Marrying Mozart (30 page)

He felt the first warm drops of rain. People about them scurried for cover; suddenly the heavens opened, and the rain poured down. In moments the ground was soaked. He seized her hand, and they ran together under the trees, huddling there with several other people. Above them the rain poured off the leaves and down to the dirt path. He said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would come so soon.”

“When we were girls we would play in puddles in the rain and after. Did you ever do that with your sister?”

“No, I don’t remember anything like that. I only remember friends and music. My mother and father lost several babies before my sister and I were born. They were very careful with us.”

Now she was silent, nodding, arms across her chest, the portfolio wet. Under the noise of the rain, she murmured, “Herr Mozart, you once said something unkind about me and my sisters to another boarder. You said there was only one beautiful Weber girl. You never thought me pretty at all. I’m not beautiful like Aloysia, but I think I have some beauty. When I heard you say that, I wasn’t in the least sorry she broke your heart. I felt you deserved it.”

He nodded. “It was a stupid thing to say,” he muttered. “I’m a boor, an ass, and if I said such a thing, I did deserve it.” He felt for her cold fingers, and moved his hand away again. “If only we weren’t so stupid, if only I knew better ...” Then he gave up. “Ah, this rain,” he said sheepishly. “We’ll be soaked.” He slipped his arm around her to shelter her. At first she pulled away, but when he tried once more, pulling her nearer to him inch by inch, she did not move.

They stood listening to the rain, which drummed more quietly now. Her brown shoes and the hem of her skirt were soaked. When the rain ended, they walked home through the wet streets; once she stamped her foot in a puddle, and the water splattered all about. Then she was serious and quiet again. As they approached Petersplatz she became even more silent and walked a little ahead of him, briskly, becoming once more the boardinghouse keeper’s daughter. Above them from the house hung the neat little sign: FINE ROOMS TO LET BY MONTH. Both the drunken theology student and the Spaniard had left. Pigeons were shaking the wetness off their wings, and the large puddles reflected the slate-hued sky.

S
trange that she had been in this house so long and he had barely noticed her. Now he was aware of her often. She’s in the kitchen, he would say to himself, and now she’s gone out. Where has she gone? he would wonder. He looked from his window to see her walking off with her basket. Outside the sun shone; there were no puddles. He smiled to himself. Otherwise he was terribly busy trying to make ends meet as the libretto arrived in disorganized pieces; he composed when he could, and still had no approval from the Count. He played at the Countess Thun’s, and gave more lessons to Mademoiselle Aurnhammer, who flirted with him. He arrived home and found Constanze had become a shadow once more.

“Puddles,” he’d whisper as they passed on the stairs, and sometimes, “Puppies, little darling ones with wet noses who piss in little pots. Oh no, it won’t rain; it never rains in Vienna.” Though he made her smile, each time she then withdrew again. She recalled what he had said about her lack of beauty and could not forgive him. She was silent and severe. How could he persuade her he meant better? Life had sobered him, and she did have her own beauty, but he had no words to express it. They met just inside the street door, by the potted plant, where she was reading a letter from one of her sisters. He leaned against the wall, by the hatrack, and read one from Padre Martini, who had returned to Italy, then another from his father, who complained of Salzburg and told him to keep his feet dry. His sister, quiet and patient Nannerl, had also written.

“Come, play this with me,” he cried from the parlor the next day. “I’m setting some of my dances for fortepiano. What do you think? I know you play well.” She put down her sewing, came across the room, and sat beside him. Then, as in the old days, the parlor filled with music. Her left hand brushed his, but it was all right, for they were safe in music.

“What will be your future?” he asked when they stopped.

“None. I stay here.”

“Not just only that,” he cried. “Not only that for you.”

She stood up suddenly. Then they were laughing over something. He had not heard her laugh like that in a long time, or perhaps never, because before he had not paid attention. “Stop,” she said. “I must go back to my work.”

“Don’t go,” he said.

I
t was a whole world in those minutes from parlor to kitchen. She had never considered how long it was between those rooms, down a flight of stairs, through a hall past the sour faces of her ancestors’ portraits, and into the kitchen and the smell of the burning fire and chopped food. It was not merely the tinkle of the bright dances she regretted leaving, but something in herself she had not experienced in a long time. She rubbed her flushed face and then slipped into the kitchen where her mother and the maid were preparing dinner.

