To enter this establishment you opened a heavy door in an alley behind a group of stables and made your way at your peril down the steep, worn, centuries-old steps. Women were here, shrieking in laughter, sometimes suddenly throwing up their skirts to their knees, and in the dim light their white hose glimmered. Law students came, as did actors and poor musicians. Here Mozart came with his friend, the horn player Leutgeb, one week following the completion of the first flute concerto.

They had taken possession of part of a long table in the rear, where the air was thick with pipe smoke. Mozart’s shirt was open, and Leutgeb was pouring more beer. Leutgeb was also a native of Salzburg, where he played horn for the chapel orchestra; he was twenty-five, pleasantly fat and big, with a booming, raucous laugh that shook his whole body. His face was fleshy and never well shaven, as if to say to the world, See what an easy-going fellow I am!

“So you had your cousin with her drawers half down, you dog,” he cried above the noise of music and voices. “My God, Mozart, I’ll make you drunk until you tell me all of it. How much did you have of her?”

“Near to all, by heaven.”

“You were on the sofa at your uncle’s, and her hand was ...”

“Where I’d have it, friend, where I’d have it; but the story ends ridiculously. We heard the door open, and I raised my head over the sofa back; standing there was my own blessed mother. The high sofa back was between us; I’m sure she didn’t know how close we’d come. I thought she was out having her hat trimmed, by God, but there she stood.”

Leutgeb roared. “Devil take it, my cock would have fallen off like the handle of a cracked china cup if my mother had stumbled on such a thing.”

Mozart dosed his small hands slowly, as if the girl’s flesh was within 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 around Mozart’s shoulders, and shook him lightly. “Does your family really expect you to live like a monk for the best years of your life? At least enjoy the society of women if you must keep your breeches buttoned for nine more years. I know some sweet girls here. I believe you said you’ve been to the Webers for one of their musical Thursdays. Two are little girls, but I tell you, Aloysia, the second eldest, is the loveliest apple cake with cream you ever saw; you could eat her in two bites and lick your fingers. But of course they’re good girls, and a decent man wouldn’t—” Leutgeb stood up suddenly. “By God, look!” he said, peering through the smoky room. “There’s a couple of pretty tarts coming this way. Don’t go home with them; they’ll make you sick (by God! I knew a fellow who lost his nose to syphilis!). Still, let’s buy them beer.”

And the girls rushed shrieking at them, feathers in their tangled hair, moist sweat beneath clustered powder on the skin visible above their low-cut dresses, one showing the edge of a hard, brown nipple. Beneath the smoke the two musicians and the girls in their faded dresses caught fingers. It was a dark, hot, secret world here, Mozart thought. One could be another man.

Twenty or thirty feet up in the street the constables walked, and some men and women made their way home from a lecture about freedom of thought and free love.