DM0003

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Salieri:
(Holding Mozart's manuscripts)
She had said that these were his original scores. First and only drafts of the music. Yet
they looked like fair copies. They showed no corrections of any kind. it was puzzling -
then suddenly alarming. What was evident was that Mozart was simply transcribing
music - completely finished in his head. And finished as most music is never finished.
Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the
structure would fall. Here again - only now in abundance - were the same sounds I'd
heard in the Library. The same crushed harmonies - glancing collisions -agonizing
delights startled out of familiar modulation. The truth was clear. That Serenade had
been no accident. I was staring through the cage of those meticulous strokes at an
Absolute Beauty!
Capisco. I know my fate. Smashed. Smashed down - the Palace of Sound! Now for the
first time I feel my emptiness, as Adam felt his nakedness.
Tonight at an inn somewhere in this city stands a giggling child who can put on paper,
without actually setting down his billiard cue, casual notes which turn my most
considered ones into lifeless scratches. Grazie Signore! You gave me the desire to serve
you - which most men do not have - then saw to it the service was shameful in the ears of
the server. Grazie! You gave me the desire to praise you - which most men do no have -
then made me mute. Grazie tanti! You put into me perception of the Incomparable -
which most men never know! - then ensured that I would know myself forever mediocre.
Why?... What is my fault?... Until this day I have pursued virtue with rigor. I have
labored long hours to relieve my fellow men. I have worked and worked the talent you
allowed me. You know how hard I've worked! - Solely that in the end, in the practice of
the art which alone makes the world comprehensible to me, I might hear Your Voice!
And now I do hear it - and it says only one name: MOZART! ... Spiteful, sniggering,
conceited, infantile Mozart!... who has never worked one minute to help another man! -
shit-talking Mozart with his botty-smacking wife! - him you have chosen to be your sole
conduct! And my only reward - my sublime privilege - is to be the sole man alive in this
time who shall clearly recognize your Incarnation! Grazie e grazie ancora!
So be it! From this time we are enemies, You and I! I'll not accept it from You - Do you
hear?... They say God is not mocked. I tell you, Man is not mocked!... I am not
mocked!... They say the spirit bloweth where it listeth: I tell you NO! It must list to
virtue or not blow at all! What else is virtue for, but to fit us for Your incarnations?...
Dio Ingiusto! - You are the Enemy! I name Thee now -- Nemico Eterno! And this I
swear. To my last breath I shall block you on earth, as far as I am able!
(To audience) What use, after all, is Man, if not to teach God His lessons?