You are expecting me with pleasure, my dearest father! That is in fact the one consideration which has brought me to the point of leaving Vienna, for the whole world may know that the Archbishop of Salzburg has only to thank you, my best of fathers, that he did not lose me yesterday for ever (I mean, of course, from his suite). Yesterday we had a concert, probably the last. The concert went very well, and, in spite of all the hindrances put in my way by his archiepiscopal grace, I had a better orchestra than Brunetti, as Ceccarelli can tell you; but the worry and trouble I had to arrange it all can be told better than written. But if, as I hope will not be the case, the same thing should happen again, I should certainly lose patience, and you would as certainly forgive me. And I must beg for your permission, my dear father, to return to Vienna next Lent. It depends upon you, not on the Archbishop; for even if he refuses permission I shall go: it will do me no harm, not a bit! Oh, if he could read this, how glad I should be! But you must give your consent in your next letter, for it is only on this condition that I return to Salzburg--and I must keep my word to the ladies here. Stephanie will give me a German opera to write. I shall expect your answer to this. When and how I shall set out I cannot tell you at present. It is lamentable that we are so kept in the dark by our lord and master. All at once it will be, "Allons! weg!" First we are told that a carriage is being made in which the controller Ceccarelli and I are to travel; then that we are to go by the diligence; then that we are to have the money for the diligence, and travel as we choose (which, indeed, I should like best of all); first we are to go in a week, then in a fortnight; then in three weeks, then again sooner. Good heavens! one does not know where one is with it all, and there is no help for it. Yesterday the ladies kept me quite an hour at the clavier, after the concert; I believe I should be sitting there still if I had not managed to steal away. Again he writes later (June 13, 1781):-- At the last concert, when it was all over, I played variations for a whole hour (the Archbishop gave me the subject), and the applause was {RELEASE.} (178) so great that, if the Archbishop has ever so little of a human heart, he must have been pleased; and instead of showing me approbation and content--or at least taking no notice of me--he treats me like a beggar, and tells me to my face that I must take more pains, that he could get a hundred who would serve him better than I do. Mozart's passionate excitement had risen to such a pitch that a drop was sufficient to overflow the cup of his wrath; the Archbishop paid no heed, and affairs came to an inevitable crisis. The following letter (May 9, 1781) shows how far Hieronymus thought he might go with his dependents:--