Mozart's Birds

The little fellow was close to death. His two pet birds, as usual, began to sing together. Toward the end the starling fell silent, but the canary (being puffed up with its own nature), sung the more loudly. Exhausted by the noise he threw his powdered wig at it. “Bring the starling to me,” he begged his wife, “but take the canary away.” Though Constanze and her sister were with him, when the starling and the man looked at each other, it was as if they were alone. “I hear something not of this earth,” he told the starling. The bird cocked its head and opened its beak wide, A death rattle rang from its throat, a sound (it seemed to him), to be as sublime as any celestial choir.