XXXV

THE TROJANS

By this time (1863) I had finished the dramatic work on which I had been engaged. Four years earlier, being in Weimar with Liszt’s devoted friend, the Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein—a woman whose noble heart and mind had often been my comfort in my darkest hours—I was drawn on to speak of my love of Virgil and of my wish to compose a grand opera in Shakespearian style on the second and fourth books of the Æneid. I added that I knew too well the misery and worry that would be my fate to dare to embark on such a project.

Said the Princess:

“Your passion for Shakespeare and love for the classics would indeed produce a work both grand and original. You must do it.”

As I demurred, she continued:

“Listen! If you draw back from fear of petty troubles, if you are so weak as not to suffer in the cause of Cassandra and Dido, come here no more. I will never see you again!”

Once back in Paris I began the poem of The Trojans. Then I started on the score, and at the end of three years and a half it was finished. As I polished and repolished it I read it to many of my friends, profiting by their criticism; then I wrote to the Emperor begging him to read it and, should he judge it suitable, to use his influence to secure it a hearing at the Opera.

However, M. de Morny dissuaded me from sending my letter, and when finally The Trojans saw the footlights the Emperor was not even present.

After many cruel disappointments with regard to the opera,[28] I at last succumbed to the persuasion of M. Carvalho and allowed him to set The Trojans at Carthage (the second section of the opera) at the Théâtre Lyrique.

Although he received a Government subsidy of a hundred thousand francs a year, neither his theatre, singers, chorus, nor orchestra was equal to the task. Both he and I made great sacrifices, and I, out of my small income, paid some extra musicians and cut up my orchestration to bring it within his limits.

Madame Charton-Demeur, the only possible woman for Dido, most generously accepted fees far below those offered her in Madrid, but despite everything the production was incomplete; indeed, the sceneshifters made such a muddle of the storm scene that we were obliged to suppress it entirely.

As I said before, if I am to superintend a really fine representation I must have an absolutely free hand, and the good-will of every one around, otherwise I get worn out with storming at opposition, and end by resigning and letting everything go to the devil as it will.

I cannot describe what Carvalho[29] made me suffer in demanding cuts that he deemed necessary. When he dared ask no more he worked upon me through friends, whose niggling, peddling criticism drove me nearly mad. Said one:

“How about your rhapsodist with the four-stringed lyre? I daresay you are right as to archæology, but——”

“Well?”

“It is rather dangerous; people are certain to laugh.”

“H’m! laughable is it that an antique lyre should have only four notes?”

Another:

“There is a risky word in your prologue that I fairly tremble over.”

“What’s that?”

“Triomphaux.”

“Well, why not? Is not it the plural of triomphal just as chevaux is of cheval?”

“Yes, but it is not much used.”

“Oh, confound it all! If, in an epic poem, I were to use words suited to vaudevilles and variety shows, I should not have much choice of language.”

“Well, people will certainly laugh.”

“Ha! ha! triomphaux! It is really almost as funny as Molière’s tarte à la crême. Ha! ha!”

A third:

“I say! You really must not let Æneas come on in a helmet.”

“And why not?”

“Why, Mangin, the gutter pencil-seller, wears one. Certainly his is a mediæval one, but that doesn’t matter. The gallery cads will certainly howl ‘Hallo! there’s Mangin!’

“I see—a Trojan hero may not wear a helmet, lest he should be like Mangin!”

Number four:

“Old fellow, do something to please me!”

“What is it now?”

“Suppress Mercury. Those wings on his head and his heels are really too comical. No one ever saw anybody with wings anywhere but on their shoulders.”

“Ah, you have seen people with wings on their shoulders? I have not, but I can quite understand that wings in unexpected places are awkward. One does not often meet Mercury strolling about the streets of Paris.”

Can any one conceive what these crass idiots made me endure? In addition, I had to fight the musical ideas of Carvalho, who could not believe that, after studying opera for forty years, I knew just a little about it.

