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.