life, and among which
Frau Volkstett had perceived (as a most remarkable phenomenon and a
proof that extremes sometimes meet) the disposition of a veritable
little miser--and it made him altogether most charming.

"'Yes, think of it! He is sure of his three thousand thalers,
and for what? For directing a chamber concert once a week, and
the opera twice. Ah, Frau Colonel, I have seen him, our dear, precious
little man, in the midst of his excellent orchestra who adore him! I sat
with Frau Mozart in her box almost opposite the King's box. And what was
on the posters, do you think? Look, please! I brought it for you,
wrapped around a little souvenir from the Mozarts and myself. Look, read
it, printed in letters a yard long!' 'Heaven forbid! Not _Tarare_!'
'Yes! What cannot one live to see! Two years ago, when Mozart wrote _Don
Juan_, and the wretched, malicious, yellow, old Salieri was preparing to
repeat in Vienna the triumph which he had won with his piece, in Paris,
and to show our good plain public, contented with _Cosa rara_, a hawk or
two; while he and his arch-accomplice were plotting to present _Don
Juan_ just as they had presented _Figaro_, mutilated, ruined, I vowed
that if the infamous _Tarare_ was ever given, nothing should hire me to
go to see it. And I kept my word. When everybody else ran to hear
it--you too, Frau Colonel--I sat by my fire with my cat in my lap, and
ate my supper. Several times after that, too. But now imagine! _Tarare_
on the Berlin stage, the work of his deadly foe, conducted by Mozart
himself!' 'You must certainly go,' he said, 'if it is only to be able to
say in Vienna whether I had a hair clipped from Absalom's head. I wish
he were here himself! The jealous old sheep should see that I do not
need to bungle another person's composition in order to show off my
own.'"

"Brava! Bravissima!" shouted Mozart, and taking his wife by the ears he
kissed her and teased her till the play with the bright bubbles of an
imaginary future--which, sad to say, were never in the least to be
realized--ended finally in laughter and jollity.

Meanwhile they had long ago reached the valley, and were approaching a
town, behind which lay the small modern palace of Count Schinzberg. In
this town they were to feed the horses, to rest, and to take their
noonday meal.

The inn where they stopped stood alone near the end of the village
where an avenue of poplar trees led to the count's garden, not six
hundred p