“January 1852.—It is impossible to do anything in Paris, so next month I shall go back to England, where, at least, the wish to love music is real and persistent. If I can be of the least use to you in my newspaper articles, commend me, dear master. It will be a pleasure to tell our few earnest French readers of the great and good things that are done in Russia. It is a debt I shall gladly pay, since I never shall forget the warmth of my reception and the kindness of your Empress and your great Emperor’s family.
“What a pity he himself does not like music!”
To J. d’Ortigue.
“London, March 1852.—Just a line to tell you of my colossal success. Recalled I know not how often, and applauded both as composer and conductor. This morning, in the Times, the Morning Post, the Advertiser, and others, such effusions as never were written before about me! Beale is wild with joy, for it really is an event in the musical world. The orchestra at times surpassed all that I have heard in verve, delicacy and power.
“All the papers except the Daily News puff me, and now I am preparing Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, which, so far, has been sadly mutilated here.
“But can you believe that all the critics are against the Vestal, of which we performed the first part yesterday?
“I am utterly cast down at this lapsus judicii—am I not weak?—and am ashamed of having succeeded at such a cost. Why can I not remember that the good, the beautiful, the true, the false, the ugly, are not the same to everyone?”
“May 1852.—You speak of the expenses of our concerts; they are enormous. Every impresario in London expected to lose this year. In fact Beale, in the programme of the last concert, actually told the public that the Choral Symphony rehearsals had swallowed more than a third of the subscription.
“However, it has had a miraculous effect, and my success as conductor was great also; indeed, it was such an event in the musical world that people greatly doubted whether we should carry it through.”
“June 1852.—I leave to-morrow. How I shall regret my glorious chorus and orchestra! Those beautiful women’s voices!
“If only you had been here to hear our second performance of the Choral Symphony. The effect in that enormous Exeter Hall was most imposing.
“Paris once more! where I must forget these melodious joys in my daily task of critic—the only one left me in my precious native land!
“A naïf Birmingham amateur was heard the other day regretting that I had not been engaged for the Birmingham Festival. ‘For I hear,’ said he, ‘that Berlioz really is better than Costa!!!’”
To Louis Berlioz.
“1852.—You say you are going mad! You must actually be mad to write me such letters in the midst of the strenuous fatigue of my present life.
“In your last letter from Havana you say you will arrive home with a hundred francs. Now you say you owe forty. Now remember! I shall take no notice in future of the nonsense you talk.
“You chose your own profession—a hard one, I grant you, but the hardest part is over. Only five more months, and you will be in port for six months studying, after which you will be able to earn your own living.
“I am putting aside money for your expenses during those six months. I can do no more.
“What is this about torn shirts? Six weeks in Havana, and all your clothes ruined! At that rate you will want dozens of shirts every five months. You must be laughing at me.
“Please weigh your language in writing to me. I do not like your present style. Life is not strewn with roses, and I can give you no career but that which you yourself chose. It is too late to alter now.”
To J. d’Ortigue.
“January 1854.—Yes, dear d’Ortigue, you are right. It is my ungovernable passion for Art that is the cause of all my trouble, all my real suffering. Forgive me for letting you read between the lines. I knew it would hurt you, and yet I could not hold back the words that burnt me, although I might have known that your opinions on Art would be in accord with your religious feelings.
“You know that I love the beautiful and the true, but I have another love quite as ardent—the love of love.
“And when for some idea, some misunderstanding, I feel that my love may be lessened, something within me bursts asunder, and I cry like a child with a broken toy.
“I know it is puerile, but it is true, although I do my best to cure myself. Like a true Christian, you have punished me by returning good for evil.
“Your notes are capital, and I think I shall be able to use them, though never did I feel less in the mood for writing.
“I cannot make a beginning. And I am sad—so sad! Life is slipping away. I long to work, and am obliged to drudge in order to live. Adieu, adieu.”
