rose to her hasty breakfast. At seven the pupil, an impoverished lawyer in a threadbare coat, arrived, and as the sound of his excruciating mistakes echoed through the fifth-story rooms, the four sisters disappeared to their bedchamber to discuss what the eldest two could wear that night.
Somewhat before the hour of nine, fourteen-year-old Constanze, having lent her lace and pearl pin, leaned out the parlor window to watch her father and older sisters rattle down the dark street in a hired carriage. The excitement rose from the dust of the wheels and floated up and through her. It was her sisters’ third time to sing before good Mannheim society; on the last occasion a kind butler had sent them home with napkins full of sweet cakes and oranges, and Aloysia and Josefa had sat up by candlelight until past two describing the chandeliers, the livery of footmen, the rich wide gowns of the women, and all the faces staring stupidly at them.
Constanze looked about the room, which smelled of burned candles.
Papa had given them all lessons. As early as she could recall, he had lined them up by the clavier according to age, his sharp, stubbly chin nodding, the worn white lacing of his shirt trembling, his fragile veined left hand conducting the air while his right hand played the ivory keys, which were tuned regularly and almost always in perfect pitch. They sang in Italian, the language in which almost all fashionable songs were written. When Fridolin was drunk, however, he sang bawdy songs in German, gathered her squealing to his lap, and told her she was his cabbage, his dumpling.
She remembered standing there all little and chubby, barely reaching the clavier, while her two older sisters, still little girls themselves, pushed and shoved each other under the portrait of the Virgin and Child near high dusty windows that overlooked the street. Sophie was then only a mewling infant; but Josefa had put forth her voice boldly, and Aloysia sang like a lark. Aloysia never had to work at singing, whereas Constanze always struggled. Her notes came tentatively as she gazed from under her lashes at her beloved Papa. She didn’t want to sing; she wanted to please him.
Recently, Josefa and Aloysia had sung without her.
Something rustled, and she heard bare feet on the squeaking floorboards. Turning, she could see Sophie, who at nearly twelve was still quite shapeless, heading toward her across the room past the many chairs and piles of music. The edges of the girl’s nose were red, and her eyes watery, but her face bore the same freckled, unperturbed look she had worn since the age of two. Even now as always Constanze could hear the homey click of Sophie’s wood rosary beads, which the girl kept in her pocket. Sophie was devout. She had at least ten saints to whom she lisped prayers in a litany at bedtime, lulling the others to sleep; she had the hierarchy of saints and angels and cherubim in her head, and could draw you a picture (the figures blurred and clumsy) on the back of a discarded sheet of music of the throne of God if you wanted to know exactly what it looked like.
She was also nearsighted; yesterday, returning from the candle and soap shop, she had mistook a tall nun for a priest, curtseying and murmuring, “Good day, Father,” to the suppressed laughter of her three older sisters. Plans to purchase her spectacles had been discussed.
“Are you waiting up?” she whispered to Constanze. “The bed’s cold without you.” She slid her arm around her sister. “I’m glad I don’t have to go sing; I sound like a sick frog. But you don’t mind not going, Stanzi?”
“No, I don’t like strange people staring at me.”
They huddled closer, peering down at the dark street, Sophie rubbing her bare feet against each other for warmth, for the fire had long gone out.
Sophie said, “It’s so cold for October! I heard Papa say it’s going to be a snowy winter; I love snow falling. It makes me feel safe to be here when it falls. The butcher told Aloysia we’d have our first snow long before Christmas.”
“He’s always telling her things as he wraps the sausages. He can’t keep his eyes from her. I think I saw her reading a note this morning on the scrap paper; maybe it was from him.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t a love note,” said Sophie. “Perhaps it was a list of the dresses she’d like; she’s