Free Mozart's Sister: A Novel by Rita Charbonnier

claim gestures of deference. They all seemed to be wearing costumes. The men’s coats were long, reaching to mid-calf, and had tight sleeves that restricted their arm movements. The women never went hatless: they wore broad hats, round, with wide soft brims, tied behind, of shiny material or of straw, or of taffeta, and richly decorated with ribbons and trimmed with lace, bows, flowers, and sometimes even precious stones. The skirts were of linen, silk, cotton, fabrics from Persia and the East Indies, printed with little flowers or embroidered with delicate floral designs. Victoria, I assure you, would have been mad for those fabrics! The boys had short hair and felt caps perched on their heads, which they held on to with one hand when a sudden breeze threatened to carry them off. Then, one moment it was warm, and the next, cold air from the north lowered the temperature until your teeth chattered, and you’d want to go to bed immediately.
    You might find yourself witnessing a quarrel right in the middle of a square: two men savagely beating each other—breaking teeth, cracking bones—while passersby ignored them, or stopped to watch as if at a stadium, or maybe they even joined in the fray. It could also happen that you would be accosted roughly by a stranger, because of your continental dress: we endured what to the English is the worst possible insult, to be taken for French! So my father brought us in a hurry to a tailor shop and had us dressed anew from head to toe. And so, proudly, in all things now similar to an ordinary local family, we mixed with the dust and smoke and were lost in the crowd…
     
    XV.
     
    “Herr Tschudi, I am honored by your welcome, and I must acknowledge, of course, that you are a skilled craftsman. And yet I confess to you that this new instrument—how can I put it? It doesn’t convince me. An Italian invented it, right? It’s time for that riffraff from the south to stop illegally trying to take over the music business.”
    “I understand your point of view, Herr Mozart. But may I be permitted to remind you that while the pianoforte was indeed invented by the Cristofori, it was perfected by Gottfried Silbermann, that is, a German—”
    “Of course! And I am aware, besides, that Johann Christian Bach has already composed for the pianoforte. Make no mistake; I am, in all modesty, quite well informed. In spite of that, I don’t think this instrument will have a wide circulation. One of those passing fashions that are gone as soon as they have arrived—surely you know what I’m saying?”
    They were having tea in the workshop of the best-known maker of pianos. There was no habitation in London where the teakettle was not ready from morning to evening, and on every visit one was unfailingly welcomed with tea and buttered scones. And it seemed that the custom extended to craftsmen’s workshops, or at least those that were doing well; and to judge from the fine Chinese porcelain cups and the heavy silver teapot, Mr. Burkhardt Tschudi was managing very well. He also had an assistant, a man in a white coat who was sitting calmly in a corner working with glue and file.
    Nannerl couldn’t wait to try the modern instrument, which had replaced the metallic and essentially tedious sound of the harpsichord with a completely new, much more expressive timbre, thanks to an ingenious system of levers and hammers. She was excited by the idea of investigating a broad spectrum of acoustic effects, depending on the intensity with which she touched the keys, from the delicacy of a light rain to the tremendous power of thunder, passing through a thousand intermediate shadings.
    While the adults were conversing, she silently approached the magnificent instrument. Close up, it did not seem different from a harpsichord. It was of cedar, without decoration, and massive; it had a single keyboard, not the two, one above the other, that many harpsichords did. The moment she pressed her fingers to the keys,