The actors alone loyally abstained from worrying me, for which forbearance I give them all most hearty thanks.

The first performance took place on the 4th November 1863. There was no hostile demonstration except the hissing of one man, and he kept on regularly up to the tenth night. Five papers said everything insulting that they could think of, but, on the other hand, fifty articles of admiring criticism—among them those of my friends, Gasperini, d’Ortigue, L. Kreutzer, and Damcke—filled me with a joyous pride to which I had too long been a stranger.

I also received many appreciative letters, and was frequently stopped in the street by strangers who begged to shake hands with the author of The Trojans.

Were these not compensations for the diatribes of my foes? In spite of the cutting and polishing (I called it mutilation) that my Trojans suffered at the hands of Carvalho, it only ran twenty-one nights. The receipts did not reach his expectations; he cancelled the engagement of Madame Charton-Demeur, who left for Madrid, and to my great comfort my work disappeared from the play-bills.

Nevertheless, being both author and composer, my royalties for those twenty-one performances and the sale of the piano score in Paris and London amounted—to my unspeakable joy—to about the annual income I derived from the Journal des Débats, and I was, therefore, able to resign my post as critic.

Freedom, after thirty years of slavery! No more articles to concoct, no more platitudes to excuse, no more commonplaces to extol, no more righteous wrath to bottle up, no more lies, no more farces, no more cowardly compromises! Free! I need never more set foot in theatre! Gloria in excelsis! Thanks to The Trojans the wretched quill-driver is free!!

My Beatrice, having been a success at Baden in August 1862, was translated into German, and, at the request of the Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, was given at Weimar in April 1863. Their Serene Highnesses desired me to direct the two first performances, and, as usual, overwhelmed me with kindness.

So did the Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, who sent his Kapellmeister to invite me to conduct a concert at Löwenberg, his present residence.

He told me that his orchestra knew all my symphonies, and wished for a programme drawn exclusively from my own works.

“Your Highness,” I said, “since your orchestra knows all, be pleased to choose for yourself. I will conduct whatever you wish.”

He therefore chose King Lear, the festival and love-scene from Romeo, the Carnaval Romain overture, and Harold in Italy. As he had no harpist, Madame Pohl of Weimar, with her husband, was invited.

The Prince had greatly changed since my visit in 1842; he was a martyr to gout, and was, after all, unable to be present at the concert he had planned. He was keenly disappointed, for, said he, “You are not a mere conductor; you are the orchestra itself; it is hard that I cannot reap the benefit of your stay here.”

He has built a splendid music-room in the castle, with a musical library; the orchestra is composed of about fifty musical musicians, and their conductor, M. Seifriz, is both patient and talented. They are not worried with lesson-giving, church or theatre work, but belong exclusively to the Prince.

My rooms were close to the concert hall, and the first afternoon, at four, a servant came to say:

“Monsieur, the orchestra awaits you.”

There I found the forty-five silent artists, instruments in hand and all in tune!!

They rose courteously to receive me, King Lear was on the desk, I raised my baton and everything went with spirit, smoothness, and precision, so that—not having heard the piece for ten or twelve years—I said to myself in amazement: “It is tremendous! Can I really have written it?”

The rest was just as good, and I said to the players:

“Gentlemen, to rehearse with you is simply a farce; I have not a single objection to make.”

The Kapellmeister played the viola solo of Harold perfectly (in the other pieces he returned to his violin), and I can truly say that never have I heard it more perfectly done.

And ah! how they sang the adagio of Romeo! We were transported to Verona, Löwenberg was gone. At the end Seifriz rose and, after waiting a moment to conquer his emotion, cried in French: “There is nothing finer in music!”

Then the orchestra burst into storms of applause, and I bit my lip.... Messengers passed constantly back and forth to the poor Prince in his bed to report progress, but nothing consoled him for his absence. Every few minutes during dinner he would either send for me or a big, powdered lacquey would bring me a pencilled note on a silver salver. Sometimes I would spend half an hour at his bedside and listen to his praises. He knows all that I have written, both prose and music.

