To Constanze the coming of autumn
was the most beautiful time of the year, with the stone buildings
glowing in the late afternoon sun and the green trees drooping
toward the washed cobbles. Sometimes when you turned a street
corner you felt the faintest tinge of cooler weather, or saw a
single tree whose leaf edges were drying. Everything was rich,
heavy, and warm. The lemonade stands were crowded. Yet, she thought
as she walked between Josefa and Sophie toward the theater for the
performance, all my life from now on there will also be a terrible
sadness for me in this time.
She understood that even with all the tenderness
between her and the young composer, in his mind she had been and
always would be a mere substitute for Aloysia. She had spent much
of the last hours grieving alone in the sewing room and had decided
that she would bid him good-bye with as much dignity as possible.
She would hear the opera with whose composing she would always feel
deeply connected, and she would send him word tomorrow. She would
not make any kind of scene. She respected him for his hard work;
she loved him for it. She was her father’s daughter.
Dozens of horses and carriages were gathered before
the theater, though the royal parties had not yet arrived.
Constanze walked up the steps with her two sisters, and they found
their places on the gilt and red-velvet-covered chairs to the left
of the stage. The house was half full already with perfumed men and
women, their hair powdered and jewels glistening, who came to see
the first performance of the new work in the presence of the
Russian Grand Duke and the Emperor himself. They could hear
musicians tuning.
Constanze closed her eyes.
With the rustling of fabric and the scraping of
chairs, the entire audience stood and bowed deeply toward the
imperial box. The Emperor and his guests seated themselves and
turned to the stage. Mozart entered in his white wig to take his
place at the fortepiano. Constanze leaned forward. He’s tired, she
thought, but in a moment anger consumed her sympathy. The overture
began, and the singers came onstage.
She had heard a great deal of Die Entführung aus
dem Serail before, but only in pieces: arias, duets, choruses
accompanied passionately on the fortepiano, the sound flowing down
the steps from his rooms and pouring from his open window,
accompanied by his light tenor. Now the full glory of orchestra
with horns and timpani and rich singers swept over her. She
clutched her fan and leaned forward still more.
The heroine and her maid had fallen to pirates and
been sold to the Pasha, and their faithful lovers, a nobleman and
his amusing servant, came to rescue them. Not far into the opera,
the tenor began his poignant aria, whose lyrics poured through the
theater with their aching repetition of the heroine’s name:
Constanze, Constanze. She could feel her sisters turn to
her, and Sophie took her hand. In front of all the people in the
theater, he was calling to her, and it was as if there were no one
in the theater but the two of them as he declared his love.
“Constanze, dich wiederzusehen, dich!”
(Constanze, when will I see you again?)
(Constanze, when will I see you again?)
She put her head down; had she not been seated in
the middle of a row, she would have run out, weeping. “Immer
noch traurig, geliebte Constanze?”(Are you still sad, dear
Constanze?) spoke the bass voice of the Pasha. She could feel
Sophie squeeze her hand hard. Each aria, duet, or chorus passed in
sequence, until the great quartet when the two pairs of lovers have
been reunited.
“Wohl, es sei nun abgetan, es lebe die
Liebe!”
(Now let all our doubts be gone; our love will be lasting!)
(Now let all our doubts be gone; our love will be lasting!)
The lovers are caught, and forgiven by the
benevolent Pasha, then sent on their way to the joyful singing of
soloists and chorus over the bright orchestra. Then it was over,
and the audience broke into cheers and applause. Through her tears,
Constanze saw the neat little figure with the white silky wig
bowing to the audience.
“You’ll wait to see him,” Josefa said.
“No, I must go home.”
Darkness was beginning to fall as they approached
their street; looking up, they saw one of the new boarders in his
shirtsleeves, gazing out over the church and smoking his pipe. They
walked into the entrance of the boardinghouse. As they began to
mount the long dusty carpeted stairs, they saw their mother waddle
from the kitchen. “Home at last,” she crowed. “Come, tell me about
it; it’s bound to fail. Frau Thorwart says it’s too florid; I knew
it.”
Constanze gazed at her carefully. She frowned, and
then turned to look back through the still open door toward the
carriages rolling past the church. “I’ve been mistaken,” she said
quietly. “I know it in my heart; I know it. I heard it in the
music. It’s all wrong what people have said. I’m going to
him.”
“What!” her mother cried. “Are you mad? What of
your reputation? Can I at least hope that you’re going to tell him
good-bye?”
