When Constance was at home with him, if he left her in the morning before she awakened, he would leave a note for her with the words, "Good-morning, my darling wife. I shall be at home at -- o'clock precisely." Once when she had been ill for eight months, and Mozart was composing beside her as she slept, suddenly a noisy messenger entered. Alarmed lest his wife should be disturbed, he rose hastily, when the penknife in his hand fell, and buried itself in his foot. Without a word escaping his lips, he left the room, a surgeon was called, and, though lame for some time, the wife was not told of the accident. His compositions found few purchasers, for the people generally could not comprehend them. Publishers' shops were closed to him, unless he would write in the popular style. "Then I can make no more by my pen," he said bitterly, "and I had better starve and go to destruction at once." So poor had his family become, that, with no fuel in the house, he and his wife were found by a friend, waltzing to keep warm. About this time a sepulchral-looking man called to ask that a "Requiem" be written on the death of the wife of an Austrian nobleman, who was to be considered the author, and thus his intense grief be shown, though manifested through a lie. Mozart consulted with his wife, as was his custom, and, as she indorsed it, he accepted the commission for fifty dollars. Overworked, harassed by debts which he could not pay, hurt at the jealousies and intrigues of several musicians, disappointed at the reception of his new opera at Prague, his hopeful nature forsook him, and he told Constance that the "Requiem" would be written for himself. In the midst of this wretchedness their sixth child was born. The poor wife forgot her own sorrows, and prevailed upon him to give up work for a time; but the active brain could not rest, and he wrote as he lay on his sick-bed. On the day before he died, Dec. 4, 1791, at two o'clock, he persisted in having a portion of the "Requiem" sung by the friends who stood about his bed, and, joining with them in the alto, burst into tears, saying, "Did I not say that I was writing the 'Requiem' for myself?" Soon after he said, "Constance, oh that I could only hear my 'Flauto Magico!'" and a friend playing it, he was cheered. A messenger now arrived to tell him that he was appointed organist at St. Stephen's Cathedral, a position for which he had longed for years; but it came too late. Death was unwelcome to him. "Now must I go," he said, "just as I should be able to live in peace; I must leave my family, my poor children, at the very instant in which I should have been able to provide for their welfare." Cold applications were ordered by the physicians for his burning head; he became delirious for two hours, and died at midnight, only thirty-five years old. Constance was utterly prostrated, and threw herself upon his bed, hoping to die also.