by Cheryl Whitfield Duval

May 16, 1784

"Well, I have something to tell you about Liserl Schwemmer."

Wolfgang Mozart's teeth were set on edge as he dashed a line over the "t's" and fiercely dotted the "i" in Liserl Schwemmer's name with dramatic flourish. The obligatory discourses ith his father over a trio of piano concerti had been dispensed with quickly, but not quickly enough. There was something far more pressing on his mind...

"She wrote a letter to her mother--and as the address was so quaint
that the post office would hardly have accepted the letter, for it was as follows..."

He scribbled the sentence out and shook his head. "Quaint" was a polite word. Incomprehensible was a more accurate one; and it had all begun so innocently...

"Would you be good enough to mail it for me today, Herr Mozart?"

Liserl was a plumpish, rosy-cheeked Salzburger girl with enormous,naive blue eyes and fat golden braids tied up under a lacy cotton cap. She had come to Vienna to live and work in the Big City, and she had come recommended by no less a person than Wolfgang's own father. Her mother had been a domestic servant for years, and she was the youngest cousin of Papa's own Teresl--and Teresl had served Herr Leopold for years.

Such recommendations had been sufficient for Wolfgang, though there was some little concern on his part since she had ever actually worked as a servant before. Still, she was only seventeen and she had to start somewhere.

She now stood before him, smiling, her letter in one hand as if waiting for his approval--or more likely, for him to pay the postage.

"Certainly," he agreed in a mild voice, looking up from his own stack of music papers. "Writing home to your mother?"

"Yes sir, " she curtsied lightly, blushing and smiling. She was always smiling.

"Hmmmm." Wolfgang almost stuck the envelope away with the other letters he had planned to post, but there was something not quite right. Staring at the outside of the envelope, he frowned and started to read.

"To Frau Mother, who lives in the yellow house with the green flowerbox
in the window, two blocks down the street from the little fountain and one
block back from the house with the three potted plants..."

He looked over the top of the envelope in dismay, his own large blue eyes staring into hers. "Liserl, we can't possibly send this to your mother--not addressed like this. It'll never be propely delivered. Don't you know your mother's address?"

The girl's smile slipped ever so slightly, her cheerful self-confidence apparently shaken. "That's where she lives, Herr Mozart," she protested anxiously, clearly about to cry. Wolfgang was sorry he'd brought the subject up at all. With a heavy sigh, he raised his small white hand in a gesture indicating that she should calm herself.

"I shall tell you what I'll do," he said gently. "I know where your mother lives; I'll address a new envelope for you, myself."

Her smile returned, bigger and rosier than ever. "Oh, veilen danke, Herr Mozart," she beamed,

"Eintausand danken!"

"Bitte," he nodded wearily. "Today, I promise." He placed the envelope on top of his stack of papers, deciding that he would readdress it or her after he'd had his mid-morning coffee. It was not the sort of task he really cared to perform, and yet...

And yet...

He sipped his coffe, he scribbled down a few measures of music, but the envelope semed to stare back at him from its lofty perch. More than once, his eyes strayed toward it.

"...'two blocks down the street from the little fountain'..."

He repeated the words to himself, and the corners of his mouth turned up in amusement. He would really have to show the poor girl how to address a letter. He began to wonder what the letter itself was like. If anything, the message was bound to be even more bizarre than the address.

Wolfgang dug his pen into the inkwell, and kept on writing. perhaps Divine Providence was taking its revenge on him, after all, for his misplaced curiosity.

"She complains that she gets to bed too late and has to get up too early
--though I should have thought that one would get enough sleep between
eleven and six, which is after all, seven hours. We ourselves do not go to
bed until midnight and get up at five-thirty or even five, as we go to the
Augarten almost every morning. Then she complains about the foo, and that
too in the most impertinent fashion. She says she has to starve and that the four
of us--that is, my wife, myself, the cook and herself do not get as much to eat
as she and her mother used to have between the two of them."

"Liserl, there was a lot more food in the house than this," Constanze Mozart said crossly. "Cook complains to me all the time now. She cannot fix this, cannot fix that..."

"That's not my fault, Ma'am," the girl insisted defensively, still smiling. "Maybe Herr Mozart ate the rolls."

"Don't be impertinent, Liserl--Herr Mozart wouldn't eat a full dozen rolls in one sitting. If he ate like that, he would be as plump as...as..." She shut her mouth, not wanting to speak the words on her mind.

"...As plump as Liserl's mother," Wolfgang put in from the music room, not at all shy about saying it. After all, he had been looking forward to hot buttered rolls with his coffee--if one could call it proper coffee!

"You know that when I took this girl, at the time purely out of pity and to help
her when she was a stranger in Vienna--we promised her twelve
gulden a year, and she was quite satisfied, though in her letter
she complains about this. And what has she to do?"

"What does she do around here?" Wolfgang grumbled, flinging himself against his pillows and jerking the comforter up around his chin. "She clears the table, hands around the dishes, then takes them off the table. She feeds the dog..."

"She makes the beds," Constanze reminded him, "and she keeps those nice new goose-down pillows fresh and plump, just for you."