On the day of the concert a brilliant audience filled the hall; by their enthusiasm one could see that my music was an old friend. After the Pilgrim’s March an officer came on to the platform and pinned on my coat the cross of Hohenzollern. The secret had been so well guarded that I had not the slightest idea of such an honour.

But it pleased me so greatly that, just for my own satisfaction, and without thought of the public, I played the orgie from Harold in my very own style—furiously—so that it made me grind my teeth.

I might say much more of this charming interlude of my life, but I must only mention the exquisite cordiality of the Prince’s circle and particularly of the family of Colonel Broderotti, whose perfect French was a real relief to me, since I dislike to hear my own language badly spoken yet know no German. As I took leave of the Prince he embraced me, saying:

“You are going to Paris, my dear Berlioz, where many love you. Tell them I love them for it.”

But I must go back to Beatrice.

To my mind it is one of the liveliest and most original things I have ever done, although it is difficult—especially in the men’s parts. Unlike The Trojans it is inexpensive to mount; but they will take precious care not to have it in Paris; they are right, it is not Parisian music at all. With his usual generosity, M. Benazet paid me four thousand francs for the music and the same for the words—eight thousand in all, and gave me another thousand to conduct it the following year.

The Maidens’ duet became very popular in Germany and I remember making the Grand Duke laugh heartily about it one night at supper. He had been catechising me on my life in Paris and my revelations anent our musical world sadly disillusioned him.

“How, when and where did you write that lovely duet?” he asked, “surely by moonlight in some romantic spot——”

“Sir,” I replied, “it was one of those scenes that artists mark and store up for future use and which come forth when needed, no matter amid what surroundings. I sketched it in at the Institute during an oration of one of my colleagues.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed he, “that speaks well for the orator. His eloquence must have been great.”

Later on it was performed at one of our Conservatoire concerts and made an unheard-of sensation. Even my faithful hissers dared not uplift their voices. Mesdames Viardot and Vanderheufel-Duprez sang it deliciously, and the marvellous orchestra was dainty and graceful. It was one of those performances one sometimes hears—in dreams. The Conservatoire Society, directed by my friend, Georges Hainl, was no longer inimical to me and proposed to give excerpts from my scores occasionally. I have now presented it with my whole musical library, with the exception of the operas; it ought some day to be fairly valuable and it could not be in better hands.

I must not forget to mention the Strasburg festival, where I conducted my Childhood of Christ in a vast building seating six thousand people. I had five hundred performers, and to my surprise, this work—written almost throughout in a quiet, tender vein—made a tremendous impression, the mystic, unaccompanied chorus, “O my soul!” even causing tears.

Ah! how happy am I when my audience weeps!

I have heard since that many of my works have been given in America, Russia and Germany.

So much the better! Could I but live a hundred and forty years my musical life would become distinctly interesting.

I had married again—it was my duty, and after eight years my wife died suddenly of heart disease. Some time after her burial in the great cemetery at Montmartre, my dear friend, Edouard Alexandre (the organ builder, whose goodness to me has been unbounded), thinking her grave too humble, made me a present of a plot of ground in perpetuity. There a vault was built and I was obliged to be present at the re-interment. It was a heart-rending scene and quite broke me down; I seemed to have touched the lowest depths of misery, but this was nothing to what followed soon after.

I was officially notified that the small cemetery at Montmartre, where Henriette lay, was to be closed and that I must remove her dear body. I gave the necessary orders and one gloomy morning set out alone for the deserted burial-ground. A municipal officer awaited me and as I came up a sexton jumped down into the open grave. The ten years buried coffin was still intact with the exception of the cover, decayed by damp, and the man, instead of lifting it to the surface, pulled at the rotten boards, which tearing asunder with a hideous noise, left the remains exposed.

