In the last hours his sister-in-law, Sophie Haibl, lent what assistance
she could. Constanze, grief-stricken and stupefied, was helpless. The
sick man, tortured to the last by the thought of his unfinished
_Requiem_, was shaken by the chills and fires of fever. It was found
necessary to take a canary out of the sickroom because the singing of
the bird seemed to cause the sufferer physical pain. He appealed to
Sophie to remain with him, to comfort Constanze, and to “see me die. I
have the taste of death on my tongue already and who is to care for my
Constanze when I am gone?” A doctor who attended him was at the theater
when summoned and, realizing the hopelessness of the case, promised to
come “when the play was over.” Sophie was dispatched to call a priest.
When she returned she found the dying man bending over some sketches of
the _Requiem_ and giving Süssmayr some final directions about the work.
At last he lapsed into unconsciousness, a few moments before the end
puffing out his cheeks and making what the tearful bystanders imagined
to be an effort to imitate the sound of the drums in his unfinished
score. And five minutes before one on the morning of December 5, 1791,
he died.
Of what illness did Mozart die? Typhus say some; a result of childhood
illness, say others, complicated by the strain of overwork, traveling,
disappointments, and deprivations. The most plausible medical
explanation would appear to have been supplied by a modern Salzburg
physician, Dr. H. Kasseroller, who diagnosed the cause of the master’s
early demise as uremia resulting from Bright’s disease. And this may
explain the composer’s persistent idea in his last weeks that he had
been administered poison.
The rest of the pitiful story need not detain us. The parsimonious Baron
van Swieten advised Constanze to observe economy in making the funeral
arrangements; and so Mozart was buried in a pauper’s grave. On December
6, the body was taken to the cemetery of St. Marx. A handful of mourners
who followed the hearse dispersed when a heavy snowstorm made progress
difficult. The stricken Constanze found it impossible to accompany the
pathetic little cortege; and when some time later she attempted to
discover her husband’s resting place, a new gravedigger who replaced the
earlier one had no idea whatever where he lay.
What matter that posterity has never discovered the whereabouts of his
sepulcher? Mozart, the incessant wanderer, the infinitely lonely, now
lives more fully and gloriously than ever in the hearts and souls of all
true worshipers of the divinest in music. And if his earthly tragedy has
never seemed so poignant as it does today, we can take consolation from
the circumstance that our generation has learned to prize the greatness,
elevation, and beauty of his art more, perhaps, than did any of our
predecessors.
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