294.—TO A PAUPER'S GRAVE.
Poor Mozart! In life pushed from pillar to post; in sickness working to the last moment to bring bread to his family; in death occupying an unknown grave!
After Mozart's death, that night of December 4, 1791, the little house on Roughstone Lane, in Vienna, was almost deserted. Only two or three callers came. The men who made money by the dead master's genius stayed away. The widow was left almost destitute, as Mozart's fortune amounted to five pounds in money and his effects were valued at about twenty-six pounds more. A heavy draft on this was made by the undertaker's and doctor's bills, which amounted to perhaps twenty pounds.
The cold rain and sleet pounded down, that gloomy day when the little group left the house. After the services at the church the mourners dropped off, and when the hearse reached the cemetery no one followed the remains of the composer of "Don Juan" and the "Jupiter" symphony.
Two paupers had been buried that day; and, as it was late, Mozart's coffin was hastily thrust into the pauper's grave—being the last for the day it was uppermost,—the earth was hastily thrown in, and the great composer lay at rest in a pauper's grave.
But a stranger thing happened. After some years the grave was opened to receive more bodies of the unfortunate poor. The grave-digger remembered which was Mozart's grave and, having been an admirer of Mozart's music, he preserved the great composer's skull. This man sold it to a certain official, who in after years bequeathed it to his brother, and it was he who made known to the world the fact of this gruesome possession.
Be this as it may, Germany can by no admiration for Mozart's works at this day atone for her neglect of their author at the time of his need and distress. It will always be a blot on the good name of Vienna and the Fatherland.