Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sat before the looking glass in his garret room on a cold November twilight a week after the meeting with Leutgeb in the beer cellar. He was dressing for his first and long-hoped-for appearance at the palace at a gala celebrating the Elector’s name day, the Feast of Saint Carlo Borromeo.
Mozart was already several men, perhaps more than he realized, but the ones he knew well he kept strictly divided. The man who caroused in the cellar and closed his fingers around the whore’s brown nipple was worlds away from the serious young musician who meticulously put the finishing touches on his dress. As carelessly as he had eaten the beer hall chops, he now just as carefully buttoned on his shirt with the great lace, and his embroidered coat and breeches, each item of clothing unwrapped from under the more common cloth that protected it from the smut of the parlor fire and dust of the street. On his cheeks he dabbed the smallest amount of rouge. The white periwig had been newly brushed that afternoon. On top of that he placed his three-cornered hat, then descended the many dark flights of stairs to set off by foot for the palace, his low-heeled shoes tapping rapidly on the cobbles. A few flakes of snow were beginning to fall.
At the palace gates he made his way through the many arriving guests until a footman took him to a little room that was without any manner of fire. After a time he began to walk up and down, rubbing his hands together to keep them flexible enough to play. When he pushed back the heavy draperies, he could see the snow drifting outside the window and resting on the tops of the gates.
Rooms away he heard bright laughter; one servant rushed by with a basket of pale candles, and another wheeled a cart full of wines. Over the halls came the smell of hot food. By this time his hands were so cold he could hardly feel them. Then another footman poked his head about the corner and gave an exclamation of disgust. “Are you the music maker?” he snapped. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have the sense to go where the others wait?”
And you wait the very first in the line of the worse fools, Mozart thought. He clasped his icy hands behind him and followed the footman, who flung open a door to another small antechamber.
It was already occupied. An unusually tall young woman clutching a fan was striding up and down in a wide blue dress that she kicked out of her way as she went. In spite of her powdered-white hair, which was mounted over pads on her head, he recognized her as one of the Weber daughters who had sung duets a few weeks before in the little parlor. Below the low bodice, her waist was tightly corseted, and every now and then she took a deep furious breath, as if she could not get enough air.
He remembered how after his evening at her house she had run down the steps two at a time to return his mother’s purse, which she had left behind, then bolted up the same way. Tonight she seemed a great, wild creature imprisoned in whalebone and satin. Her powdered hair smelled of lavender and orange blossoms.
He bowed formally, and she curtseyed, keeping her head erect so as not to topple her hair. “I’ve forgotten which Weber sister you are,” he said.
“I’m the eldest, Josefa. My younger sister Aloysia and I are singing tonight. She’s talking to someone with our father in another room now. It’s our first time here ... and you?”
“My first time in many years.” He lowered his voice and inclined his head to the sound of chatter from the nearby assembly hall and the scrape of chairs over the music of a string trio. “Tell me, did they listen when you sang, or did they talk the whole while?”
“Ah, you know how it is!” she whispered. “They ignore me, and I ignore them. There’s a great deal of food in there, and we haven’t been offered any. We left the house in such a hurry we forgot the basket my youngest sister packed for us. But this is only our fourth concert. They always talk, says my father, and they hardly ever consider that we might like to have a sip of wine or a bite