I wish I could convey to you how good my life is here, how peaceful and free. Freedom above all is the best of life’s graces. Here the world has no urgency. Each day I rise and bathe in the near dark. If the weather is fine, I go outside with my brimmed hat and paint. If it rains, I study my scores and compose. In the afternoon I ride around on my little horse to visit my students. Is it not an envious life? Is it not the life of a perfect monk?
Vienna! Anna, you know Mozart is there. You must meet him and tell me what he is like.
There’s a robin in the birdbath. For ten minutes together it has been standing ankle-deep in the water and making no motion. Does it care about ambition? Does it wish to be more beautiful than it is? No, it is beautiful as it is, because it is. I will fix it in my mind and paint it in the afternoon.
I wish you a safe and comfortable journey. Tell me about that world. I hope my mother is in exemplary health, and I remain,
Your Loving and Dutiful,
Son and Brother,
Stephen
Dearest Stephen,
Mama fears you’ve lost your senses but I like all this talk of freedom. Of course I will meet Mozart. It will be such a lark. We arrive in April. The contract is for a year. But we talk already of staying longer. You must come to Vienna as soon as you can. We are to live in palaces and have all our firewood and candles provided for, etc. They say the emperor is just a regular gentleman: he wears plain clothes and doesn’t stand on ceremony. Doesn’t that sound like something you’d like? I shall talk to him and get you a commission. I miss you terribly.
Your ever affectionate,
And extremely fortunate,
Anna
My dear Anna,
What a proud singing teacher I am! When I read about Vienna I had to put down your letter. I went onto the street. I wanted to order a carriage and come to you. I don’t know why I didn’t, except you’d have nowhere to put me in your luggage. I suppose this pride is what a father feels. Forgive me. And yet you should know that you have my thanks. You give me joy, even from afar. Sing well. Remember what I taught you. Keep your heart safe, your heart’s core. Keep it strong and safe.
Ah!—a fine father I would make!
I remain, etc.,
V. Rauzzini
Anna and the Thief
Joseph II, emperor over most of the civilized world, had to be kept rich in chocolate drops or he lost his optimism. Lost his cheery yet exacting personal fortitude, his relaxed and progressive outlook of can-do and savoir faire. Vienna had some of the finest chocolate anywhere, and Joseph, despite his disdain for extravagance, wished it no other way. He had hot, melted chocolate every morning for breakfast, brought to him in a teacup so thin that when placed, trembling, on his broad mahogany desktop, the chocolate inside showed like yolk through a shell. By that time Joseph would have been up for hours, writing, pondering, and the rich, extravagant liquid, like an embodiment of heaven, would warm and revive him.
In a way chocolates counterbalanced the other austerities of his life. The emperor wore the brown clothes of a layman, worked long hours, and aspired to reform all the excesses of his relatives and ancestors. He shut down churches and opened hospitals. He fired useless members of his court, no matter their birth or heritage. He bolstered all kinds of music-making. Even his new opera company was for the people. Anyone, after all, could buy tickets. When the hall wasn’t in use he let it out for pennies to the musicians and composers he favored. In music, he felt, lived the soul of humanity. He played chamber music every day, and frequently and unaffectedly visited musical salons. He often said that if people around him forgot he was the emperor, he had done his duty.
He carried chocolate drops in his waistcoat pockets, wrapped like jewels in brightly colored tissue paper, and ate them at all moments—when taking exercise among his subjects in the Prater, when consulting with his ministers, when pacing with his pet beagle down the lawn or attending Shakespearean tragedies at the theater.
The audience at his royal opera house were nothing near as raucous nor demonstrative as those in the theaters of the Italian states. Beneath the music, beneath the soft murmur of gossip, beneath the pad of slippers on bare wood and the sigh and rustle of silk frock coats and full muslin underskirts, one might have heard the neat unwrapping of the emperor’s chocolates, the smacking of his full, placid lips, as pink as if they’d been painted, as he sucked and chewed. His appetite for chocolate reflected his interest in the performance. Anything over twenty drops meant the opera was a winner. On April 22, 1783, a Tuesday, on the occasion of the debut of the new Italian opera troupe with a comedy by Salieri, the emperor consumed twenty-six chocolates before the end of the first act.
