SCENE 2. A PRIVATE ROOM IN A TAVERN, WITH A PIANO. Mozart and Salieri at table. Salieri What makes you look so gloomy? Mozart           Gloomy? No. Salieri Mozart, there's surely something on your mind. The dinner's good, the wine is excellent, but you, you frown and brood. Mozart                                 I must confess it:             I'm worried about my Requiem. Salieri                   Oh, you're writing a Requiem? Since when? Mozart           Three weeks or so. But the queer part… didn't I tell you? Salieri                         No. Mozart                                 Well, listen: three weeks ago I got home rather late — they told me someone had been there to see me. All night — I know not why — I lay and wondered who it could be and what he wanted of me. Next day the same thing happened: the man came; I was not in. The third day — I was playing upon the carpet with my little boy — there came a knock: they called me, and I went; a man, black-coated, with a courteous bow, ordered a Requiem and disappeared. So I sat down at once and started writing. Now from that day to this my man in black has never come again. — Not that I mind. I hate the thought of parting with my work, though now it's done. Yet in the meantime I… Salieri You what? Mozart           I'm ashamed to say it. Salieri                                    To say what? Mozart I am haunted by that man, that man in black. He never leaves me day or night. He follows behind me like a shadow. Even now I seem to see him sitting here with us, making a third. Salieri                 Come, come! what childish terrors! Dispel these hollow fancies, Beaumarchais was wont to say to me: «Look here, old friend, when black thoughts trouble you, uncork a bottle of bright champagne, or reread „Figaro“». Mozart Yes, you and Beaumarchais were boon companions, of course — you wrote «Tarare» for Beaumarchais. A splendid piece — especially one tune — I always find I hum it when I'm gay: ta-tá, ta-tá… Salieri, was it true that Beaumarchais once poisoned someone? Salieri                                                No, I doubt it. He was much too droll a fellow for such a trade. Mozart                   And then he was a genius like you and me. And villainy and genius are two things that don't go together, do they? Salieri You think so? He pours the poison into Mozart's glass.           Drink your wine. Mozart                          Your health, dear friend: here's to the frank and loyal brotherhood of Mozart and Salieri, sons of Music. He drinks. Salieri Wait, wait! You've drunk it off. You've left me out. Mozart (throwing his napkin on the table)                                 Enough: I've eaten. He goes to the piano.             Listen to this, Salieri: my Requiem. He plays.               Are you weeping? Salieri                          These are tears I've never shed before — painful yet anodyne, as if I had discharged a heavy debt, as if the surgeon's knife had lopped away a sick and throbbing limb! These tears, dear Mozart… You must not mind them. Oh, play on, make haste, flooding my soul with sound… Mozart                                   If all could feel like you the force of harmony! But no; the world would crumble then; for none would care to bother with the baser needs of life; then all would seek art's franchise. We are few, the chosen ones, the happy idlers, we who have no use for what is merely useful, who worship only beauty — do we not, dear friend? — But I'm not well — some leaden languor… I must have sleep. Adieu! Salieri                                 Until we meet. Alone. Your sleep will be a long one, Mozart! — Nay, it cannot be that what he said was true, and I no genius. «Villainy and genius, two things that do not go together». Wait: that's false — for surely there was Buonarroti. — Or is that but a legend, but a lie, bred by the stupid mob, by their inane vulgarity, and that great soul who wrought the Vatican had never sunk to murder? <21 апреля 1941>