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.
--A few palpable typos were silently corrected.
--Illustrations were shifted to the nearest paragraph break.
--Copyright notice is from the printed exemplar. (U.S. copyright was not renewed: this ebook is in the public domain.)
End of Project Gutenberg's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, by Herbert F. Peyser