Her mother’s words came like a slap. “Look at you, Maria Constanze Weber, and God forgive you ... laughing with him instead of helping me. You’re the same as the others. I thought you were better. I have given everything to you girls, and you have cared only what happened to each other, never me, never me. Why are you with him so much these days? A poor musician just like your father. The opera will never happen. I have it on excellent knowledge.”

Constanze stood stunned. “What are these mad stories?” she said, when she found her voice. “What are you speaking about? Does laughter lead to anything bad? Are you worried I’m going to fall in love with him? Yes, of course. He’s not good enough for me because you are once more searching for an imaginary prince to give me a title and money, which will reflect well on you. The Grand Duke of Russia’s coming here in some months; have you written him of me? Here’s your answer; here’s what I think of it.” She snatched up the blue pitcher and hurled it against the brick oven, where it shattered into a hundred pieces.

They both turned then to see Mozart on the stairs, looking from one to the other. Constanze dropped to her knees and began to sweep up the pieces. Their lovely pitcher. She had bought it one sunny day years before while out with her father, and they had packed it in straw on their moves from city to city. Now it seemed she had lost him again in the shattered blue pieces.

Frau Weber began to slice a large onion. “Perhaps you can enlighten me on some matter, Herr Mozart,” she called to him.

“I would try to do so, madame,” he replied, approaching the kitchen door.

“I don’t understand sons and daughters these days. I nursed my parents, and it was not until they were in heaven that I accepted Fridolin Weber’s offer of marriage. Nor do I understand a young man, quick to assume that the girl who cooks his meal is also to warm his sheets.”

“What do you speak of?”

“My daughter, who gathers up the broken pieces of my pitcher as if she knows nothing, my daughter and you. Do you think I’ve seen nothing over the past few weeks? You walk with her in the park; you whisper on the stairs. Haven’t I been through this tragedy once already with my older girl, who foolishly waited for you and, in her waiting, grew tempted and fell? Yes, if you had not made her wait, this wouldn’t have occurred. Now they’re gone, they’re all gone but this one, and I have plans for her. I have plans for her.”

“It seems to me that you have plans to sell her,” he said quietly. “And that she objects to being sold. There is a problem there.”

Frau Weber rushed toward him. “Have you compromised her? She’s easy enough; all my daughters are. I’ll make life wretched for you both if such a thing has happened. I’ll blacken your name, young man, so that no good person will attend your concerts, so that the Emperor will know what a shame it is that he listens to your music. Your opera will be canceled if you see her anymore. No one will ever hear your name. I took you in for pity, but I was wrong. Play about with the daughter of a good widow indeed, and see how the law comes down upon you!”

“But madame, this is madness. Do you threaten me?”

“I do, and I’ll carry it through. You are not to see her anymore, do you understand me? Leave,” she cried imperiously. “Leave!”

He turned in confusion to Constanze, her apron full of broken bits. “Yes, do go,” the girl cried. “This is no place for you, Mozart. You see how we are. There’s no help for us here since Papa died. Go, I’ll send word. I’ll be fine. Truly, I’ll send word.”

He went at once through the streets to Leutgeb’s rooms above his cheese shop, and later they sent the delivery boy for his things. He did not look at them but walked up and down in his little room. Constanze, he thought. What on earth has occurred? If she did not come to him by the morning, he would go to her.

B
ut she came early the next day. He had slept badly, waking to rain pelting his window. When he heard her voice below, he ran down the stairs three at a time and found her standing in the shop, her cloak and skirt still dripping. Leutgeb walked toward him between the wedges of odorous soft cheeses, which were veined with mold like the delicate hand of an elderly person. “This is a bad thing,” he muttered, straightening his shop apron. “Frau Weber seems to have gone quite from her mind.”

Constanze stood between the crates, tears running down her face. “What is it. What is it?” Mozart cried, taking her hands.

“I’m never going back there. She’s berated me without ceasing since you took your things, first accusing me of being your mistress, then crying that I should have seduced you so you’d have to marry me and take me off her hands. And then, worst of all, the whole truth about Sophie’s leaving came out. Yes, she’s gone mad. I won’t go back, and I won’t love her anymore. It’s all over between us.”

