He pulled his friends to their feet, and Leutgeb ran back to pay the bill, then hurried up the steps two at a time to join the others. They stood a street away from Michaelerkirche, with its sandstone fallen angels, and turned toward the palace by the cathedral. The winds from the river and woodlands rose, blowing through the town. “Madman, madman ...” the others cried to Mozart. A guard looked at them carefully, then motioned them on with disgust. The gaslights shone on the stone work of the elegant houses.
Two sentries stood before the palace. “Wait here,” Mozart said unsteadily to his friends. “I’ll be a short while. You wait.” He walked forward, looking over his shoulder at them as they stood with folded arms, shaking their heads.
Inside the palace the chamberlain motioned him on up the great stairway and then down the hall. Count Arco was walking toward him, carrying a lamp and a goblet of wine in blue molded glass. “Where are you going, Mozart?”
“His Princely Grace wishes to see me.”
“He mentioned no such thing to me. Well, go on. He’ll be at his prayers.”
The house was dark, for most of the candles had been extinguished. “No one comes now,” said the chamberlain, opening the bedchamber door and announcing the composer. There was a grunt and a muffled response, and Mozart was waved inside.
The room was papered in red damask, with bed hangings of the same weighty material. The enormous dark wood canopy bed could have slept a workman’s family. The ceiling was high and parqueted with angels, who seemed ready to fall down to the carpet at any moment. His Holiness was already in his dressing gown and nightcap for the evening, drinking wine before a great roaring fire. His face seemed like a withered apple, his eyes even smaller. “Mozart, it’s you,” he said. “What’s so important that you must see me at this late hour?”
“I wish to thank you for your kindness to me, and to say that, with much regret, I have decided to leave your service.”
The Archbishop threw up his hands. “What,” he cried. “You interrupt my preparation for rest with such nonsense when you have eaten my bread this past year? You brat, you idiot! I have borne with you too long. One can see you’re not grateful to serve me. Where is your gratitude? Why did I let your father persuade me to hire you?”
“Well then, Your Grace is not satisfied with me?”
“Idiot, there is the door. Go.”
“For Jesus sake, do not leave his service,” Mozart’s father had written weeks before when Mozart had confided to him his unhappiness. “The Archbishop has borne with your wanderings and mine own and took you back again only at my pleading. If you go once more, it will be the last time; I fear it. Where shall you go away from him? One cannot make a meal and roof of dreams, my son....”
The words spilled from him over the crackling of the fire and into the seeping cold corners of the room. “Very good, my lord, the conditions suit us both, for as much as you want nothing to do with me, I want nothing to do with you either. If I never have to see your face again, it will be too soon.”
At that the Archbishop rose, knocking over the wine by his side, and screamed, “Out, out.” The dark red liquid spilled down his robe and spread across the floor. The veins in the older man’s forehead stood out as he seized the bell and rang it violently. Several footmen came running; another door burst open, and Count Arco, also in his dressing gown, rushed in.
“Remove this brat,” said the churchman.
Count Arco cried, “What have you done now, you impudent puppy, you knave? What disturbance have you made?” He seized Mozart by the arm and shoved him from the ornate bedchamber. Followed by the pale footmen, composer and Count half-dragged each other down the stairs to the great palace doors. Mozart felt the Count’s kick from behind and tumbled into the street. He stumbled to his feet again with a cry of outrage and rushed back toward the footmen who stood between him and the figure of the retreating assailant, the nobleman’s pale satin dressing gown glimmering as he faded into the recesses of the round receiving hall. “What? Will you run off, you coward?” Mozart shouted into the echoing hall.
Someone grabbed his arms from behind. Astonished, he turned to face