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"The third, however, namely, my good and beloved Constanze, is the martyr of the family, and, probably on this very account, the kindest hearted, the cleverest, and, in short, the best of them all; she takes charge of the whole house, and yet does nothing right in their eyes. Oh! my dear father, I could write you pages were I to describe to you all the scenes I have witnessed in that house.
With so much quarrelling going on around them and concerning them, it is small wonder that the two lovers were finally nagged into the condition of such nervousness that they fell to quarrelling with each other. One feud adds spice to the very first of these letters to Constanze, which she so carefully guarded, Aloysia Weber seems never to have preserved any of Mozart's correspondence.
For, a week later in a letter to his father, Mozart implies that Constanze and he are once more on excellent terms; also that Nannerl had answered Constanze's letter with appropriate courtesy. Meanwhile, in spite of the excitement of producing his opera and fighting the strong opposition to it, Mozart is still more deeply absorbed in gaining his father's consent to his marriage.
To this Mozart writes very frankly and in a manner that shows Constanze in a beautiful light: "You are well aware that, her father being no longer alive, a guardian stands in his place. The guardian became very uneasy at these insinuations. What could I do? I was forced either to give a contract in writing or renounce the girl. Who that sincerely and truly loves can forsake his beloved?
Let us then read without conviction such accounts as we may find tending to belittle the goodness or cheapen the virtues of Constanze or of Mozart. The Webers had lived at Vienna in a house called Auge Gottes, and Mozart used to refer to his elopement as "Die Entführung aus dem Auge Gottes," as a pun on the name of the opera that had made his marriage possible, "Die Entführung aus dem Serail."
I think, I reflect, and I feel. If you feel, and have feeling, then I know I shall be able this very day to say with a tranquil mind: My Constanze is the virtuous, honourable, discreet, and faithful darling of her honest and kindly disposed, This letter seems to have ended the quarrel the only one we know of their having.
The buzz became so noisy that it reached the alert ears of the father in Salzburg, and he wrote demanding that Wolfgang should move at once. Mozart answered that he had been planning to move, but only to quiet the gossip that he is to marry Constanze ridiculous gossip, he calls it.
Minna Brinkmann is a voluminous writer of pieces in lighter vein. Lina Ramann has won fame by her literary work, but has published several worthy compositions also. Constanze Geiger, who appeared at Vienna as an infant prodigy when six years old, has written several piano pieces, also an Ave Maria for soprano, chorus, and organ.
The libretto of 'Die Entführung' is a poor affair at best, but, considering the materials with which he had to work, Mozart never accomplished truer or more delicate work than in the music of Belmont and Constanze, of Pedrillo, and greatest of all, of Osmin.
One bright November morning he was walking with Constanze in the Prater, and sadly pointing out to her the falling leaves, and speaking of death, with tears in his eyes, he added; "I well know I am writing this 'Requiem' for myself. My own feelings tell me that I shall not last long. No doubt some one has given me poison I cannot get rid of this thought."
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