Stooping, he took in his hands that fleshless head, discrowned and gaunt, the head of poor Ophelia and placed it in the new coffin lying on the brink of the grave—alas! alas! Again he stooped and raised the headless trunk, a black repulsive mass in its discoloured shroud—it fell with a dull, hopeless sound into its place. The officer a few paces off, stood watching. Seeing me leaning against a cypress tree he cried:

“Come nearer, M. Berlioz, come nearer.”

And, to add a grotesque weirdness to this horrible spectacle he added, misusing a word:

“Ah, poor inhumanity!”

In a few moments we followed the hearse down the hill to the great cemetery, where the new vault yawned before us. Henriette was laid within and there those dear dead women await me.

I am nearly sixty-one; past hope, past visions, past high thoughts; my son is far away; I am alone; my scorn for the dishonesty and imbecility of men, my hatred of their insane malignity are at their height; and every day I say again to Death:

“When thou wilt!”

Why does he tarry?

XXXVI

ESTELLE ONCE MORE

To A. Morel.

Rarely have I suffered from ennui so terribly as I did during the beginning of September 1864.

My friends were away except Stephen Heller, the delicate wit and learned musician, who has written so much lovely music for the piano and whose gentle melancholy and devotion to the true deities of Art made him to me such a grateful companion. My son was home from Mexico, he, too, was not lively and we often pooled our gloom and dined together.

One day, after dinner at Asnières, we walked beside the river and discussed Shakespeare and Beethoven, my son taking part in the Shakespeare portion, since, unfortunately, he was then unacquainted with Beethoven. We finally agreed that it was worth while living in order to worship the Beautiful, and if we could not annihilate all that is inimical to it we must be content to despise the commonplace and recognise it as little as possible. The sun was setting; we sat on the river-bank opposite the isle of Neuilly, and, as we watched the wayward wheeling of the swallows over the water, I suddenly remembered where I was.

I looked at my son—I thought of his mother.

Once more, in spirit, I lay half asleep in the snow as I had done in that very spot thirty-six years before, during those frenzied wanderings around Paris.

Once again I recalled Hamlet’s cold remark over the Ophelia he loved no longer, “What! the fair Ophelia?”

“Long ago,” I said to my companion, “one winter’s day, I was nearly drowned here trying to cross the Seine on the ice. I had walked aimlessly since early morning——” Louis sighed.

The following week he left me, and a great yearning for Vienne, Grenoble, above all, Meylan, came over me. I wished to see my nieces and—one other woman, if I could get her address.

I left Paris. My brother-in-law, Suat, and his two daughters met me with joy. But my joy was chastened, for on entering their drawing-room the portrait of my dear Adèle—now four years dead—faced me. It was a terrible blow, and my nieces looked on in sorrowful amazement at my grief.

Daily familiarity with the room, its furniture, the portrait, had already softened their loss to them; to me all was fresh.

Dear tender-hearted Adèle! my willing slave, my indulgent guardian. How well I remember one day, after I came from Italy, that it rained in torrents, and I said:

“Adèle, come for a walk.”

“Certainly, dear boy,” she said, promptly; “wait till I get my galoshes.”

“Really,” said my elder sister, “you must be quite crazy to want to paddle about the fields in such weather.”

But, despite mockery and jokes, we took a big umbrella and arm-in-arm walked about six miles without speaking a word. We loved each other.

After spending a peaceful fortnight with my brother-in-law, during which he got me Madame F.’s address in Lyons, I could no longer resist a pilgrimage to St Eynard, such as I had made sixteen years before.

There soared the ancient rock, there stood the small white house ... to-day, her old home; to-morrow, perhaps, Estelle herself! Sixteen years had passed as one night, all was unchanged. The little shady path, the old tower, the leafy vines, the glorious view over the valley. Till then I had kept calm, only murmuring, “Estelle! Estelle! Estelle!” but now, overcome with emotion, I fell prone on my face, hearing with each heart-beat the fatal words:

“Past! Past! Gone for ever!”

I arose, and chipping from the tower a morsel of stone that she perchance may have touched, went on my way.

