Marrying Mozart (22 page)

The words spilled from him over the crackling of the fire and into the seeping cold corners of the room. “Very good, my lord, the conditions suit us both, for as much as you want nothing to do with me, I want nothing to do with you either. If I never have to see your face again, it will be too soon.”

At that the Archbishop rose, knocking over the wine by his side, and screamed, “Out, out.” The dark red liquid spilled down his robe and spread across the floor. The veins in the older man’s forehead stood out as he seized the bell and rang it violently. Several footmen came running; another door burst open, and Count Arco, also in his dressing gown, rushed in.

“Remove this brat,” said the churchman.

Count Arco cried, “What have you done now, you impudent puppy, you knave? What disturbance have you made?” He seized Mozart by the arm and shoved him from the ornate bedchamber. Followed by the pale footmen, composer and Count half-dragged each other down the stairs to the great palace doors. Mozart felt the Count’s kick from behind and tumbled into the street. He stumbled to his feet again with a cry of outrage and rushed back toward the footmen who stood between him and the figure of the retreating assailant, the nobleman’s pale satin dressing gown glimmering as he faded into the recesses of the round receiving hall. “What? Will you run off, you coward?” Mozart shouted into the echoing hall.

Someone grabbed his arms from behind. Astonished, he turned to face his musician friends. “Leutgeb, you ass, let me go!” he shouted. “I’m going to kill him.”

“No, you idiot!” Leutgeb cried, shaking his head. “Come away while you have a whole skin. We shouldn’t have let you go there. What did you say to your august employer? What could you have said?”

“I told him to kiss my arse, in so many words.”

“What? Actually said it, came near it? Don’t you know how dangerous that is? Why did you do it?”

“I am Mozart,” he said hoarsely.

“And you’ll be Mozart in a prison getting a good beating, believe me! Didn’t you hear what happened to that fellow who struck a nobleman? Nobility has all the privileges to behave badly; we have none. Disgusting, and this with a reforming Emperor on the throne. ”

Mozart shook them off, his voice gruff and ashamed. “Well then, go home, fool, idiot, ass. I’ll do as I like.” The three wind players had half-dragged him around the corner, where they slapped some cold fountain water at him and then dipped his face in it. “That’s it,” Leutgeb said. “I’ve got a horn lesson to give at dawn, and so do the rest of us. Keep your temper, Wolfgang. Don’t you know now’s not the time to let it out? Go to sleep and think about mending your bridges; you’re meant to walk across them, not burn them down. Will you now?”

“Yes, good night,” he said, for the water had sobered him, and he walked, dripping, back toward the cathedral square by the light of the still-burning lamps. But when he returned to the palace door, he saw that his trunks had been brought down and set on the street. All his clothing and his music lay in a heap, the symphony he had written in Paris folded up into his wind band music. Out of curiosity, a few people from houses nearby had opened their windows, only to see a servant fling down onto the pile a single shoe and two books. Impudent puppy and knave, the Count had called him. He would have liked to go back and beat him. “My God, the bastard, the bastard,” he muttered again and again. “To set me loose like this, as if I were some felon ... my God, my God. So this is what it comes to....”

“Do not leave his service for God’s sake,” his father had concluded the letter. “What security have you? You don’t know how to scrape; you don’t know how to bow. I have never doubted your gifts, but without these other attributes you are lost.”

“Dearest Father,” he thought now, composing his reply. “You’ve made me what I am, and I must be what I am. If I starve, sell what music I’ve written, but I must try, I must try. I can’t believe that God has created me to be a second-rate church composer, only doing what this small-minded clergyman wishes. I’ll write masses, great masses, great symphonies, and I shall write opera.”

But for now, at eleven o’clock at night, Mozart sat on one of his two trunks near Stephansdom, its one exquisite high spire reaching to heaven. He had no place in the city to go.

