Catching the attention of the guests, he surprised them by playing a popular folk tune in a very primitive manner. Very soon, the whole high society in Austria was talking about ‘the little entertainer’ until one day the rumor reached the ears of Hilarius Happ, a reputed Austrian musician. He was a seasoned composer who had directed the Vienna Philharmonic during his middle years and was a real music lover. So the little prodigy incident awakened his curiosity so bad that he offered his mother a succulent sum of money to have the boy at home for two days. As soon as Veit was put in front of the maestro’s forte piano he witnessed in amazement how this young prodigy could follow all his challenging musical exercises without a blink: he had discovered a new Morazt!

Veit Alvintzi never returned home. His mother accepted his adoption for a convenient sum of money with the honorable promise that the boy would be suitably educated until he reached of age. From that day on, Veit would spend 16 hours a day getting trained in music by his proficient maestro. At five, he could read music fluently, interpret at the forte piano, and even write his own little music pieces. He was truly going to be the new Mozart, who toured Europe at six. But his maestro had a very different plan for Viet’s career…

But fate struck everyone’s dreams and turned them into ashes. The very morning of the concert Hilarius Happ suffered from a deadly heart attack. The concert was canceled and his remains were set in the stage of the theater. Veit was devastated, but his obsession to play for her beloved lady was so strong that he managed to wake up from the numbness and react. He had made up his mind, he alone will play the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra for the two people who he loved most in his life: his now departed maestro and his muse Lady Eberle. So he quickly penned a note and got it sent to Lady Eberle. The note said: “Meet me at the theater in the evening and I will perform just for you. Truly yours, Viet.”

In the darkness, standing by a flower decorated coffin surrounded by candles, he stood in steady position his violin and bow held high, waiting with for Lady Eberle to enter the theater hall to start the awaited music journey. And when he first saw her shaded figure entering the main door, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and started to play the 1st Movement of the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Entering into an hypnotic trance, he penetrated a profound world of darkness and his playing became by the minute even more precise and moving than ever before. He was riding the beast of music through the oceans of the deepest soul! But a disturbing noise broke his concentration and he fell fast from the high skies as a broken Icarus.

Laughter, it was laughter… He opened his eyes and he saw an humiliating picture of scorn that he would never forget: Lady Eberle was laughing, surrounded by other young ladies and gentlemen. They were all laughing out loud at him with malicious eyes. One of the young men was whispering on Liesl’s ear while she kept laughing, and then he yelled at Viet: “Stop it, you fool! The old man is as dead as the sexual life of an aging widow!”.

Veit was as frozen as a statue for a second. Then he ran away from the theater and wandered around out of the city with his violin and bow in his hands until his feet and arms were numb. He had understood the painful truth: the woman who starred all of his dreams was not the one he thought. She was nothing but a pretty face but one of the vulgar insensitive people that his mentor many times called “the dreg of the world”. But now his mentor, the only generous and wise soul he had ever known, the one and who taught him everything right and advantageous in life, was gone. He was alone, finished up, soul drained and lacking dreams. He was a living dead.