I would I were done with these wearisome reminiscences! When I have written a few pages more I shall have said enough to give a fair sketch of the mill-round of thought, work and sorrow wherein I am fated to turn, until I cease to turn for ever. However long may still be the days of my pilgrimage, they can but resemble those that are past. The same stony roads, the same Slough of Despond, with here and there a blessed oasis of
rest or a mighty rock that I may painfully climb, thereon to forget, in the evening sunshine, the cold rains of the plain beneath. So slow are changes in men and things that one would need to live two hundred years to mark any difference.
Nanci, my sister, died of cancer, after six months’ frightful suffering. Adèle, worn out with the fatigue and anxiety of nursing, nearly followed her.
Why had no doctor the humanity to put an end to that awful martyrdom with a little chloroform? They administer it to avoid the pain of an operation that lasts, perhaps, an hour, and they refuse it when they know cure to be impossible, to spare months of torture, when death would be the supreme good. Even savages are more humane.
But no doubt my sister would have refused the boon had it been offered. She would have said, “God’s will be done!” Would not God’s will have been as well interpreted by a calm, swift death as by these months of useless agony?
My wife, too, died—mercifully without much suffering.
After four years’ death-in-life, unable to speak or move, she passed quietly away at Montmartre on the 3rd March 1854. Her last hours were sweetened by Louis’ presence. He was home on leave from Cherbourg four days before she died.
I had been out for two hours when one of her nurses came to tell me all was over, and I returned but to draw aside the shroud and kiss her pale forehead.
Her portrait, painted in the days of her radiant beauty, and which I had given her the year before, hung above her bed, looking calmly down on the poor shell that had once enshrined her brilliant genius.
My sufferings were indescribable. They were intensified by one feeling that has always been the hardest for me to bear—that of pity.
Again and again I went over Henriette’s troubles and their crushing weight bore me to the earth. Her losses before our marriage, her accident, the fiasco of her second appearance, her lost beauty and renown, our home quarrels, her jealousy—not, in the end, without cause—our separation, her son’s absence, her helplessness and dreary years of retrospection, of contemplating approaching death and oblivion.
Oh, the pity of it! It turns my brain.
Shakespeare! Shakespeare! Thou alone couldst have understood us both, thou alone couldst have pitied us—poor children of Art—loving, yet wounding each other through our love! Thou art our God, if that other God sits aloof in sublime indifference to our torments. Thou art our father. Help us! Save us!
Alone I went about my sorrowful task.
The Protestant pastor lived at the other side of Paris and I went to him that evening. As my cab passed the Odéon I thought of how, in that theatre twenty-six years before, my poor dead wife had burst like a meteor upon Paris and had come forward, trembling and awed at her own success, to receive the plaudits of all that was best and brightest in France. Ophelia! Ophelia!
Through that door I saw her pass to a rehearsal of Othello. I was nothing to her then. She would have thought the prophet mad who pointed out a worn, distraught, unknown youth and said:
“Behold your husband!”
Yet he it is, my poor Ophelia, he who loved and suffered with you, who tends you on this last long journey.
Shakespeare! Shakespeare! The waters have gone over me. Father! Father! where art thou?
Next day, out of love for me, came d’Ortigue, Brizeux, Léon de Wailly, some artists brought by good Baron Taylor and other kind friends to accompany Henriette to her last rest. Twenty-five years earlier all intellectual Paris would have been there—now, he, who loved her and had not the courage to go with her to the little Montmartre God’s-acre, sits and weeps alone in her deserted garden, and her young son wanders afar on the dreary ocean.
They turned her face towards the north, to that England she never saw again, and her humble grave bears only—
Henriette Constance Berlioz-Smithson, born at Ennis, Ireland, died at Montmartre, 3rd March 1854.
The papers barely noticed her death, but Jules Janin remembered and wrote in the Débats:
“These stage divinities how soon they pass!