D
earest Father,

My “Paris” symphony was played at the benefit concert and well received. Meanwhile, I have money from the publisher of the quartets, and I am giving another recital at the house of the Baroness von Waldstätten, who is very good to me, and who has an excellent new fortepiano. I am sending on some money so you see I have begun to do a little better. For the love of God, buy yourself some undergarments and good food and a new dress for my sister. It breaks my heart that you should stint yourselves. I have two new suits (one red with silver lace), which I bought only from necessity, for you know I have no vanity, but one cannot appear looking shabby, and the tailor will wait for the balance of the money. I dine at others’ expense as much as possible. My heart is steadfast, this I swear before God; I want nothing but work. (I send six, no twenty, no ninety-three kisses to my sister’s nose.)

But dearest Father, now I must explain how I managed since that dreadful night. Leutgeb had gone home to his rooms above his cheese shop before he knew what had happened, and the drunken man whom I sent took two hours to bang on his door, and my exhausted friend came at once and took me with him, but there was no room there to remain, of course. His wife’s family is there, and there was no place for me. On my life, I did not know what I would do, for I am but a poor wretch left in lodgings alone. You know I can write a movement of a symphony easier than arranging for a laundress to wash my things, and last night for the concert I could find only white hose already splattered with Viennese street muck. Yes, this is a trial. (I send fifty-nine embraces to you, and I embrace faster than I shit, which is fast enough I assure you.)

Now my story. Can you imagine my fortune? I met the widow of that excellent musician Weber while buying bread and ink, and she said she had an empty room for rent, and would welcome me. This is truly all I need to continue to make my success in Vienna. I am sure you will not mind. The two younger sisters, Constanze and Sophie, are sweet; they copy music, keep the household accounts, and cook. They could sew on my coat buttons when they come loose and mend my wretched hose. You know I can’t manage those things myself as my music takes all my time. The older sister scowls at me; we were friendly, I thought, but she’s discontent and doesn’t like anyone. They say it is from a disappointment in love. Oh, if I ever found fault with the Weber sisters for the fault of the one who treated me so poorly, I beg their pardon, for they are good, chaste girls, or at least the younger two are ... what the eldest is, heaven knows. I assure you I am quite safe from romantic intrigue. The thought of marriage now repels me. I want only to work, as work I must.

 

I am ever your most obedient son,

W A. Mozart

 

The reply came, written rapidly.

Two days later he moved into a third-story room in the house, his windows looking out on the green dome of
Peterskirche.
Frau Weber welcomed him warmly. “That hussy, that treasonous girl!” she exclaimed as she unlocked his door with a large brass key. “That she behaved so poorly to me, to you, poor, dear Mozart. Well, you never know what treachery can lie in the hearts of the children we suckle.” She stood there with her jangling keys at her waist, smelling of baking. Her skirt hem was dusted with flour. His heart melted with gratitude as he unpacked his clothing and possessions, laying out on the table a small stack of paper to rule for music staves. It was a light room, with a bed, a washstand, and a pitcher for hot water, on which were painted alpine flowers and the words FROM OUR WANDERINGS, DEAR LORD, BRING US HOME.

Thus began his life in that house, a boarder among a handful of others. Constanze and Sophie looked at him, sometimes smiling as if they hoped some friendship between them might resume, yet he did little more than smile distantly in return. There were no more songs or games. He had neither the inclination nor the time for them.

He heard them whisper their sister’s name, though the rash young soprano herself never set foot within the doors. He knew when, a few months later, she gave birth, and that she had sent the little girl child to the country to be raised by a wet nurse, then returned to her singing with much success. He hurried through the rooms of the house as if rushing from her ghost, which he felt standing here and there, looking at him, mocking him. For a time he felt he could not remain, but to leave the house meant to leave the sound of her name, which he still craved; and so he stayed.

C
onstanze and Sophie could smell linseed oil and paint as they climbed the steps to their sister’s marital apartment, several streets from their own. It was a few months later, a bright June day. Aloysia’s husband, Joseph Lange, opened the door swiftly, as if he had been waiting behind it. He was a tall man in his middle twenties, with small teeth and a strong jaw, who now and then also acted in the theaters.