into town each day. Their present rent is quite high, but the theatre
manager has recommended Frau Waller’s Sattlerisch Haus, just
behind the theatre on the corner of Kärntnerstrasse and Sattlergasse.
Frau Waller rents out several rooms to people temporarilly attached
to the theatre. Jozef Selliers and she have for years had a good
arrangement whereby, if people fail to pay their rent, the intendant
simply docks it from their pay and reckons up with her later.
The apartment she gives Paolina and Antonio is simply
furnished and not large, but satisfies them for the time being. The
corner room gets plenty of natural light from two windows.
Antonio moves the table, so creating a workplace for himself. They
are at the front of the house, and the room can be quite noisy, for
the Kärtnerstrasse is one of the busiest streets in Vienna.
The summer is spent in writing to inform all their old Bohemian
friends and associates that Don Vivaldi will be residing until
further notice in Vienna and wishes to put himself entirely at their
service for the provision of a new composition or production.
The response is disappointing, but according to Paolina
this is due entirely to the warm season. Most of the gentry and half
the court are away in the country. The sultry days are best spent in
the shadow of the willows on the Danube, so that often Antonio
and Paolina take a carriage down to the riverbank and sit for hours
in welcome coolness beside the water.
Antonio has his sights set energetically on autumn. His fervent
hope is that Charles VI will put in an appearance at the opening of
his first performance, for the Archduke of Austria is currently
confined to his sickbed. Last week the regent caught a cold whilst
hunting duck in the reed-beds of Lake Neusiedel. It has been
bitterly cold recently; alternating storms of sleet and snow driven
before a lacerating wind that has driven everybody off the streets.
Inside the theatre it is not much better, but at least it’s dry. Selliers
considers it a waste of money to heat the place except for
performances, so everyone is muffled up to the chin for rehearsals.
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