“How short a time it seems since we sat with Juliet on that balcony above the Verona road. Juliet, so fair, so ethereal, listening dreamily as Romeo speaks, her golden voice vibrating with the undying poetry of Shakespeare, the whole world bound by her magic spells!
“She was barely twenty, this Miss Smithson, and, without knowing it, she was a poem, a passion, a revolution—By her absolute truth she conquered.
“She it was who gave the lead to Dorval, Malibran, Victor Hugo and Berlioz. To her Delacroix owed his conception of sweet Ophelia.
“Now she is dead and her dream of glory—that glory which passes so rapidly—is over and done.
“In my young days they used to sing a funeral dirge to Juliet, wherein recurred, like an old Greek chorus, the heart-breaking refrain, ‘Throw flowers! Throw flowers!’
Liszt wrote from Weimar as only he can write:
“She inspired you, you loved and sang of her. Her work is done!”
To Louis Berlioz.
“6th March 1854.—My poor dear Louis,—You know all. I am alone and writing to you in the large sitting-room next to her deserted bedroom. I have just been to the cemetery where I laid two wreaths upon her grave—one for you and one for myself. The servants are still here and are arranging things for the sale; I want to realise as much as possible for you.
“I have kept her hair.
“You will never know how much we made each other suffer; our very suffering bound us one to the other. I could neither live with her nor without her.
“Alexis and I talked much of you yesterday. How I wish you were more rational! It would make me so happy to feel that you were sure of yourself.
“I shall be able to do more for you now than has hitherto been possible, but I shall take every precaution to prevent your squandering money. Alexis agrees that I am right.
“At present I am penniless and shall be for at least six months; I must pay the doctor and the sale will bring in but little. The King of Saxony’s director wishes me to be in Dresden next month and I shall have to borrow money for my journey.”
“23rd March.—Your letter is an unexpected pleasure, dear boy. With seventy francs a month you can easily save, if you give up your habit of squandering money. Tell me whether you can get back the watch you pawned at Havre. My father gave it to you. If you cannot, I will buy you another. I have had a watch chain made for you of your mother’s hair; keep it carefully. I also had a bracelet made for my sister, the rest of the hair I shall keep.
“Did you see Jules Janin’s touching words on your poor mother and his exquisite reference to my Romeo ‘Throw flowers?’ I hope for another letter from you before Saturday.
“God grant that my German trip may bring in something! The Montmartre house is not let and I may have to pay rent there a year longer.”
What more can I say of the two great passions that influenced my life? One was a childhood’s memory—yet not to be despised since, with my love for Estelle, awoke my love of nature. The other—coming in my manhood with my worship of Shakespeare—took possession of me and overwhelmed me completely. Love of Art and the artist intermingled, each acting upon and intensifying the other.
Those who cannot understand this will still less understand my vague poetic longings at the scent of a lovely rose, the sight of a beautiful harp. Estelle was the rose that bloomed alone, Henriette the harp that shared my music, my joys, my sorrows and of which alas! I snapped so many, many strings!
To Louis Berlioz.
“October 1854.—I am sad this morning, dear Louis. I dreamt that we were walking—you and I—in the garden at La Côte, and not knowing exactly where you are, my dream troubles me.
“I have some news that will not, I think, surprise you. Two months ago I married again.
“I could not live alone, neither could I desert the woman who, for fourteen years, has been my companion.
“My uncle and all my friends agree with me.
“I need not tell you that your interests are safe. If I die first my wife will have but a quarter of my small fortune and even that I know she intends to leave to you.
“If you still have any painful thoughts of Mademoiselle Recio I know you will hide them for my sake.
“We were married very quietly without fuss or mystery. If you mention this in your letters, write nothing that I cannot show to my wife; I must have no cloud in my home. But your own heart will tell you what to do.
“Admiral Cécile tells me he has received your letter. You cannot enter the Marines until the end of your three years’ cruise.
