mouth.
“Do you understand how lenient I and my predecessor have been with you and your father?” the Archbishop continued. “Allowing you both in the old days, and more recently, to spend years away from my service trying your skill in the world? But the world is a rougher place than you can know, and you return here to the protection of my court. I will have you, but I will not permit any more wanderings. Be content. Do not look higher than God has meant you to look.” He paused for a moment. “Will you serve me?”
“I shall, Your Highness.”
“Your voice is faint. I have not quite heard you.”
“I shall serve you, Your Highness.”
With that, Mozart left as quickly as he could; once away from the palace, he began to walk more rapidly, and then almost to run toward the river,