He sighed. Now he felt guilty."She also helps me dress and undress," Constanze snuggled down into the warm bedclothes beside him. "She is very good at tying my corst. She's strong! " She deepened her voice to sound "strong" , then dropped back, giggling.

"Strong!" Wolfgang scoffed. "Hah! She's the clumsiest, stupidest excuse for a parlor-maid I've ever seen. She can't even light a fire properly, and she makes an abominable cup of coffee!"

"Shhh! She'll hear you, Wolfi--you're getting loud.

"Maybe we made a mistake, taking her in."

"We probably did. Do you want to dismiss her?"

He sighed deeply and looked into her dark, teasing eyes. "Stanzi, she came all the way from Salzburg--and with Papa's recommendations."

Constanze stopped smiling. "There you have it! Your Papa recommended her, so you can't get up the nerve to fire her. Subject closed." She turned over to get some sleep.

Wolfgang grumbled under his breath.. "Not true."

"Oh, yes it is..." the teasing voice had returned.

"She's just seventeen, Stanzi, and she's a long way from home--you know I can't just throw her to the wolves."

Or could he?

"We gave her a gulden, and the very next day she was asking for more money."

"More money?" He frowned. An extra gulden, above and beyond her normal pay, was actually quite a lot of money to have given a live-in servant girl, just as a gift. "What could you possibly have spent it on so quickly? I hope it was something worthwhile."

She shut her mouth and folded her hands behind her back with an attitude that clearly said it was none of his business. Perhaps it wasn't, but all the same...

"I'm not a rich man, Fraulein--I can't just toss off extra money without good reason." He winced even as he said those words,realizing how much like his father he was starting to sound. Suddenly his nose began to twitch. "Liserl, have you been drinking?"

"No sir!"

"Liserl, you smell like a brewery! Liserl..." He aimed an eye-level stare in her direction, which was considerable since the girl was taller than he was. "Liserl, don't tell me you've been seeing that fellow Johannes again!"

"A certain Herr Johannes, who travelled with her to Vienna, had better not put his nose inside my door again! Twice when we were out, he came to our quarters, orered in wine, and the girl, who is not accustomed to drinking it, swilled so heavily that she couldn't walk without support, and the second time was sick all over her bed."

The Mozarts were in a delightful mood that evening--or was it morning? They had danced all night, the music had been performed to perfection, and Wolfgang actually had the chance to dance his own gavottes and minuets rather than simply conduct them. There had been wine, and both of them were relaxed, in good spirits, and feeling more than a little affectionate.

"Leibste Stanzerl..." Wolfgang purred against her neck, burying his ample nose in her ear, and with only one thing on his mind.

"Wolfi, not out here in the foyer" She yawned, laughing helplessly. "We can't do it here!"

"Leibchen, why do you think I gave Liserl the night off? We'll have the apartment all to ourselves--we'll be able to do it anywhere we li..."

A loud, crashing noise from inside jerked them down from Cloud Nine, followed by the loud running of heavy feet. With a ferocious BANG, the front door was flung open, and a barefoot, half-undressed young man, about six feet tall, thrashed his way out onto the landing, scarcely noticing the Mozarts at all. They watched in dumb dismay as he crashed down the stairs.

And then it struck both of them at once!

Horrified, Wolfgang and Constanze stared at each other for one dreaful moment before they tuned and hurried inside. There was no telling what had been stolen or worse...

They heard a sobbing moan. It was worse!

Liserl Schwemmer was sprawled across their bed. Their bed--not hers! Her long yellow hair was spread out in a wild tangle, and her clothes looked as if they had been half torn from her body. Her shrieks were heart wrenching.

"Oh my God, what has he done to her?" Wolfgang cried in alarm, his voice starting to shake as awful images of assault, battery and rape flashed through his head. He would have to call for the Watch.

Constanze was beside her in a heartbeat, cradling the poor creature in her arms. "Liserl dea--who was that man?"

"It was Johannes!" Wolfgang reminded her angrily, "That blackguard who's been up to no good ever since she arrived!"

"Did he harm you, Liserl?" Constanze went on, ignoring her husband's tiraid.

She said nothing for a momnet, then looked up with red-rimmed, tearful eyes.

Constanze suddenly began tio gag as she got a lungful of the girl's breath.

"Don't hurt Hans," she whimpered, "He'd not hurt a fly--and he ain't stolen nothing, either..."

The hitherto unthinkable suddenly slapped Wolfgang in the face.

"I'm gonna be sick..." Liserl whimpered at last in a drunken haze. And seconds later, she was--all over the brand new goose-down pillows as well as the comforter and sheets. The characteristic stench of beer and cheap wine wafted up from the ruined bed, and that was when the Mozarts realized that the mattress itself was soaked from an earlier bout of nausea, which must have taken place only a few minutes earlier.

Wolfgang calmly began to grin. The grin became wide enough to split his face in half. The laughter that rose from somewhere in his inner being was without humor--a laugh of dismay. Of defeat. Of despair...

"I should like to know who would keep a creature who carries on in this way? I would have contented myself with the lecture I gave her when it happned..."

