Mozart's Sister: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

here,” she sobbed. “I haven’t eaten for days, and I don’t have the strength to get up in the morning. If it were up to me, I would stay in bed until the end of my days.”
    “What did you tell your family?”
    “A lot of lies.” Awareness of that further sin made her cry even harder. “If I tell them, they’ll throw me out of the house. And if the rumor spreads, there will be a scandal, and I can’t even think of the consequences. I don’t know what to do, Father. Help me.”
    There was only one solution, and he was silent as he searched for the words most suitable for proposing it; in the meantime, he observed her wrinkled clothes and tear-stained veil with a sad smile. He had been hearing ugly gossip about this tormented young woman for some time, and at first he had paid no attention to it. In his role as preceptor, Joseph Bullinger had regular contacts with the families of the aristocracy; he had never liked those vacuous circles, and was always hoping to improve them through education and culture.
    “My child,” he said, “don’t cry. You have no reason to despair, believe me. Often the Lord indicates to us the just path in an unexpected way. When one reaches what seems a dead end, there may be a doorway to happiness: the doorway through which the Almighty offers you the chance to begin a new life, upright and pure, in His name.”
    The musician sniffed and looked at him, filled with hope.
    “You will construct in your heart a system of new and just values, in the absence of which you have unfortunately committed this grave sin. You may repair the evil done through work and helping others, and learn to appreciate asceticism and contemplation.”
    “I understand,” she said, but in fact she had understood nothing. “But what must I do, exactly?”
    “Leave the city as soon as possible and, safe from the gossip, bring the pregnancy to term. I will take care of finding a good situation for the child when it is born; and for you, I already have in mind the convent where you will take your vows.”
    The harsh cry of dismay rattled the windows: “You mean, I am to become a nun?”
    Protests followed, expressed in every form and every tone of voice, and a vain search for alternatives. As the reverend insisted, trying his best to convince her, she withdrew into a dangerous silence, accompanied by a new flood of tears, and so, disheveled and weeping, as she had arrived, she hurried to the door of the church and almost bumped into Leopold Mozart.
    “Watch how you—” he grumbled, wiping his shoes on his calves, then he made the sign of the cross, approached the reverend, and uttered: “Ave clare sacerdos! Magnum gaudium mihi affert in te incidere.”
    Bullinger appeared to appreciate the learned phrases and answered in kind: “Eadem laetitia afficior, carissime frater. Asside mihi.”
    The priest was a man of influence, and Herr Mozart sat down beside him and started in on the speech that he had carefully prepared. “Reverend, I have formulated a particular plan for my life and that of my family; before putting it into action, however, I wish to confer with you, because your guidance is, for me, the one and only shining light.”
    Bullinger confined himself to a slight nod. The musician’s ingratiating ways sometimes annoyed him.
    “I intend to take Wolfgang on a tour. Not a short trip, like the one that took us to the court of Vienna, although that gave me great satisfaction. This time I intend to visit Munich, Frankfurt, and Brussels; then, God willing, I will go on to Paris and, finally, even to London.”
    It was an ambitious plan, and the Reverend Bullinger began to suspect that Leopold wanted something more than advice from him.
    “You know how fond I am of our splendid city. And yet I feel that in this provincial environment my son’s talent cannot receive the necessary stimulus to make it flourish and bear fruit as it deserves. Ours will not be a journey of mere promotion but one also of