The Patron's Salon
パトロンの広間
By the age of twenty, Elias had left his father's house and arrived in the heart of Vienna.
His talent, which had ripened in cold and empty churches, soon reached the ears of the wealthy.
Countess von Herzfeld, who collected musicians as others collected paintings, invited him to her .
The , whose golden walls reflected a hundred candles, glittered like the inside of a jewel.
Surrounded by admirers, Elias played until his fingers ached and the ladies sighed with pleasure.
Everyone praised him, yet few of them understood a single of what he had written.
The Countess, who rarely listened past the first minute, called his music merely "charming."
Charming was the very last word Elias wanted, for he had bled onto every page.
Dressed in a borrowed coat, he moved among counts and bankers like a polite stranger.
They spoke of horses and politics while his music faded into pleasant background noise.
Having grown up in poverty, he could not help counting the cost of every wasted candle.
The wine, which flowed more freely than conversation, loosened tongues but sharpened his loneliness.
One old baron, whose fortune had come from war, offered to buy an entire symphony.
"Write me something famous," the baron said, "and your name will open every door in the city."
Smiling politely, Elias felt something cold quietly settle in his chest.
He understood, perhaps for the first time, that these people wanted decoration, not truth.
Art, which he had believed to be , was here merely another thing that money could .
Still, he needed their coins, for genius cannot eat applause or sleep beneath praise.
So he bowed, and smiled, and accepted the baron's gold with a perfectly steady hand.
Yet each felt like a small of the boy at the church organ.
Late that night, walking home through empty streets, he passed a humming an old folk tune.
The beggar's melody, rough and unpaid for, moved him more than the whole glittering .
It was then that Elias began to wonder what his music was truly for.
He resolved to write, one day, a work that no could ever buy or .
Little did he imagine how dearly the freedom to write it would one day cost him.
For even then, though he did not yet know it, a faint ringing had begun in his ears.