Anna, on stage, heard none of the sighing of muslin, so discreet and well mannered were these operagoers. After Italy, it was like being in a deserted church. Nobody called out to her, nor applauded in the middle of her aria, nor threw food nor spat on the floor. Even the theater was austere, a white box with understated decorations, no gilt or frescoes anywhere, and so small and intimate that it was like performing in the emperor’s private salon.
The Italian company had been brought intact from Venice to Vienna: Bussani, Mandini, and their wives; and Benucci, Michael Kelly, and Anna. They were to replace the disbanded German-language singspiel company, which had flourished briefly and then fallen into disregard.
In Vienna there were no street singers. There was no shouting. The side streets were paved with stones that seemed hewn, on purpose, to cause one to fall; the main roads were laid with white gravel that lifted up clouds of dust whenever anyone walked or rode on them. In summer the air became thick with dust and everyone had to cover their mouths with handkerchiefs. Outside of town, though, the air was fresh and clean. The inner city was flanked by a swath of green commons, the Prater, where Viennese of every class would go to recreate, listen to concerts, picnic, and dance. The Viennese loved to dance as much the Venetians had loved to sing.
It was good, Anna told herself, to be in Vienna. Everything was so brisk and orderly. Venice had been a city of passion. Vienna would school and restore her. Though she would be seeing Francesco Benucci nearly every day, at least she would be somewhere new; at least she would be learning German. She had already been complimented on her pronunciation.
Following the opening night’s performance there was a party in one of Joseph II’s ballrooms. Everyone of consequence was invited, and the emperor himself could be seen pouring out wine to his guests.
Anna had slept poorly the night before, from her nervousness. She had been afraid she would not be in good voice, but she supposed everything had gone well. In a corner of the ballroom Benucci flirted with some chorus girls. His face was damp and flushed and he let out great booming laughs. One of the girls had her arms around his neck.
Anna had sent Lidia to find a glass of punch but she could not bear to stand there waiting while Benucci made love to chorus girls. She bowed to the gentleman whom she had been talking to and fled past the tables of faro and whist, past the diligent chamber orchestra, through some glass doors, and onto a terrace.
There was a garden arranged in geometrical shapes with a small orchard. It was a clear evening, although cooler than she was used to. She felt herself reviving to the coolness. With light steps she ran down the path to the end of the garden, where she found a bench and a statue by a tree. She would just sit here a moment, hidden away, she thought, and rest her feet. Then she might return to all of those strangers with a calm spirit and genuine smiles.
She had actually removed her shoes and was stretching her toes in the air when she noticed a gentleman standing in the shadow by the statue. He had been so still, and she so self-pitying, she had not noticed him. She let out a small exclamation.
He darted forward, caught up her shoes, and ran off with them.
“Oh, you wretch!” she cried.
He’d gone behind some bushes. She glanced back at the lights of the palace and bit her lip. Perhaps he wa
s a murderer. But she could not appear before the emperor without shoes on.
Her stockings were new and they were silk. With a whispered curse she slipped them off and stuffed them down her bodice, and went after the villain.
The ground was wet and soft, cool to her feet. She lifted her skirts so as not to get them damp. He was waiting by a fountain, grinning, his hands behind his back.
“My boots!” she said in German, not remembering, in her agitation, the precise word for “slipper” or “shoe.”
“What boots?” he asked softly.
“Mine!” she cried. She opened her mouth to say more, but the horrible language betrayed her. “Oh, you wretch!” she exclaimed again in English, and stomped her foot.
