Friedrich Augustus Bridgetower Discovers the Purposes of Fatherhood

The boy is smitten with tiny sounds: purring bees and crickets, sighing leaves, hammer clack from the courtyard (Will those flagstones ever finish?); last evening I managed to shoo him off

seconds before the Prince exited the belvedere on his way in to dine: This time the royal tapered heels tip-tapping had mesmerized. I apologized

with my most flamboyant bow (guaranteed to coax a smile). Now Pater Niemeccz has volunteered to attend this strange rapture; all morning from the library

an infernal peeping— mechanical clocks blasting the ether with their toy fife parade! No nervous solicitudes can muffle this noise nor genuflection deliver

a reprieve—here’s Maestro Haydn, fresh from his daily audience, striding across the marble in full Kapellmeister livery to investigate our misery’s

source: Tomorrow . . . tomorrow, gods willing, if there is a tomorrow . . . I’ll arrange to send the boy north, back to Saxony, so his mother can do the sorting. First, though,

there’s the small matter of this approaching tribunal, Pater, Meister, and Youngblood— my petit terror smiling up at me, caught in the thrall

of his bright brown ignorance. Master Haydn reaches down to cup the rough head, murmurs: There’s music in here.

Ach, is that so? Then, by your Lordship’s grace and the sacred lyre of Apollo, lets squeeze it out of him!