THE newly married couple began their housekeeping upon an uncertain and barely sufficing income, MARRIED LIFE. and so it remained to the end. Limited means, sometimes even actual want, failed either to increase the carefulness or to damp the spirits of husband or wife.
Mozart's sincere and upright love for his wife has been clearly demonstrated already; it was the talk of Vienna. One day, soon after his marriage, as he and his wife were walking in the public gardens, they amused themselves by playing with her little pet dog. Constanze told Mozart to make believe to beat her, in order to see the indignation of the dog. As he was doing so, the Emperor came out of his summerhouse and said, "What! only three weeks married, and come to blows already!" whereupon Mozart laughingly explained the joke. Later, in 1785, when there was much talk, even in the newspapers, of the unhappy relations between Aloysia Lange and her husband,[ 1 ] the Emperor met Constanze Mozart, and said, after some remark on the sad position of her sister: "What a difference it makes, to have a good husband!"[ 2 ] At about the same time the English tenor, Kelly, was introduced at a musical party to Mozart and his wife, "whom he loved passionately."[ 3 ] His affection betrays itself in many amiable CONSTANZE MOZART. traits, and most clearly in the letters addressed to his wife on his later journeys, to which she herself expressly appeals as proofs of his "rare affection and excessive tenderness for her."[ 4 ] An expression of Nissen's that Constanze cared "perhaps more for his talent than himself" might lead to a belief that his love was not returned in full measure; but against this view we have the testimony of worthy Niemet-schek, who knew them both, and says: "Mozart was happy in his union with Constanze Weber. She made him a good, loving wife, who accommodated herself admirably to his ways, and gained his full confidence and a power over him which she often used to restrain him from rash actions. He loved her sincerely, confided all to her, even his faults, and she rewarded him with tenderness and faithful care. All Vienna knew of their mutual affection, and the widow can never think without emotion of her days of wedded life." Constanze had, as Mozart had written before their marriage, "not much intellect, but enough common sense to fulfil her duties as a wife and mother." It can, indeed, be gathered from contemporary letters and notices[ 5 ] that she had neither MARRIED LIFE. natural capacity nor what we call education enough to render her on an equality with Mozart, or to elevate him by her intellectual influence; nay, rather, she failed fully to appreciate or understand him. Like all the Weber family, she had musical talent, which had been cultivated up to a certain point. "She played the clavier and sang nicely."[ 6 ] At the Mozarteum, in Salzburg, there is the commencement of a "Sonata ä deux Cembali," unfinished, with the superscription "Per la Signora Constanza Weber—ah!" A sonata for pianoforte and violin, in C major, which only wants the concluding bars of the last movement (403 K.), belonging to the year 1782, is inscribed "Sonate Première, par moi, W. A. Mozart, pour ma très chère épouse." In a letter to Härtel (February 25, 1799), the widow mentions a march for the piano which her husband had composed for her. Although her voice was not so fine as those of her sisters Aloysia and Josepha, she sang very well, especially by sight, so that Mozart used to try his compositions with her. Solfeggi by Mozart are preserved, with the inscription—"Per la mia cara Constanze," or "Per la mia cara consorte" (393 K.), some of them exercises of a few bars' length, others elaborate passages in varied tempo and style, which give abundant practice for execution and delivery. There is a song also—"In te spero o sposo amato," (Metastasio, "Demofoonte"), mentioned by the widow in a letter to Härtel (February 25, 1799), as composed "per la cara mia consorte," which implies a compass and volubility reminding us of her sister Aloysia. It was natural, therefore, that Constanze should take the soprano parts in any private performances among their friends, and we know that she once sang the soprano soli of the Mass in C minor (427 K.) at Salzburg, which require a first-rate singer.
