Forgiveness at Königsberg

          Sesto, non più: torniamo
      Di nuovo amici,
bring tears into the eyes of the most hardened traitors, as I have myself witnessed at Königsberg, after the terrible retreat from Moscow. On our re-entering the civilized world, we found the Clemenza di Tito, very well got up, in that city, where the Russians had the politeness to give us twenty days' rest, of which, in truth, we stood greatly in need.

—L.A.C. Bombet, The Lives of Haydn and Mozart

As if the Russians had forgotten their forgivenessto hunt you down, Henri Beyle, even in bookshopsyou hide your own behind three made-up names:Bombet, Schlichtegroll, Stendhal, three masks, one facein danger of being nailed, flayed, to pine bark.

Snowflakes would melt upon your open eyes, give you away,officer, Frenchman! Just as you do in pushing Schlichtegrollaside to enter Königsberg undisguised, a guest of Mozart,released from what war made you, twenty days reprievedby that great poet of reconciliation, one whose power

passes still with some for mere politeness, Pope's Homer,a polished eighteenth-century theme of love recovered …Though not for those who limped back all but dead from Moscow,cast of a nightmare plot of self-betrayal and betrayal,who weep when Titus names his failed assassin "friend."