20 February 1778

pages 12-13

My Dearest Wolfgang Amadé Romatz,

Have you and your mother arrived safely in Paris yet? I hope this letter
finds you well and warm. How unlike my sad heart! It is so cold since you went clattering off in that black carriage. Would that either of us had the power to extend Carnival Season for a whole year! Or even another month. What sort of God would make me give ♥you♥ up for Lent? I would rather give up satin ribbons forever than bear this cruelty.
Amadé, I wonder if you are thinking of me…I know you would have
me just melancholy enough to show my love for you, but not too sad to sing. Sometimes when I sing, it feels like all the distance between us disappears. I flatter myself with the idea that you hear me in your music as well.

But I want you to think of sunshine when you think of pretty little Aloysia – so you will want to come home, of course… Oh darling, when will you write more beautiful arias for me to sing? Nearly every time I open my mouth, your “Alcandro, lo confesso” comes flying out, & I think Josefa is going to box my ears if I sing it again!

I smile now, to think of what a pleasure it was to sing that piece for you…♥ just for you though the parlor was full of people who’d come to bid you farewell. Do you know what I am thinking of just now? (Besides the fabulous music we will make together when you come back & we finally get to stun the world with our extraordinary talents, that is…) Of course you do! Even a gifted gentleman like yourself can’t arrange to spend every birthday in a warm sweet shop kissing the chocolate off the nose of a lovely girl. Well, perhaps you can…they all say you are a genius. So that is simply another reason for you to send for me, or come home before your next birthday, don’t you agree?

Alas! That would be another dreadful (but wealthy!) singing student at the door. Write as often as you can bear to stop composing!

Completely yours, except for the tiny part of my heart that belongs to chocolate and satin ribbons…

♥Aloysia Weber

(Exerpts from Letters to Mozart © 2006 Kristin Serafini.)