them, and leaned back like a prince leisurely surveying his domain. He said, “I won’t mince words with you; I won’t tell you anything but the truth. I could have had her all, I know I could have had her all, but my mother and I were leaving within the hour to come here, so I can’t sleep contemplating it.” He gazed intensely into the smoky air. “If letter writing were copulating, my cousin and I would have done it a dozen times. I tell you it was the best part of our stay in Augsberg! The orchestra there, my friend, could bring on cramps.”
Now he turned his head to study a few noisy students, and slowly leaned forward, arms on the table. “I mustn’t think about her,” he said seriously. “You led me on, you dog. I can’t become involved with a woman for a long time. They don’t want me to marry until I’m thirty. I must secure a decent income for my father, for without my earnings they’ll live wretchedly. I have to make good on the promise of my childhood.” He selected a bone with some meat left on it, and resumed eating.
“What promise?” the horn player asked, wiping his greasy mouth with a large white handkerchief. He thrust back his fair hair, which was already receding slightly.
“You know, you crazed shit! Here I am at one and twenty trying to live up to what I was as a little boy. My good, honorable father thought to make a future with me and my sister by taking us on tour all over Europe.” Mozart took Leutgeb’s handkerchief and wiped his own mouth broadly. “I was five years old when we began to tour, the protégé in a little white wig. Let me have that vinegar.”
Leutgeb slid the bottle adroitly down the table.
Mozart sprinkled it on the bone. “I’m told Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna took me on her knee and kissed me; I don’t much remember. Now my sister’s grown, and my father is back once more in Salzburg licking the arse of the Archbishop, in whose dismal employment he has earned his bread as church musician these many years. He hints I must return there and play organ for his Arch Grossness’s chapel for a pitiful stipend and eat at table with the cooks if I can’t do well here. What a fate; hang me first for a bastard thief.”
Leutgeb offered a bowl of onions. “We won’t have to hang you. I’ve found some work here; you will as well.”
Mozart shook his head. “Some work, but not enough. I’ve this flute commission, and maybe a mass for the court chapel. Unfortunately, I’ve grown up, and people still expect the darling prodigy. They don’t know what to do with a man below middle height whose nose is too big. I’m to play at the Elector’s palace in a week. God willing, he won’t present me with another gold watch, as Princes are inclined to do. I speak lightly, but I tell you, old friend, there’s a sense of urgency in me.”
Mozart began piling up the bones, absorbed, for a moment, as if it were a complicated game of chess he was playing for some great wager. Delicately balancing the top one, he drew in his breath as they all fell to a heap beside the onions, then turned away from them to face his old friend with a wry smile. “I’m much afraid if I don’t make enough money, my father will insist I return to Salzburg where I was born and beg the Archbishop to employ me as His Holiness employs him, when the truth is His Holiness loathes the sight of me and knows I despise that mangy, provincial town. I may go to Paris; I may remain here. In any case, I must succeed for my family. My parents and sister have always given their lives for me. Leutgeb, old friend, what a thing to have to repay.”
Leutgeb whistled for the boy to bring beer. Leaning on the table, he patted the young composer’s hand. “Come!” he said happily. “We’re young, why worry? Look, if music fails us, we can both retreat to my grandfather’s cheese shop in Vienna, and live on great mounds of the stuff, then invite the cousin and both share her. She seems to have enough to go round. Vienna is the most marvelous place in the world; this town is dung compared to it.” He thrust his arm