the maids would rise and light the fires and prepare the strong coffee and hot chocolate, then run into the street for fresh, warm bread from the baker’s boy. But now it was late, and the clocks each struck at a slightly different time, so that midnight in one street arrived some minutes before midnight several streets away.
Mozart walked alone after the carriage had rolled away, a little tipsy, whistling to himself. He opened the door of the house and took off his shoes, mounted the creaking steps, unlocked the upper door, and passed into his ugly garret room, which served as parlor, dressing room, and bedchamber. There, waiting for him, was his narrow bed. The room was very cold, but at least he could feel the small fire from where his mother slept, paid for with money from home on the strength of what the flute commission and other work would bring. He took off his wig and set it on the table. He also took out the watch, grimacing slightly. He might sell it in another city, not here. Yes, he would sell it in a faraway city, where the prince’s valet would never come across it hanging in a jeweler’s window at a reduced price.
“Wolfgang, is that you?” came his mother’s sleepy voice from the other room; she coughed once or twice. “Why did you come so late?”
“They made me wait forever before they called me in to play. Are you better?” he asked, joining her in her room.
“My chest aches; the landlady brought me a mustard plaster and a hot stone wrapped in flannel for under my feet. The fire’s such a comfort. But you have a clavier lesson for Mademoiselle Cannabich in the morning. Oh, what a shame they made you wait so long. Did you have the opportunity of speaking to His Highness about composing a new opera for Mannheim?”
“There was no time; I’ll have to find another opportunity.”
“Your father wrote that your old friend Padre Martini from Italy sends you his love and prayers; he wishes you’d write and tell him how you’re getting on.”
Mozart listened somewhat anxiously to her coughing, and then heated some wine on her low fire and sat on her bed as she drank it, stroking her hand. A few more age spots had appeared there since last he had looked. After a time she fell asleep, and he kissed her cheek, then returned to his own room.
There he lay on his bed in only his shirt, his arm beneath his head, thinking of the rolling ride home in the carriage, and the two girls’ hair powder, which flecked onto their dark cloaks. He thought of Josefa’s bitten nails and how she had retreated to the shadows of the carriage quite suddenly, and of Aloysia’s eyes as she spoke of Venice.
Two of the clock. A song for soprano and keyboard had almost finished itself in his head. When dawn came into the room high above the houses, he would write it down from memory, and sign it W A. Mozart, with his usual flourish. It was yet many hours before seven in the evening when he was expected at the Webers.
The bottles of wine had arrived from the vintner by late Thursday afternoon; the scent of apple cake was rising from the kitchen; and the hour was just a little past six, which meant the guests would not climb the five flights of steep stairs for another hour. Aloysia Weber had shut herself in the narrow chamber that she shared with her three sisters, its two beds chastely hidden behind cheap white cotton hangings, its wardrobe, its dozens of hooks full of dresses, its scattered shoes, and its large jewelry box whose contents were mostly imitation. When Sophie was six years old, she had emptied the box to make it into a house for her pet white mice. (“They have feelings, too, you know. How would you like to live in a nasty hole in the wall?”) It had been restored, though it was never quite the same; it now always held a strange scent, and one corner of the dark velvet lining had been nibbled.
Aloysia had just finished unwinding the rags from her hair, and one never knew just how they would hang until that was done. Would the thick curls at the back of the neck be crooked? No, they were perfect, much better than last night. But she had been lovely enough then; her father and