his ordinary habit; he feels that the Infinite will touch him, and he shrinks before it in the very moment when it draws him most strongly.  Reverence for perfect art is present, too; the thought of enjoying a heavenly miracle—­of being able and being permitted to make it one’s own—­stirs an emotion—­pride, if you will—­which is perhaps the purest and happiest of which we are capable.

This little company, however, was on very different ground from ours.  They were about to hear, for the first time, a work which has been familiar to us from childhood.  If one subtracts the very enviable pleasure of hearing it through its creator, we have the advantage of them; for in one hearing they could not fully appreciate and understand such a work, even if they had heard the whole of it.

Of the eighteen numbers which were already written the composer did not give the half (in the authority from which we have our statement we find only the last number, the sextet, expressly mentioned), and he played them in a free sort of transcription, singing here and there as he felt disposed.  Of his wife it is only told that she sang two arias.  We might guess, since her voice was said to be as strong as it was sweet, that she chose Donna Anna’s Or sai, chi l’onore, and one of Zerlina’s two arias.

In all probability Eugenie and her fiance were the only listeners who, in spirit, taste, and judgment, were what Mozart could wish.  They sat far back in the room, Eugenie motionless as a statue, and so engrossed that, in the short pauses when the rest of the audience expressed their interest or showed their delight in involuntary exclamations, she gave only the briefest replies to the Baron’s occasional remarks.

When Mozart stopped, after the beautiful sextet, and conversation began again, he showed himself particularly pleased with the Baron’s comments.  They spoke of the close of the opera, and of the first performance, announced for an early date in November; and when some one remarked that certain portions yet to be written must be a gigantic task, the master smiled, and Constanze said to the Countess, so loudly that Mozart must needs hear:  “He has ideas which he works at secretly; before me, sometimes.”

“You are playing your part badly, my dear,” he interrupted.  “What if I should want to begin anew?  And, to tell the truth, I’d rather like to.”

“Leporello!” cried the Count, springing up and nodding to a servant.  “Bring some wine.  Sillery—­three bottles.”

“No, if you please.  That is past; my husband will not drink more than he still has in his glass.”

“May it bring him luck—­and so to every one!”

“Good heavens!  What have I done,” lamented Constanze, looking at the clock.  “It is nearly eleven, and we must start early tomorrow.  How shall we manage?”

“Don’t manage at all, dear Frau Mozart.”

“Sometimes,” began Mozart, “things work out very strangely.  What will my Stanzl say when she learns that the piece of work which you are going to hear came to life at this very hour of the night, just before I was to go on a journey?”