Wolfgang didn't exactly lecture. He sreamed. He wept, he swore, he threw his hat on the ground and stamped on it twice, kicking it violently across the floor, causing Liserl to cry even louder.

Constanze slammed her hands over her ears and shouted at him to stop yelling, but it was far too late for that. Chaos now reigned over Cloud Nine, and even if there had been a clean bed, it was clear that there would be no love-making that night.

Together, the Mozarts ended up tossing the filthy bedclothes into the laundry hamper, leaving Liserl to sleep off her condition where she was.sprawled across the bare mattress.

Constanze, exhausted, resigned herself to sleeping on Liserl's little servant's cot, which was tucked behind a folding screen in an alcove of the kitchen.

"A fine mess..." Wolfgang grumbled as he curled up on the sofa as best he could. And as he folded his overcoat into a big, lumpy, scratchy sort of a pillow, he thought sorrowfully of his beautiful goose-down pillows which once were, but were now no more. And so, in the end, he spent a cold, lonely night, fully dressed and shivering, with a cat perched on his hip and the dog burrowed behind the bend of his knees. He did not sleep well.

"...And would have said nothing to you, but her impertinent letter to her mother has driven me to it. So will you please send for her mother and tell her I shall put up with her daughter for a little wile longer, but that she must look about for another place. Were it not that I hate to make people unhappy, I should have gotten rid of her on the spot. She says something, too, in her letter, about a certain Herr Antoni--a future husband,

He paused, frowned, and looked down at the letter he was writing. 'Future husband', indeed, he thought. More than likely, she'd found found herself a new boyfriend, having frightened off the first--and more than likely, she was thinking of simply moving in with him. It seemed hardly likely that she would be looking for domestic work again any time in the near future. He almost scribbled that part down, too, but then thought better of it. In any case, he hoped he would never have to lay eyes on her again.

"Well, I must close. My wife thanks you both for your congratulations on her pregnancy and coming confinement, which will probably take place during the first days of October. We both kiss your hands and embrace our dear sister with all our hearts, and are ever your most obedient children,
W. et C. Mozart"

He took a deep breath then, and finished off with a postscript involving shoe buckles and trim for a new coat, heedless of the fact that Constanze had wandered into the room and was standing behind him.

"Still writing that letter to you father?"

"Hmmmm. I'm almost done."

"Mind if I proofread it for you?"

He looked up, then blotted the ink and handed it to her. He hadn't made too many spelling errors, but she had long since given up trying to understand his erractic use of grammer and sentence structure. She wasn't entirely sure if he had the date of Expectancy correct--after all, she'd only recently discovered she was pregnant again--but she smiled, then handed it back to him. "It's funny, Wolfi."

"It wasn't supposed to be funny," he lookd t her with wide, serious blue eyes. "I promise you, Papa won't be laughing."

"Now, that's not such a surprise," she shrugged, "None whatever. But I am still trying to imagine you standing up to Johannes and giving him a piece of your mind should he ever darken our door.

"Well..." He folded the letter and sealed it with wax. "I can be very fierce when I choose to be."

"Oh yes," she said with mock seriousness. "Very fierce."

His mouth curled into a sly smile..

"So--what do we do now, with Liserl gone?"

"I'll find you another parlor-maid. A better one. This is a big city, there must be plenty..."

There was a loud knock at the door, and Constanze turned toward it. "Now, who might that be?"

Wolfgang scratched his nose. He wasn't expecting anyone, and it was nearly ten o'clock. "Would you mind seeing who it is?"

She walked over to the front door, opened it--

--and there stood Liserl.

At her feet was her carpet bag, containing all her worldly goods. She was wearing her green woolen jacket over her brown dirndl. Her nose was as red as an apple, and it was sniffling.

"Antoni doesn't live there any more," she murmured plaintively.

Wolfgang got to his feet, a cold chill running down his spine. "What are you telling us, Liserl?"

"I have nowhere else to go, Herr Mozart," she screwed up her plump face as if she would cry. "You can't leave me out in the cold to freeze, can you?"

"It's spring, Liserl."

"Out to drown in the spring showers, then."

His high resolve melting like wax, Wolfgang felt himself surrenduring to his fate. "No, of course not, Liserl. Come on back in and unpack. I suppose you can stay, but just promise me one thing--no more beer, and no more young men--ja?"

She nodded with deepest humility.

"All right then--another chance. And you can start by mailing this letter to my father."

"Your father?" She blinked stupidly, as if not realizing Herr Mozart had a father.

"Yes--" he waved an arm casually as he turned back toward his writing table. "You know--Herr Leopold Mozart who lives in the green 'Tanzmeisterhaus' on the other side of the River, two blocks away from the fountain, and around the corner from..."

It was going to be a long, hot summer.

Disclaimer: Mozart, his family and associates, are historical personalities not subject to any copyright laws. The individual stories themselves, however, are the exclusive property of the author and may not be reproduced without written permission from the author.

"The Rise and Fall of Liserl Schwemmer -- © 2001-2006 Cheryl W. Duval and Off-Note Productions"