beside him. “Listen to me,” he said. “Beloved, listen to me. I think of you all the time. There can’t be anyone for me but you. Let’s pretend we’ve just met. I know nothing about your family, nor you of mine. We introduce ourselves just so. Now I must tell you I have a present for you.”
“But you didn’t know I was coming.”
“Sophie sent word last night.”
“Oh, that child—I’ll be forced to send her back to the convent. Well, show me the present but ... stop, we’ve just met. Remember that. We’ve just met, and we’re beginning again.”
He took her hand and led her down to the concierge’s dark room by the main door, where in the corner there was a basket containing a dog and four pups. He knelt, pulling her down. “I already told her I’d take the brown one off her hands. Look, I said to myself, they’ll be taken and drowned, but not if there are homes for them. I said, this one’s for Stanzi. You can’t take her yet, she’s too young; but you can visit daily, or twice daily, or hourly, and when you do now and then, you will remember the lonely composer upstairs.” He hesitated. “When we have our own rooms, when we’re married, she’ll be ours.”
“I hope that will be soon,” she said, her face hidden under the brim of her hat.
“It must be very soon, Constanze, for I’m suffering for want of you.”
“And I’m suffering wanting you,” she murmured, her words muffled by her drooping hat brim and the soft puppy noises. “I suppose I should tell my mother and you’ll have to tell—”
“I’ve already written him.”
They were all already assembled as he came into the boardinghouse parlor with Leutgeb at his side, though the hour had not yet struck. Caecilia Weber wore her darkest and most formal dress, buttoned to the neck, and her white cap with the faintly yellowing lace at the edge. At her throat was fastened a brooch he recognized; he had always wondered if the piece contained a holy relic or some memento of her late husband.
He bowed, and she inclined her head.
To her right was Thorwart with a rolled piece of paper on his knee, which Mozart assumed to be the marriage contract. Behind him was Constanze, her small hands clasped in her lap and her head lowered. Mozart could see her only a little through the bulk of the others, but he thought she looked anxious. He would have liked to kiss her hands. Beside her, on the chair with a crooked leg, Sophie also sat with hands clasped in her lap. Whenever she moved a little, the chair tilted. He wondered which would last longer, the meeting or the chair.
He took a seat and placed his hat on his knee. Leutgeb sat by his side, rocking back and forth slightly, his mouth twitching hard now and then. Mozart kept his eyes firmly focused on the bald spot of the rug around the clavier leg. If he dared look directly at Leutgeb or Sophie, he would not have been able to contain himself. He might have rolled across the worn rug, seizing one of the old red sofa cushions to stuff in his mouth. “You will behave?” he had pleaded to Leutgeb as they walked over. “The seriousness will be a bit higher than if the Archbishop of Salzburg had tried me for assault, but then, this is more important. After all, she owns the girl, or thinks she does.”
“The wind bag, the moldy cheese.”
“She’s not quite that bad.”
But Mozart, raising his eyes to his future mother-in-law, thought, She’s worse.
Thorwart cleared his throat. “We are gathered here—”
Maria Caecilia put up her hand to silence him, inclined her head. “Herr Mozart,” she said. “My dear Herr Mozart, I believe I understand that you wish the hand of my daughter Constanze.”
“I wish to marry her, yes, hand and all. Both hands and all other limbs, dear Frau Weber.”
“You must understand certain things. We are not now quite as you found us some time ago in Mannheim, when my poor dear husband yet blessed us with his wisdom. I’m a widow now, with only two remaining daughters. You wish to marry my Maria Constanze, but how do we know you’ll do it? I am asking you as a mark of good faith to sign this contract that you will pay a certain sum of money if you haven’t married her within three years. You understand we