“Why, married life suits me! I sell a great deal of cheese, and play my horn wherever I can. Sometimes I wonder where are the concerti my friend Wolfgang promised me. Then when I find I am covered with cobwebs from standing so long contemplating this question, I look him up in a Viennese pastry and coffee house to find out. Where are the concerti, my friend?”
Mozart shrugged and looked down into the coffee grounds.
“Never mind, I’ll wait a bit longer. Look! Some old friends are here, and we’re going to the puppet show at Madame Godl’s krippenspiel. If you can get away, come with us. They’re longing to go. It’s crowded, but the puppets are a marvel. Come on.”
The theater was long, with an intricate puppet stage at one end. The four friends crammed into the narrow, hard benches like schoolboys. Mozart gazed at the three-dimensional backdrop of Jerusalem. The harpsichordist who banged away in a corner was a poor musician Mozart had met as a boy. He heard one of his own divertimento tunes and sat straight up. “That’s yours, you ass,” Leutgeb said. “Don’t you know how much of your music is played? They steal it before you sneeze.”
They spoke loudly above the noise of housewives, a few ladies in masks to conceal their identity at such a low form of entertainment, and many stomping schoolboys waiting for the performance. “What have you been doing here besides playing His Grace’s church music and mourning, Mozart? Are you writing music of any sort, since you are not doing so for me?”
“Yes I am!” he burst out. “But what good does it do? I wanted to perform something of mine at Countess Thun’s the other evening (the Emperor was there), but my Archbishop needed me to play for his convalescing father, so I gave a piano/violin sonata for the dismal old man, and that was that. And I dare not even let him see my anger.”
“And so you shut yourself up.”
Mozart did not reply; he gazed at the marionettes that he could make out from his seat, so large and lifelike, but wooden. How odd the way they jerked and danced when their strings were pulled! Could they feel in their own way? I am one of them, he thought suddenly. Slowly, beginning with the fingertips, I am turning to wood.
Then the play began, and they saw the capture of Jerusalem. The walls fell. Cannons sparked real sparks and smoke filled the theater; in the haze marionette citizens jerked to their deaths, and marionette Romans jerked to their victory. He had seen puppets as a boy, and not particularly liked them, but the banging on the floor and the shouting and everyone choking on the smoke and weeping over the fall of Jerusalem was infectious, and he leapt up, shouting with the rest, suddenly flooded with happiness. To write theater pieces, to write operas, he thought. To write the sort of music he wanted to write, to be free.
The schoolboys trod on his toes going out, and the harpsichordist ran after him, and cried, “Give my regards to your dear sister.” Jerusalem had fallen, and the assistants were cleaning up for the next performance, for which a line was already forming.
The four young men stood in the street. From every direction came the sound of Carnival. “Let’s have a beer and supper,” Leutgeb said.
In the beer cellar a flautist was trying in vain to play above the talking. Now Mozart felt his sadness return, drank a great deal of beer, and was silent. “Idiot,” Leutgeb said to him. “Arsehole. I’ve spoken to you twice, and you don’t reply. We’ve been here for two hours; now it’s time to go, and you’ve never been such tedious company.”
Mozart replied, “Sorry, I’m turning to wood. My heart’s gone already. There you have it. At the next performance of the krippenspiel, look, and you’ll find me hanging with the other marionettes.” He stood up in a sudden fury. “That’s it,” he cried, “that’s it.”
The flautist stopped for a moment to see who was shouting, then resumed. “Sit down,” someone called, “are you going to make a speech? Are you going to drink the Emperor’s health?”
But Mozart continued, “I am turning to wood. I must go and speak to my saintly employer. You’ll excuse me. I’m going now before it’s too late.”
Leutgeb cried, “Tonight, on the eve before Lent? Tonight, past the hour of nine?”