They sang the farewell song of Mozart! Never was farewell sung with deeper feeling or with better execution. When it was at an end, they all sat silent and sad. Mozart was first to recover himself; he started up, bade a hasty adieu to all present, and seizing his hat, with another broken “farewell,” rushed from the room.
His friends still sat, as if stupified by their grief. Presently the post-horn sounded, and the coach rolled past the window. Their beloved companion was gone.
In the autumn of that same year they buried the venerable Father Doles.
It was just before the Christmas festival, in the year 1791, that Lena, now a happy wife and mother, busied at home in preparing Christmas gifts, was surprised by her friend, Cecilia, who rushed into the room pale as death, without hat or mantle.
“Cecilia!” cried Lena, much alarmed, “what ails you—what has happened?”
“Read it—read it!” faltered the breathless girl, and putting a newspaper into her friend’s hand, she burst into tears, and sank on a seat.
“The Vienna Gazette,” said Lena, and trembling with indefinite apprehension, she looked over a column or two, before her eyes lighted on the paragraph:
“Vienna, December 6th.—Died yesterday evening, the celebrated musician and composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Chapel-Master, Knight of the Golden Spurs, etc., etc., in the thirty-sixth year of his age.”
The genius of Cecilia was not destined to ripen on earth. In another year the weeping Lena followed her bier to the grave. She was buried near the resting-place of Father Doles.