Constanze falls in love and more about the mittens.
After a few days, Mozart did come to stay with us. He was enjoying himself in Munich, visiting among his musiker friends and seeing the winter operas. At first he and Aloysia were both on their dignity, but it didn’t last. The lure of music together was simply too strong.
One evening she sang for him. He promptly went to his trunk and fetched out the score of a new, very difficult concert aria, explaining that he had composed it while traveling, all the time thinking of her.
“It will show off your splendid talent, Mademoiselle. In the same way that remarkable dress shows off your splendid figure.” He presented the work with a grand flourish.
All was forgiven. She gave him kisses that were just this side of sisterly and danced around the parlor warbling cadenzas, while he listened like a soul in bliss.
As for me, I blushed furiously every time Mozart was near. I ached to be close to him and then suffered when I was.
The onslaught of this puppy love was both immediate and painfully obvious. Josepha teased relentlessly.
“Kleine Fraulein Brust,” she caroled at the top of her powerful soprano, “loves…loves…loves…Herr Volfi-gang Mozart.”
I tried to ignore her, but her voice made the rafters ring.
“I think you’d make a perfect couple,” she said. “Two dear little runts! At least he wouldn’t have to stand on a chair to kiss you.”
Of course, there was a secret reason why that particular remark made me screech and throw things at her.
Thanks to my bashfulness, as well as to wretched Sophie and her great big eyes always following me around, only once during the entire two weeks did I manage to be alone with him. The day it finally happened, he was supposed to be giving me a music lesson.
I confess, I wasn’t learning much. His proximity was all I could think of. Every time our hands touched, or his arm brushed mine, I would squirm and blush.
Marie and Jo began a noisy quarrel in the kitchen, a not unusual occurrence. Mama got up to settle it, and suddenly Wolfgang and I were alone.
For days he’d been enduring my sad-eyed looks. I felt a rush of joy when, as soon as the kitchen door closed, I felt an arm slip around my waist. Instead of the hoped for kiss, however, there were words. Words I didn’t want to hear.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Stanzi Marie.” His index finger softly stroked the length of my nose. “But I respect your innocence too much to play any more naughty games. I want to apologize for what happened at the party. I was very wicked to kiss you like that.”
Cut to the quick, I tried to pull away, but he held on tight and insisted upon giving my cheek a brotherly peck.
“Don’t cry, Stanzi,” he whispered. “You’ll always be my dear little girl friend.”
Then, just like on the landing, a goatish gleam shone from those celestial blue eyes.
“But allow me to give you some advice, Madchen. The next man who tries to kiss you like that, and, trust me, it will be soon, box his ears and run as fast as you can to your Mama. You could get into awful trouble kissing a fellow the way you kissed me.”
Wolfgang had wonderful reflexes, but I very nearly landed my blow directly on one of his precious ears. As it was, he got a good slap across the face before I jumped up and ran.
He shouted, a mixture of laughter, surprise and, I prayed, pain. He made a none too serious grab at my flying skirt.
I wanted him to give chase, but he didn’t. Not only that, such a row had developed in the kitchen that the sound of the slap, the bang of my chair going over, and my flying retreat all passed without a single comment. Such a thudding anticlimax.
~*~
It was another wretchedly cold day when Mozart started for Salzburg. While he and Aloysia were making mutually complimentary farewells in Italian at the top of the stairs, I slipped out the back and trotted into the snowy garden. Even with my heaviest quilted petticoat on, I shivered immediately.
I had gone to great lengths to avoid everyone and get away by myself, but Sophie, the wretched little pest, followed. I knew that if I fought with her, she’d wail and make a scene. Then Mama would figure out what I was up to.
With no other option, I grabbed her by a pigtail, yanked it as a demonstration of what I could do, and then exacted an oath of secrecy. I had a present for Wolfgang, and this time he was going to get it from me.
When he finally came out-of-doors, Sophie rushed up and asked if he would give her favorite doll a kiss good-bye. He ceremoniously obliged. Then he looked at me.
“Aufweidersehen, Herr Mozart.”I tried to sound grown-up and cool, all the time clutching the present beneath my shawl. As I had hoped, he formally reached for my fingers.
Instead of letting him give them a kiss, I pressed another pair of mittens into his hands. For days I had crept about, knitting them in secret.
I blurted, “They’re exactly like the ones I knitted for you last year.”
As the meaning sank in, Mozart’s blue eyes clouded. Evidently, he had been cherishing the belief that Aloysia had knitted the first pair.
After what seemed an eternity of staring into those wounded eyes, I turned and bolted through the garden gate. When I reached the icy safety of the outhouse, I locked myself inside and cried.
Such bitter tears! They practically froze where they fell, but I needed to be alone. I stayed and stayed, weeping and chattering, until I was driven out at last by a neighbor’s servant pounding on the door, yelling she had a precariously full chamber pot to empty.
At dinner, Papa asked, “Where did you go, Konstanze? Herr Mozart very much wanted to say good-bye to you.”
“I was ill, Papa. I was in the outhouse.”
I stared straight into my plate and gave Sophie’s skinny shin a warning kick under the table.
If she said a word, she would die!
Sophie was stoic. Her eyes filled with reproach and tears, but, by heaven, she never breathed a syllable of what she’d seen.
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