played two games of billiards with Herr von Mozart who wrote the
opera for Schickaneder's theatre; then I sold my nag for fourteen
ducats; then I had Joseph call my primus and bring a black
coffee, to which I smoked a glorious pipe of tobacco....At 5:30 I
went out of the door and took my favorite promenade through the
Glacis to the theatre. What do I see? What do I smell? It is the
primus with the cutlet Gusto! I eat to your health. It has just
struck 11 o'clock. Perhaps you are already asleep. Sh! sh! sh! I
do not want to wake you."

"Saturday, the 8th. You ought to have seen me yesterday at
supper! I could not find the old dishes and therefore produced a
set as white as snow-flowers and had the wax candelabra in front
of me."

(Vienna, October 7, 1791, to his wife, who was taking the waters
at Baden. Mozart was fond of billiards and often played alone as
on this occasion. He was careful of his health and had been
advised by his physician to ride; but he could not acquire a
taste for the exercise--Hence the sale of his horse. The primus
was his valet, a servant found in every Viennese household at the
time. Out of the door through which he stepped on beginning his
walk to the theatre his funeral procession passed two months
later.)

172. "I have done more work during the ten days that I have lived
here than in two months in any other lodgings; and if it were not
that I am too often harassed by gloomy thoughts which I can
dispel only by force, I could do still more, for I live
pleasantly, comfortably and cheaply."