“Mama,” shouted Sophie. “It’s not your
concern.”
Constanze ran through the streets. The lamplighters
were now moving their ladders from lamp to lamp, and the beautiful
stone houses glowed in the soft golden yellow light. Coming toward
her were members of the opera’s audience, chatting about the music
and the dresses, the jewels and the hair, about the Emperor and his
party, who had all gone off to a great supper where there would be
woodcock and fish and wine from the vineyards that surrounded the
city. Would Mozart be home yet? It was less than an hour since the
opera ended, and he likely was still receiving
congratulations.
The concierge was standing idly before the house in
which Mozart’s rooms were located. The two women nodded to each
other, and Constanze creaked open the heavy door and mounted the
two flights of stairs.
Mozart had just come in; his door was still ajar.
He stood there in his red coat trimmed with silver lace, faint
splotches of rouge still visible on his cheeks. He gazed at her,
his expression blank for a moment, as if he didn’t recognize her.
“Come in,” he said at last. “I didn’t think you’d be coming. I
heard what you were told. Stanzi, it isn’t true. I never looked at
your sister after I understood how much I loved you. You know that,
don’t you? You believe me?”
“Yes, I believe you.”
“Thank God. I’m so tired I don’t know if I have
words to defend myself, not tonight anyway. I’ve done it; I’ve done
it. God was with me, and I’ve done it. But I saw—you were
there.”
He moved to her side and kissed her gently several
times. Leaning against him, she murmured, “The concierge knows I’m
here alone with you.”
“And if she does? Do we care? Do we care what
anyone thinks?”
“No, not really. Not anymore. So many people were
cheering for you tonight.”
“I heard some of it. As I was leaving, the
Archbishop’s man, Count Arco, came up to me. He said he hoped
Salzburg would have the pleasure of hearing my opera soon. At first
I didn’t even turn to him, and then I said simply, ‘You were
speaking to me, monsieur?’ ”
“I hope you kicked him. He’s owed it.”
“I would have liked to, but he is, after all, a
nobleman, and I’m as common as angels, as Sophie would say.
Verbally I kicked him; that must suffice.”
“I’m glad I came; I’m very glad. I couldn’t be
happier, but now I must go.”
“Don’t,” he said.
They stood in the room holding hands, and kissing
by the light from the street. He unfastened her dress buttons and
kissed her neck and shoulders, and together they moved toward the
rumpled bed. His ordinary clothes were thrown on it, and she felt
the buttons of his day coat when she lay down. His mouth pressed
against hers, and his hands untied her bodice. The lacing snagged.
Her leg was entwined with his. They felt for each other, their
hands exploring more secret places than they had before. He was
clumsy, and she was shy. He entered her, and she cried out when he
poured himself into her.
Afterward, they lay gazing at each other in the
near darkness. “You know,” he whispered, “after we’re married,
we’ll take bigger rooms on the Graben itself, the best rooms. And
musicians and actors will come. It will be like your old Thursdays,
but at the end of the evening I won’t kiss your hand and go away
but lead you to the bedroom.”
Then he said seriously, “I never was with a woman
before this. I hope I did well.”
“I’ve never been with a man, but I don’t think it
could have been better.”
“We won’t wait for anyone’s permission,” he said.
“We’ll marry. ”
Dawn woke her, and she dressed rapidly, finding
her hose curled under the bed, tying her petticoat over her shift,
slipping on her bodice, lacing her skirt. She moved as softly as
possible so as not to wake him. Mozart lay on his back with his
arms above his head, his breath coming softly through his lips. She
touched his lips and whispered in his ear. He sighed, moved to kiss
her, and fell asleep again before doing so. The still gray light
fell on the table containing his closed, bound opera score. She ran
down the steps past the concierge, who was eating soup with a tin
spoon as she surveyed the newly washed cobbles in front of the
church and the faithful as they slipped inside for morning
prayer.
At home Constanze could hear the clatter of
breakfast dishes. She was about to rush up the steps when her
mother came from the kitchen, her face pale and angry. “You come
here like a whore. You’ve been out all night with him, haven’t you?
You know what he is, what all men are! I doubt he’ll marry you
after having gotten what he was after, but if he does, even then I
won’t come to your wedding.”
“Then don’t come,” said Constanze simply, as she
climbed up to her room, flung her arms around her younger sister,
and told her everything.