When he was taken ill we made him night-shirts which could be put on without giving him the pain of turning round; and, not realising how ill he was, we made him a wadded dressing-gown against the time that he should be able to sit up; it amused him very much to follow our work as it proceeded. I came to him daily. Once he said to me,
"Tell the mother that I am going on very well, and that I shall be able to come and offer my congratulations on her fête-day (November 22) within the week."
He heard with intense interest of the repetition of the "Zauberflote," and when evening came he used to lay his watch beside him, and follow the performance in imagination: "Now the first act is over—now comes the mighty Queen of Night."[ 11 ] The day before his death he said to his wife: "I should like to have heard my 'Zauberflote' once more," and began to hum the birdcatcher's song in a scarcely audible voice. Kapellmeister Roser, who was sitting at his bedside, went to the piano and sang the song, to Mozart's evident delight.[ 12 ] The Requiem, too, was constantly in his mind. While he had been at work upon it he used to sing every number as it was finished, playing the orchestral part on the piano. The afternoon before his death he had the score brought to his bed, and himself sang the alto part.[ 13 ] Schack, as usual, took the soprano, Hofer, Mozart's brother-in-law, the tenor, and Gerl the bass. They got as far as the first bars of the Lacrimosa when Mozart, with the feeling that it would never be finished, burst into a violent fit of weeping, and laid the score aside.[ 14 ]
When Frau Haibl came towards evening her sister, who was not usually wanting in self-control, met her in a state of agitation at the door, exclaiming: "Thank God you are here! He was so ill last night, I thought he could not live through the day; if it comes on again, he must die in the night." Seeing her at his bedside, Mozart said: "I am glad you are here; stay with me to-night, and see me die." Controlling her emotion, she strove to reason him out of such thoughts, but he answered: "I have the flavour of death on my THE END. tongue—I taste death; and who will support my dearest Constanze if you do not stay with her?" She left him for a moment to carry the tidings to her mother, who was looking anxiously for them. At her sister's wish she went to the priests of St. Peter's, and begged that one might be sent to Mozart as if by chance; they refused for a long time, and it was with difficulty she persuaded "these clerical barbarians" to grant her request. When she returned she found Süssmayr at Mozart's bedside in earnest conversation over the Requiem. "Did I not say that I was writing the Requiem for myself?" said he, looking at it through his tears. And he was so convinced of his approaching death that he enjoined his wife to inform Albrechtsberger of it before it became generally known, in order that he might secure Mozart's place at the Stephanskirche, which belonged to him by every right (Vol. II., p. 277, note). Late in the evening the physician arrived, having been long sought, and found in the theatre, which he could not persuade himself to leave before the conclusion of the piece. He told Süssmayr in confidence that there was no hope, but ordered cold bandages round the head, which caused such violent shuddering that delirium and unconsciousness came on, from which Mozart never recovered. Even in his latest fancies he was busy with the Requiem, blowing out his cheeks to imitate the trumpets and drums. Towards midnight he raised himself, opened his eyes wide, then lay down with his face to the wall, and seemed to fall asleep. At one o'clock (December 5) he expired.[ 15 ]
At early morning the faithful Deiner was roused by the maid-servant "to come and dress" her master; he went at once and performed the last friendly offices for Mozart. The body was clothed in a black robe and laid on a bier, which was carried into the sitting-room and deposited near the piano. A constant flow of visitors mourned and wept as they gazed on him; those who had known him intimately loved him; his fame as an artist had become universal, and his sudden death brought home to all men the extent of their ILLNESS AND DEATH. loss. The "Wiener Zeitung" (1791, No. 98) made the following announcement:—
We have to announce with regret the death of the Imperial Court Composer, Wolfgang Mozart, which took place between four and five o'clock this morning. Famous throughout Europe from earliest childhood for his singular musical genius, he had developed his natural gifts, and by dint of study had raised himself to an equality with the greatest masters; his universally favourite and admired compositions testify to this fact, and enable us to estimate the irreparable loss which the musical world has sustained in his death.
A letter from Prague, of December 12, 1791, announced:[ 16 ]—
Mozart is—dead. He returned from Prague in a state of suffering, which gradually increased; dropsy set in, and he died in Vienna at the end of last week. The swelling of his body after death led to the suspicion of his having been poisoned. His last work was a funeral Mass, which was performed at his obsequies. His death will cause the Viennese to realise for the first time what they have lost in him.[ 17 ] His life was troubled by the constant machination of cabals, whose enmity was doubtless sometimes provoked by his sans souci manner. Neither his "Figaro" nor his "Don Juan" were as enthusiastically received in Vienna as they were in Prague. Peace be to his ashes!
Mozart's wife, who had been so unwell the day before his death that the physician had prescribed for her, was rendered completely prostrate in mind and body by his death. In her despair she lay down upon his bed, desiring to be seized with the same illness, and to die with him. Van Swieten, who had hastened to bring her what consolation and assistance he could, persuaded her to leave the house of death, and to take up her abode for the present with some friends living near. He undertook the care of the funeral, and having regard to the needy circumstances of the widow, he made the necessary arrangements as simply and cheaply as possible. The funeral expenses (on the scale of the third class) amounted to 8 fl. 36 kr., and there was an additional charge of 3 fl. for the hearse. Rich man and distinguished patron INTERMENT AND GRAVE. as he was, it seems never to have occurred to Van Swieten that it would have been becoming in him to undertake the cost as well as the care of a fitting burial for the greatest genius of his age. At three o'clock in the afternoon of December 6 the corpse of Mozart received the benediction in the transept chapel on the north side of St. Stephen's Church. A violent storm of snow and rain was raging, and the few friends who were assembled—among them Van Swieten, Salieri, Süssmayr, Kapellm. Roser, and the violoncellist Orsler[ 18 ]—stood under umbrellas round the bier, which, was then carried through the Schulerstrasse to the churchyard of St. Mark's. The storm continued to rage so fiercely that the mourners decided upon turning back before they reached their destination,[ 19 ] and not a friend stood by when the body of Mozart was lowered into the grave. For reasons of economy no grave had been bought, and the corpse was consigned to a common vault, made to contain from fifteen to twenty coffins, which was dug up about every ten years and filled anew: no stone marked the resting-place of Mozart. Good old Deiner, who had been present at the benediction, asked the widow if she did not intend to erect a cross to the departed; she answered that there was to be one. She no doubt imagined that the priest who had performed the ceremony would see to the erection of the cross. When she was sufficiently recovered from her first grief to visit the churchyard, she found a fresh gravedigger, who was unable to point out Mozart's grave; and all her inquiries after it were fruitless. Thus it is that, in spite of repeated attempts to discover it, the resting-place of Mozart remains unknown.[ 20 ]