He was a slight man, perhaps thirty, with a profusion of hair and a big, sharp nose. His clothes were fine—she could tell even in the dark: a nobleman making heartless sport with her.
“I know Italian,” he offered in that language. He had an elegant, well-produced tenor voice. She lunged after him and he took off around the fountain, a shoe in each hand, laughing. But the pebbles were painful beneath her feet and she did not have enough breath to continue. He backed his way toward the high bushes, laughing at her. With her eyes fixed on the slippers she followed slowly, relieved to be moving out of sight of the palace.
“Why do you know Italian?”
“I spent some time there.”
“Your accent is impeccable.”
“So’s yours.”
“Thank you.”
She darted at him again and he lifted the shoes out of her reach. He was just that much taller.
“I’ll scream,” she said.
“Please don’t, mademoiselle. Everyone would think we’d been having a liaison.”
“You’re a brute and a thief.”
He seemed startled at that. “I’m not a brute. I haven’t touched you.”
“You spied on me and stole my shoes.”
“I did not spy. I was there and you intruded.”
“Please give them back.”
He looked down. They were pretty slippers with a gold trim and pointed toes and had cost a fortune. “I’d give them back for a kiss,” he said thoughtfully.
Now she really should scream. Her heart pounded enough to break.
“All right,” she said.
He looked up quickly. They were standing quite close now.
“For the shoes,” she added, blushing.
He gave her a wondering smile. “Is that so?” he said, in a low voice. “For the shoes?”
Then, with extreme care, as if afraid she would panic, he set the slippers on the ground beside her. She was breathing quite fast. He straightened and glanced around. “Just one?”
“Well,” she murmured, amazed at her boldness. “The rest depends on if I like the first.”
He laughed again. “My God,” he said. “I’ve been longing for this all evening. And here it is.”
He put a hand to her waist and touched her cheek and looked closely into her eyes, though it was very dark, and then he kissed her lips, gently and softly and long.
It made Benucci’s kisses seem like hard, hasty fumblings.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“One more?”
“You’re a brute.”
“All evening,” he said. “And then you come running after me.” And he kissed her again.
She didn’t want to know who he was. She didn’t want to go inside. But everyone would be wondering. She pulled her stockings from her bodice and he helped her put them on and fasten them with her garters, then helped her with her shoes. His fingers circled her knees and wanted to go higher. She laughed and wriggled away.
“Go on,” he whispered, and gave her a light push.
With cautious steps she eased back into the bustling hall. The crowd seemed larger than when she’d left it. She could not contain her smile. At length she found Lidia with the punch. Lidia gave Anna a reproachful look. “I’m parched,” Anna exclaimed, and drank down half the glass. Her eyes searched the crowd for the gentleman from the garden. She did not know what she would do when she saw him. But he must surely have come in after her.
“There you are,” said Benucci, approaching with a lady on each arm. “We’ve been looking all over. This is Madame Aloysia Lange. She’s a marvelous soprano. She doesn’t have much Italian so we’ll have to make do as best we can with our German.”
“How do you do,” Aloysia said daintily. “You sang very prettily tonight, everyone thought so.” Her voice was sweet and high as a child’s. “This is my sister, Madame Constanze Mozart; I don’t believe you’ve met.”
“Hello,” said Constanze. “How nice to meet you. I enjoyed your singing very much. My husband was in ecstasies. He’s a composer. We can’t find him, but he was so impatient to meet you and Signor Benucci and he has such excellent Italian—he’d be able to translate for us.”
“You’re the wife of Herr Mozart?” Anna asked. She felt a hint of apprehension. But there must be many gentlemen among the party who spoke excellent Italian.
“That is my fortune,” Constanze observed placidly. She was taller and plumper than her sister—perhaps with child. Her face had a certain lack of expression, as though she were either shy or dispassionate. Her form and complexion were good, but hers was an ordinary sort of prettiness—she did not have Aloysia’s lips or cheekbones or waist.