There is the rock whereon I laid my posy of pink peas—but where are the flowers? Gone, or perhaps only past their flowering stage. Here is the cherry tree. How grown!

I break off a fragment of bark and, passing my arms around the trunk, press it passionately to my breast.

Dear tree, you remember her! You understand!

At the avenue gate I resolved to go up to the house; perhaps the new owners would not be too suspicious of me. In the garden I met an old lady who seemed startled at the sight of a stranger.

“Pardon me, madame,” I stammered, “might I go through your garden—in memory of—old friends?”

“Certainly, monsieur, go where you will.”

Further on a girl was on a ladder gathering pears. I bowed and passed on, pushing my way through the bushes, now so neglected, and cutting a branch of syringa to hide next my heart. As I came to the open door, I paused on the threshold to look in. The maiden of the pear tree, no doubt warned by her mother, came forward and courteously asked me in.

That little room, looking over the wide valley, that she had so proudly shown me when I was twelve years old—the same furniture, the same——I tore my handkerchief with my teeth. The girl watched me uneasily.

“Do not mind me, mademoiselle. All is so strange—I have not—been here for forty-nine years!”

And, bursting into tears, I fled.

What could those ladies have thought of that strange scene, to which they never got a key?

Reader, do I repeat myself? In sooth it is always so; remembrance, regret, a weary soul clutching at the past, fighting despairingly to retain the flying present. Always this useless struggle against time, always this wild desire to realise the impossible, always this frantic thirst for perfect love! How can I help repeating myself? The sea repeats itself; are not all its waves akin?

That night I reached Lyons and spent a sleepless night thinking of my meeting with Madame F.

I decided to go at noon, and to send the following letter to prepare her for her visitor:

I could not wait till noon. At half-past eleven I rang; gave her maid my card and the letter. She was at home. I ought only to have sent up the letter, but I was past knowing what I was doing. Without hesitation she came to meet me. I at once recognised her graceful yet stately air—the step of a goddess. But, ah! how changed her face! Her complexion darkened, her hair silvered.

Yet my heart went out to my idol as though she had been in all the freshness of her youthful beauty.

Holding my note, she led the way to her drawing-room. My emotions choked me, I was dumb; with gentle dignity she began:

“We are old acquaintances, M. Berlioz——” Silence.

“We were but children then——” Still silence.

Feeble as the cry of a drowning man came my halting voice:

“My letter—madame—explains this visit; would you but read it——”

She opened and read it, then laid it on the chimney-piece.

“Then you have been in Meylan; by chance, no doubt?”

“Oh, madame, can you believe it needed chance to take me there? For how long had I not yearned to see it once more?”

Again silence.

“Your life has been a stirring one, M. Berlioz.”

“How do you know, madame?”

“I have read your biography—by Méry, I think. I bought it some years ago.”

“Pray, do not think that my friend Méry, an artist and a clever man, is guilty of such a tissue of fables and nonsense as that! I believe I can guess the real author. But I shall soon have a true biography ready, one I have written myself.”

“And you write so well!”

“Nay, madame, I do not mean to praise the style, but simply to say that at least it will be true. In it, without naming you, I have been able to tell all my feeling for you without restraint.”

Silence.

“I have also heard of you,” went on Madame F., “from a friend of yours who married my husband’s niece.”

“Yes, it is he whom I asked to tell me the fate of a letter I wrote you sixteen years ago. I longed to know whether you received it. I never saw him again, and now he is dead.”

Silence.

“My life has been very quiet, very sad. I lost some of my children, and my husband died while the others were very young. I did my best alone to bring them up well.”

Silence.

“I am indeed grateful, M. Berlioz, for the kind thoughts you have kept of me.”

At her gentle words my heart beat yet more violently.

With hungry eyes I gazed and gazed, clothing her once more in the beauty of long past days. At length I said:

“Madame, give me your hand.”

Pressing it to my lips, my heart turned to water within me, the world sank away, a long and blessed silence brooded over us.

“Dare I hope,” I murmured, “that I may write to you? That, at long distant intervals, I may even see you?”