“But what of poor little Sophie?” he asked. He wondered if she would ever find out about the young girl being in his room, or if she would believe they had merely laughed, found her spectacles, and talked about God and happiness.

“My mother said you tried to seduce her.”

“I never ... but this is madness also.”

“Of course I don’t believe such a thing; I never could. But I didn’t know where to go, and I felt terrible for the things she said. Oh what does she want of me? How can I go back there? And then suggesting that we ...” She put down the cup of coffee Leutgeb’s wife had brought her and turned to the small stove in the corner, continuing as though Mozart were not there. “Does she think I have no pride? I wore enough of my sisters’ cast-off dresses, and I won’t have her cast-off love. The beauteous Aloysia—you chose her and may have the memory of her!”

“What?” he murmured, astonished. “Are you angry with me now?”

“Yes, I am. I have been for a time because you said—”

“But I beg your forgiveness, dear Constanze. We discussed this when we walked home that day in the rain. You told me you’d forgotten it. I did love her; it was true. I did pay for it. My heart was broken.”

They became suddenly aware that customers had entered the shop and were staring at them. Constanze covered her face and then flung her hands down again. She paced up and down between the shelves, crying, “Where can I stay? What will happen to me? I can’t go back. The things of which she accused me, of which she accused you. Of course everyone has run away but me. I will never never go back there again; I’ll go to Sophie’s convent and ask the good nuns to shelter me.”

“No, dearest,” Mozart said. “No, Constanze, I’ll take you to my friend, the Baroness von Waldstätten. She’ll give you shelter. I’m afraid this terrible thing has made you ill; look how you shiver. Your father would wish me to take care of you. I will take you to my friend.”

“W
ell,” said the Baroness von Waldstätten, gazing with a majestic smile at the shivering girl when Mozart helped Constanze down from the carriage before the mansion some small distance from central Vienna. “What is needed is a dry dressing gown, a place close to the fire, hot wine, and a little rationality. I place great stock in rationality. Young women are not to be bartered and battered with words, are they?”

Walking so rapidly before them into the great house that they had to hurry to keep up with her, the Baroness waved her hand as if to indicate the agreement of the naked marble muses that stood in separate niches in the round entrance hall. “Especially,” she added archly, “not young Viennese women in these modern times, no indeed. Have not young women hearts and minds of their own? Is this not God’s gift? Come now, come!”

Settled in a large guest room and dressed in a borrowed velvet dressing gown, the coughing Constanze was brought dinner on a beautiful tray, while Mozart and the Baroness gazed at her with concern. When they wished her good night and left her, she buttoned on a nightdress of soft, rich wool trimmed with pink lace, and slid between the sheets of the great bed.

By the light of several burning candles, she looked across the room to the dressing table, then rose to examine the crystal bottles of eau de cologne and the many silver boxes. On one lid were engraved the words: NO GREATER GOOD THAN MAN AND WIFE. Near it a silver frame held a small portrait of the Baron, a rather old man, who gazed back at her with a paternal expression. Whether he had gone to another country and died, or separated from his wife for her rumored infidelities, no one was sure.

Oh, why was she here? Driven, of course, by her mother.

Dear Saints Elizabeth and Anne! How could her mother descend to such behavior after all the years Constanze had defended her and felt she alone understood her, after she vowed to stay with her? And, oh Sophie, would she ever see her again but from behind a convent grille? We’ll always be together, Stanzi.

Constanze stumbled back to the large bed, wound her arms about the huge, cold pillow, and buried her nose in it. She began her evening prayers; in the middle of them her thoughts wandered to Mozart and then to the large, echoing halls of the boardinghouse, and the sound of her mother’s humming rising from the kitchen. Then she wept, shoulders shaking under the feather quilt. She recalled herself stricken by diphtheria at five years old, trying to swim to consciousness, gasping for air, how the room bent and rocked, how the pictures on the wall and the windows seemed to be all crooked, how the sheer white curtains of the bed seemed to sway.... There was her mother by her bedside with her prayer book or her knitting. There she was, leaning over Constanze, her hand on her daughter’s hot forehead, murmuring, “Stanzi, Stanzi,” with the greatest love in the world.