“I would love to meet your husband,” Anna said, still in German, though she hardly knew if she was being intelligible. But Constanze smiled encouragingly. “I’ve heard so much about him.”
“He’s like nobody else,” Aloysia said. “Here he comes now.”
Anna turned, and begged heaven to help her. It was he. Indeed it was he. Wolfgang Mozart had stolen her shoes.
“Where have you been?” Aloysia asked. “You abandoned us completely. We were forsaken utterly.”
A hint of irritation crossed his face. “You were talking to that Herr Gosta. I can’t stand Herr Gosta.”
“But where did you go?”
“Oh, here and there. I have to spread myself about and remind them all I’m still alive. I talked with this person and that person and then I went for some air out on that terrace. I think I may have seen this lady there,” and he nodded kindly to Anna. “Though she went in before I had a chance to introduce myself.”
“You weren’t out all alone?” Aloysia asked Anna. “But how very modern of you. I suppose you don’t care what people think.”
“Not really, no,” Anna said pleasantly. Aloysia smiled.
“You all sang splendidly tonight,” Mozart said to Benucci in Italian. He turned to Anna and gave her a determined smile. “Are you enjoying Vienna, mademoiselle?”
“Yes, quite well, thank you.”
He was certainly not thirty. Later she would learn he was twenty-seven. He carried himself proudly and easily, like a magician or a dancer. There was a mixture of lightness and strength about him; how he spoke, how he held himself, how he used his hands. His face was softly rounded and quite pale. He had a strong nose and full lips. His smile was ready and catching. Most of all she noticed his eyes, unusually large and slightly protruding, a pale hazel which in some lights looked blue-green and in others almost dark. He wore his natural hair—a light brown that hinted at red, abundant and somewhat untidy—tied back in a pigtail.
Aloysia and Constanze, bored by the Italian, moved to a different party of friends along with Benucci, who still had Aloysia’s arm. Lidia, who disliked large crowds and was embarrassed, retired to the side of the room and sat on a chair.
“You wretch,” Anna whispered to Mozart.
“I was beside myself, hearing you tonight,” he said, stepping closer. “I nearly went out of my mind. I don’t want you to think—you see, these things mean so much to me, obviously they do, I mean they are things I think about and that have direct bearing on my life and all my dreams—and by things I mean I heard and saw you and went out of my mind—wit
h excitement, you know, and joy. A man spends all his life dreaming about a certain kind of singer—but then to see you, to almost be able to touch you!”
Then he looked at her with wide eyes and she knew they were both remembering about the stockings. “Oh, God!” he cried. “What I wouldn’t give to write an opera buffa for a singer like you. I’d cut off my own foot. Not my hands. My hands I need.”
“You knew Thomas Linley,” she said. “I was in love with Thomas Linley when I was a girl.”
Linley, a brilliant young English composer, had met Mozart on tour in Italy when they were boys of the same age. He had drowned a few years ago on a lake at Grimsthorpe Castle, all his finest music unwritten.
“Were you?” Mozart asked, with a soft look. “He was my friend. He was a true genius.”
She was sober, suddenly, and sad. “It was very wrong of you, signor. You shouldn’t do such careless things. If it were a play you could have marked me for life.”
He raised his brows, interested. “I wish it were a play.”
“Plays only ever end badly.”
“Not if they’re comedies.”
She frowned and looked away. “It’s not a comedy when Thomas Linley drowns.”
“But that was the last play. Now you’re in Vienna.”
“I’m in Vienna and you’re married,” she said.
“Indeed,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m, ah—I can be impulsive, especially when I’ve been working hard.” He glanced around the party, smoothing his hand on his thigh. His clothes were the finest cut and material; they made him handsomer than he was.
The emperor has been to visit us at home, Anna wrote to her brother. He stayed half an hour and played with the dogs. Mama was beside herself. When he left he kissed my hand! This should tell you something of how I am esteemed here.
Vienna Nocturne Page 6