“Oh, certainly; but I am leaving Lyons soon to live with my son who, after his marriage, is to settle in Geneva.”

I rose, not daring to stay longer. She came with me to the door, saying, “Good-bye, M. Berlioz, good-bye. I am more grateful than I can tell you for your long and sweet memory of me.”

Once more I bent over her hand, pressing it to my burning forehead, then tore myself away but only to wander, aimlessly and feverishly, near her dwelling.

As I watched the swirling Rhone rush under the Pont Morand, M. Strakosch, brother-in-law of Adelina Patti, came up to me.

“You!” he cried, “Good-luck! Adelina will be so glad to see you. She is singing to-morrow in the Barbiere; will you have a box?”

“Many thanks, I may be leaving this evening.”

“Well, anyway come to dinner with us to-day. You know how much pleasure it gives us.”

“I dare not promise—It depends—I am not very well—Where are you staying?”

“Grand Hotel.”

“So am I. Well, if I am not too unsociable this evening I will come. But don’t wait.”

I suddenly thought of an excuse to see Madame F. once more. If she would go to the theatre I would stay also, if she would allow me the honour of escorting her. If she would not I would leave at once.

I hurried round to her house. She was out but I left a message with her maid and then went off to pass a day of torturing uncertainty. Hour after hour went by and no answer came, time after time I returned to find the house shut up and to get no answer to my ring.

Could it be that she had told her people not to admit me?

What would become of me! Where should I go! What do! There seemed no refuge for me but the Rhone!

Finally in one last despairing attempt I heard ladies’ voices above me on the stairs and saw her coming down, a note in her hand.

“Oh, M. Berlioz, I am so sorry I have only just got your message and here is my answer. Unfortunately I shall be away from home to-morrow; a thousand pardons for the inconvenience I have caused you.”

She was putting the letter in her pocket when I cried:

“Oh, please let me have it!”

“It is hardly worth while——”

“I beg of you, since it was meant for me.”

She gave it me and for the first time I saw her writing.

“Then I shall see you no more?”

“Not if you leave to-night. May your journey be pleasant.”

Pressing my hand, she and her two friends passed on, leaving me—can it be believed?—almost happy.

I had seen, had spoken to her again, I had a letter from her in which she sent me her kindest regards.

With my unhoped-for treasure I went back to the hotel to dine with Mademoiselle Patti.

As I entered her salon the charming diva clapped her hands joyously and danced up to me, holding up her lovely forehead for my accustomed kiss.

During dinner she spoilt me with her dainty coaxing attentions.

“There is something wrong with you,” she said, “what are you thinking of? I can’t have you miserable.”

They came with me to the station, she, with a friend and Strakosch, and they were allowed to go on to the platform. Adelina, dear child, clung to me until the signal was given, then the winsome creature flung both arms round my neck and kissed me, crying gaily:

“Good-bye, good-bye just for a week. We shall be in Paris on Tuesday and you must come and see us on Thursday.”

Why could I not claim such affection from Madame F. and mere politeness from Mademoiselle Patti?

Adelina was like a brilliant, diamond-eyed humming-bird fluttering round me; I was enchanted but not touched. Though I liked her greatly, I did not love her.

My soul was given to that old, sad, unsought after woman, hers it has always been and will be to my dying day.

Balzac and even Shakespeare—master painters of passions—knew nothing of love like this. Tom Moore alone has imagined and voiced it in—

How often, through that long night journey, did I repeat:

“Idiot! why did you leave? You might have seen her again to-morrow.” True, but the fear of being troublesome restrained me and what could I have done in Lyons during the hours we were apart? it would have been but torture.

After a few miserable days of indecision in Paris I wrote the following letter, which shows my deplorable state and her beautiful calm.

How much worse off am I now that I cannot even write to her! To enjoy that romantic friendship to the end would have been too great a blessing. Wounded, torn, alone, unsatisfied must I totter to my grave!

Madame F.’s Answer.