We must also give her credit for more than ordinary musical taste and cultivation, from her partiality for fugues, of which Mozart writes to his sister (April 20, 1782), when he sent her a prelude and fugue (394 K.), which he had composed for her:—
The cause of this fugue coming into the world is in reality my dear Constanze. Baron van Swieten, to whom I go every Sunday, allowed me to take home all the works of Handel and Sebastian Bach, after I had played them to him. When Constanze heard the fugues, she quite fell in love with them; she cares for nothing but fugues now, especially those of Handel and Bach. Having often heard me play fugues out of my head, she asked me if I had never written any down? and when I said no, she scolded me roundly for not writing the most artistic and beautiful things in music; she would not leave me any peace until I had written down a fugue, and so it came to pass.
Mozart would hardly have been happy with a wife who possessed neither taste nor understanding for music. But neither would his creative power have been strengthened by an intellectually excitable and exciting wife; it was far more beneficial for him to find womanly sympathy in his household affairs, and to be soothed rather than urged to greater efforts. She patiently bore his abstraction when his mind was intent upon musical ideas, and gave in to many little whims, which in Mozart seldom proceeded from ill-temper. He was never disturbed by the conversation and noise going on around him when he was writing down his compositions; it was rather agreeable to him to have his attention so far occupied in other directions that his excessive productivity was held, as it were, in check. His wife would sit by him and tell him stories and nursery tales, over which he would laugh heartily, working all the time; the more ludicrous they were the better he was pleased.[ 7 ] She was always ready to cut up his meat for him at table, an operation which he tried to avoid, lest in his abstraction he should do himself an injury[ 8 ]—an oddity which is only mentioned as a proof how much of a child Mozart always remained in many of the ways of life.
He was severely tried by his wife's delicacy; her health was undermined by frequent and often dangerous confinements, and she was often, especially in the year 1789, for many months in a critical condition. He bestowed the tenderest care upon her, and spared nothing that was likely to benefit MARRIED LIFE. her, even when the remedy proposed (as for instance, repeated visits to Baden for some years) was a severe tax upon his slender resources. Instances of liberality like that displayed to him on one occasion of his wife's illness by a comparative stranger were few and far between. A certain honest tripe-boiler, Rindum by name, who knew nothing of Mozart personally, but who delighted in his musiç, heard that his wife, suffering from lameness, had been ordered footbaths of the water in which tripe had been cooked; he begged her to go to his house for them as often as she pleased, and at the termination of the cure he could not be induced to accept any payment either for them or for board and lodging during a considerable time.[ 9 ] As for Mozart himself, the care that he bestowed upon her was tender and loving to an uncommon degree. He used to ride every morning at five o'clock, but he never went without leaving a paper in the form of a prescription upon his wife's bed, with some directions of this kind:—
Good morning, my darling wife, I hope that you have slept well, and that nothing has disturbed you; I desire you not to get up too early, not to take cold, not to stoop, not to stretch, not to scold the servants, not to fall over the doorstep. Do not be vexed at anything until I return. May nothing happen to you! I shall be back at —— o'clock.[ 10 ]
The tenderest anxiety for his wife's health is expressed in his letters, and he especially cautions her to spare her weak foot. Frau Haibl (Sophie Weber) narrates:[ 11 ]—
How troubled Mozart was when anything ailed his dear little wife! On one occasion she had been ill for fully eight months, and I had nursed her. I was sitting by her bed, and so was Mozart. He was composing, and I was watching the sleep into which she had at last fallen; we were as quiet as the grave for fear of disturbing her. A rough maidservant came suddenly into the room. Mozart, fearing that his wife would be awakened, wished to beckon for silence, and pushed his chair backwards with an open knife in his hand. The knife struck between his chair and his thigh, and went almost up to the handle in his flesh. Mozart was usually very susceptible of pain, but now he controlled ILLNESS OF MOZART'S WIFE. himself, and made no sign of pain, but beckoned me to follow him out of the room. We went into another room, in which our good mother was concealed, because we did not wish Mozart to know how ill his wife was, and yet the mother's presence was necessary in case of emergency. She bound the wound and cured it with healing oil. He went lame for some time, but took care that his wife should know nothing of it.