“I am overwhelmed with rehearsals and arrangements for producing my new work, the Childhood of Christ. It bristles with difficulties.
“Good-bye, dear Louis.”
The end of my career is in sight, or if not the end, yet are my feet set on the steep slope leading to the goal; worn and tired, I am consumed by a burning fire that sometimes rages with such violence as to frighten me.
I begin to know French, to write fairly a page of verse, prose or score; I love an orchestra, and can direct it; I worship Art in every form. But I belong to a nation that cares for none of these things. Parisians are barbarians; not one rich man in ten has a library, no one buys books—they hire feeble novels at a penny a volume from circulating libraries—this is sufficient mental food for all classes. For a few francs a month they hire from the music shops the flat and dreary compositions with which they overflow.
What have I to do with Paris? That Paris—the apotheosis of industrialism in Art—that casts a scornful eye upon me, holding me only too honoured in fulfilling my calling of pamphleteer, for which alone, it holds, I came into the world. I know what I could do with dramatic music, but to try it would be both useless and dangerous.
There is no suitable theatre; I must be absolute dictator of a grand orchestra; I must have the eager good-will of all, from prima-donna to scene-shifter; my theatre must be a gigantic musical instrument.
I could play it.
But this will never be; it would give too much scope to the cabals of my foes, and not only should I have to face the hatred of my critics but also the vindictive fury caused by my original style.
People would naturally ask, “If he becomes popular, where will our compositions be?”
I proved this at Covent Garden, where a crew of Italians nearly wrecked Benvenuto Cellini by hissing from beginning to end. Costa was credited with this cabal, since I had fallen foul of him in newspaper articles for the liberties he took with the scores of the great masters. However, guilty or not, he knew how to quiet my doubts by doing his best to help me during my rehearsals.
Indignant at my treatment, the artists of London tried, unsuccessfully, to arrange a testimonial concert for me, and through my good friend Beale offered me a present of two hundred guineas, the subscription list being headed by Messrs Broadwood. Although greatly moved at the kindly generosity of the present, I was unable to accept it. French ideas would not permit.
For three years I have been worried by the vision of a grand opera to which I want to write both words and music, as I have done in the Childhood of Christ.
So far I have resisted temptation. May I hold out until the end![24]
To me the subject is magnificent, soul-stirring, which means that the Parisians would find it flat and wearisome.
Even if I could believe they might like it, where should I find a woman with beauty, voice, dramatic talent and fiery soul to fill the chief part? The very thought of hurling myself once more against the obstacles raised by the crass stupidity of my opponents makes my blood boil. The shock of our collision would be too dangerous, for I feel I could kill them all like dogs.
Even from concert-giving in Paris I am excluded, for, thanks to the machinations of my enemies in the Conservatoire, the Minister of the Interior at the prize-giving took occasion to state that in future the hall of the Conservatoire (the only possible one for my purpose) would be lent to no one. The no one could only be me, for, with two or three exceptions in twenty years, I was the only one who so used it.
Although most of the executants in this celebrated society are my friends, they are overborne by a hostile chief and a small clique; my compositions, therefore, are never given. Once, six or seven years ago, they did ask me for some excerpts from Faust, then tried to damn them by sandwiching them between Beethoven’s C minor Symphony and Spontini’s finale to the Vestal. Fortunately they were disappointed, the Sylph scene was enthusiastically encored; but Girard, who had conducted the whole thing clumsily and colourlessly, pretended he could not find the place, so it was not repeated.
After that they avoided my works like the plague.
Of all the millionaires in Paris none thinks of doing anything for music. Paganini’s example was not followed, and the great artist’s gift to me stands alone.
No; a composer of classical music must be absolutely independent or must resign himself to all the miseries from which I suffered—to incomplete rehearsals, to inconvenient concert halls, to checks of every foreseen and unforeseen kind, and to the rapacity of the hospital tax-gatherers, who seize one-eighth of the gross receipts. Usually I am willing and anxious to make every possible sacrifice, but sometimes occasions arise when such sacrifices cease to be generous and become criminal.
