I would have put out another mass for you.”  “Oh!” said I, “to puzzle me, I suppose?” Old Toeschi and Wendling stood all the time close beside me.  I gave them enough to laugh at.  Every now and then came a pizzicato, when I rattled the keys well; I was in my best humor.  Instead of the Benedictus here, there is always a voluntary, so I took the ideas of the Sanctus and worked them out in a fugue.  There they all stood making faces.  At the close, after Ita missa est, I played a fugue.  Their pedal is different from ours, which at first rather puzzled me, but I soon got used to it.  I must now conclude.  Pray write to us still at Mannheim.  I know all about Misliweczeck’s sonatas [see No. 64], and played them lately at Munich; they are very easy and agreeable to listen to.  My advice is that my sister, to whom I humbly commend myself, should play them with much expression, taste, and fire, and learn them by heart.  For these are sonatas which cannot fail to please every one, are not difficult to commit to memory, and produce a good effect when played with precision.

75.

Mannheim, Nov. 13, 1777.

Potz Himmel!  Croatians, demons, witches, hags, and cross batteries!  Potz Element! air, earth, fire, and water!  Europe, Asia, Africa, and America!  Jesuits, Augustines, Benedictines, Capucins, Minorites, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, and Knights of the Cross! privateers, canons regular and irregular, sluggards, rascals, scoundrels, imps, and villains all! donkeys, buffaloes, oxen, fools, blockheads, numskulls, and foxes!  What means this?  Four soldiers and three shoulder-belts!  Such a thick packet and no portrait! [Footnote:  The “Basle” (his cousin) had promised him her portrait.  She sent it subsequently to Salzburg, where it still hangs in the Mozarteum.] I was so anxious about it—­indeed, I felt sure of getting it, having yourself written long ago to say that I should have it soon, very soon.  Perhaps you doubt my keeping my promise [about the ornaments—­see No. 71], but I cannot think this either.  So pray let me have the likeness as quickly as you can; and I trust it is taken as I entreated—­in French costume.

How do I like Mannheim?  As well as I can any place where my cousin is not.  I hope, on the other hand, that you have at all events received my two letters—­one from Hohenaltheim, and one from Mannheim—­this, such as it is, being the third from here, but making the fourth in all.  I must conclude, for we are just going to dinner, and I am not yet dressed.  Love me as I love you, and then we shall never cease loving each other.  Adieu!  J’espere que vous aurez deja pris quelque lection dans la langue francaise, et je ne doute point que—­ecoutez!—­que vous aurez bientot le francais mieux que moi; car il y a certainement deux ans que je n’ai pas ecrit un mot de cette langue.  Encore adieu!  Je vous baise les mains.

76.

Mannheim, Nov. 14-16, 1777.