mely and petty slights to
which the archbishop delighted in subjecting him. At last the open
rupture came. The archbishop called him a knave and dissolute fellow,
and told him to be off; and when Mozart waited upon Count Arco, the
principal official, to obtain the regular dismissal that was
necessary, the fellow poured abuse upon him, and actually kicked him
out of the room. Poor Mozart was in a state of violent excitement
after this outrage, and for some days was so ill that he could not
continue his ordinary work. But now at least he was free, and though
his father, like a timid, prudent old man, bewailed the loss of the
stipend which his son had been receiving, Mozart himself knew that the
release was entirely for the best.

In 1782 appeared "Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail," his first really
important opera, full of beautiful airs, which at once became
enormously popular with the Viennese. The Emperor Joseph II. knew very
little about music, but, as frequently happens in such cases,
considered that he possessed prodigious taste. On hearing it he said,
"Much too fine for our ears, dear Mozart; and what a quantity of
notes!"

The bold reply to this was, "Just as many notes as are necessary,
your Majesty."

Much of the delight which Mozart felt in the success of the opera
arose from the fact that it enabled him seriously to contemplate
marriage. Aloysia Weber had been faithless to him, but there was
another sister--with no special beauty save that of bright eyes, a
comely figure, and a cheerful, amiable disposition--Constanze, whom he
now hoped to make his wife. His father objected to all of the Weber
family, and there was some difficulty in obtaining the paternal
consent; but at last the marriage took place, on August 4, 1782. How
truly he loved his wife from first to last, his letters abundantly
show; her frequent illnesses were afterward a great and almost
constant source of expense to him, but he never ceased to write to her
with the passionate ardor of a young lover. He says: "I found that I
never prayed so fervently, or confessed so piously, as by her side;
she felt the same." And now for some time everything went smoothly in
the modest little menage in Vienna. Mozart had plenty of lessons to
give, but none of the commissions for operas which he would have
wished.

Passing over a visit to Leipsic--where he studied with the keenest
delight a number of the unpublished works of the great Sebastian
Bach--and to