Stanzi, you must promise me to be steadfast and do nothing rash. Your new suitor, Henri, seems a blessing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did run off with him to Paris, and leave Mama with her fine scheming plans. But do you know him very well? Have you fallen in love with him—as men often do with women—simply because he is so handsome ? That’s why Papa married Mama, because he was sick with love for her; she was such a beauty. Be careful; there’s more to life than that. And don’t think you have no beauty. You do have it, but you’re still afraid to look at it because it’s not the kind you want.
I hardly dare ask how Mother does. Frau Alfonso feels she is a little out of her mind and is drinking too much, and that her reliance on Father’s old friend Johann Franz Thorwart will lead her into more delusions and terrible plans, in which you cannot help but be involved. You know “Uncle” Thorwart insisted Mama invest her small savings in one of his ventures, and she lost all of it; Alfonso has ended his friendship with Thorwart over that. Now we’re afraid the unscrupulous T is likely to want to make it up to her with far wilder schemes. Pah! I despise him.
How bad of me not to stay and help you both, but what could I do? I was drowning in that house, so very unhappy, and I am happiest when I can sing good parts. I feel so much emotion in me that it pours out in music. If I can’t persuade you both to come here, I’ll return eventually and we’ll all live together.
My heart is with you, and I will come back for you.
In all love and always,
J. Weber
On Easter Sunday, sitting in the parlor with the stacks of music pushed to one side of the table, Constanze wrote her reply, her head resting on her hand.
Josefa,
I miss you so much. Sophie and I simply rattle around together in this house. Aloysia avoids us; she is always singing at private concerts when not at the opera and makes great sums of money. And as for Mother, her moods are so bad that yesterday the boarder in our best room took his bags and went away. The other day I came into the parlor and saw Father’s ghost at the clavier. He raised his eyes and looked at me. Where are my daughters, where are my daughters? he seemed to say. Then he was gone.
I send with this letter two that have come for you from Munich, and carefully hid them so they would not be opened. Are they from him whom you loved? Alas, what is the love of a sister compared to the great pull of the world? I don’t feel it so I can’t understand. I have no great gifts. I would like to be happy, to make those few people dear to me happy. I wanted to keep us all together. I’m still determined to do so in the end.
Yes, Henri tells me he loves me. I didn’t think anyone would love me; I have always felt myself unlovable. And then I was on the edge of loving a very wrong person, but now I never walk down his street anymore. Henri has bought me a little ring, though the engagement is not yet known. My only problem is that I’m not in love with him. I like him, but I gave my love away stupidly, and now I don’t have it anymore. Do you think it comes back? So he loves me, and I pretend I love him. (I could wish he were not so vain.)
Outside of this and the fact that my temper is much worse, I am fine. I don’t know why I burst out with things now; I didn’t used to do it, and now I can’t stop myself. I shouted at Henri the other day when he stopped by to ask me out for a coffee. He walked away from me and then I had to run after him.
Sophie says to tell you that she has taken in another cat that she found freezing in the snow. She also saw saints and cherubim in church on Good Friday, just walking down the nave as if out for a stroll. She mentioned it offhandedly, wondering if I saw them, too. But if I could see Father,