distraction, darkness had come. Going home was an impossibility. If only Leutgeb were here. All his friends had left the city for one reason or another; even Cannabich was traveling. It was likely the court would be moving to Munich.
A wet snow had begun, and he found refuge in a familiar eating place. He bought paper and borrowed pen and ink, then began to work on a piano/violin sonata.
“Master, we must close,” said the host, and Mozart looked around, startled to see everyone had gone but him, and the exhausted boy who was mopping the floor, leaning half asleep on the mop. He rushed out into the wet snow with his cloak open, and the host ran after him, crying, “Master, master,” and gave him the flopping, forgotten pages. Two slipped from the man’s hand and went blowing down the street. Mozart retrieved them where they had caught about a horse post, a little wet and blotted, and stood gazing at the melody under the gaslight. He wished that the eating house had not evicted him, or that he could have gone to some other quiet place where he could write more and forget his mother’s blanched face, the mournful eyes that accused him and spoke against his proud and imaginative plans.
He leaned against the door of a house.
So much had happened since his promise in the Confectionery. He had written two more songs for Aloysia, recalling the rare range and timbre of her voice, which extended from a few notes below middle C to the very highest range far above the treble staff, the E, the F, and the untouchable flicker of the G, which only the rarest of voices could reach. He was a musician, and he knew the quality of her voice: even in his love he knew the voices of both the older Weber sisters were rich and enviable.
And how the whole casual, warm family had welcomed him, but more than that, much more, had been Aloysias arms flung about him on those steps smelling of other people’s cooking, and her soft lips against his, and her little breasts pressed against his chest, and her tears of relief and joy at their sudden strange blurting of love for each other. I didn’t see at first, Mozart, I didn’t know.... My God, she loved him. The most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and she loved him. It was as if she had been waiting for him all his life. Then she had drawn him upstairs to her family, into the room with the clavier, the burning fire, and a bottle of wine and a polished glass. He felt suddenly the contrast between the heaviness and bleakness of his dutiful life and the bright gaiety of the girls and their family, the clothes and music all thrown about, and good, kind Fridolin Weber’s welcome. He had been accepted as her suitor then; he had been accepted as her betrothed.
He drew his cloak closer; a watchman passing by inspected him for drunkenness but, seeing him sober, said, “Go home, young man.” And Mozart straightened and began to walk very slowly toward the house where he and his mother were guests.
Would his plans to tour with the sisters lift the family from their obscurity and difficulties? Could he do it? Did he not owe his own family everything? Had they not given all for him? Perhaps his mother was right. He ought to make better fortune himself, and then raise her up. Within a few months of being in Paris, he should be wanted everywhere, and then could simply send for her and help make her career. Yes, then he could help lift her sweet and agile voice to fame.
By now he had reached the house; admitted by a weary maid servant, he mounted the stairs to their rooms. His mother was already in bed in her nightcap, but he could tell she was not asleep. “We are going to Paris,” he said. “I have decided.”
Without turning, she spoke, the voice a murmur against the blue bed hangings. “Then say you’ll also forget her.”
He stood quietly with his wet sonata under his coat. “I can never forget her; she’s my muse. I’ll go with you and make our fortune and then come back for her. She’ll be more than muse then; she’ll be my wife.”
There was nothing Sophie loved to do more than sleep, carefully plumping the pillow just so, slipping one arm under it, drawing her knees up