Two years ago, when there was still some hope of my wife’s recovery, and therefore expenses were greatly increased, I dreamt one night of a symphony.
On waking I could still recall nearly all the first movement, an allegro in A minor. As I moved towards my writing-table to put it down, I suddenly thought:
“If I do this I shall be drawn on to compose the rest, and, since my ideas always expand, it will end by being enormously long; it will take me three or four months; I shall write no articles, and my income will fail. When the symphony is written I shall, weakly, have it copied and so incur a debt of a thousand or twelve hundred francs.
“Then I shall be impelled to give a concert that it may be heard; the receipts will hardly equal half the expenditure, and I shall lose money. I have not got it. My poor invalid will be without necessary comforts, and my son’s expenses on board ship will not be met.”
With a shudder of horror I threw aside my pen, saying:
“To-morrow I shall have forgotten the symphony.”
But no! Next night that obstinate motif returned more clearly than before—I could even see it written out. I started up in feverish agitation, humming it over and—again my decision held me back, and I put the temptation aside. I fell asleep and next morning my symphony was gone for ever.
“Coward!” cries the young enthusiast, “brave all and write! Ruin yourself! Dare everything! What right have you to push back into oblivion a work of art that stretches out to you its piteous hands crying for the light of day?”
Ah, youth, youth! never hast thou suffered as I suffer, else wouldst thou understand and be silent.
Never was I backward, when I stood alone, to bear the brunt of my own actions, never did I fail when my wife stood beside me, alert and hopeful, to help me on, to face with me privation and suffering in the cause of Art. But when she lay half dead, a doctor and three nurses in attendance, when I knew that my musical venture must end in disaster, was I cowardly to hold back? Did I not do more honour to my divine goddess, Music, in crediting her with sweet reasonableness than in treating her as an all-devouring Moloch, greedy for human victims?
If I have lately been carried away in writing my trilogy The Childhood of Christ, it is that I no longer have these heavy calls upon me, and also that, owing to my warm and generous reception in Germany, I can count upon the performance of my works.
Since writing this, M. Benazet of Baden has invited me several times to conduct the annual festival there, and, with unequalled generosity, has given me carte blanche in the engagement and payment of my performers.
Each year Germany receives me more cordially; I have been there four times during the last eighteen months.
So interested were the blind King of Hanover and his Antigone, the Queen, in my rehearsals that they would appear at eight o’clock in the morning and sometimes stay till noon, as the King said:
“In order the better to get at the heart of my meaning and to grasp more thoroughly my new ideas.”
How warmly, too, he spoke of my King Lear—of the storm, the prison scene, the fateful sorrows of sweet Cordelia.
“I did not believe there was anything so beautiful in music,” he said, “but you have enlightened me. And how you conduct? I cannot see you but I feel it. I owe much to Providence,” he added, simply; “this love of music is a compensation for all I have lost.”
I never saw Henriette in that part, which was her best, but from her recital of some scenes I can imagine what it must have been.
On my last visit to Hanover the Queen asked me to include two pieces from Romeo in my programme, and the King desired me to return next winter to superintend a theatrical performance of the same work, allowing me to requisition artists from Brunswick, Hamburg, and even Dresden.
It was the same with the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who said, as I took my leave:
“M. Berlioz, shake hands with me and remember my theatre is always open to you.”
M. de Lüttichau, superintendent to the King of Saxony, has offered me the post of director when it shall be vacant.
Liszt strongly advises me to accept, but I cannot say. Time enough to decide when the place is at my disposal.
At present in Dresden they talk of reviving Benvenuto Cellini, which Liszt has already given in Weimar, and of course I should have to go and superintend the first performances.
Blessed Germany, nursing mother of Art; generous England; Russia, my saviour; good friends in France, and you—noble hearts of all nations whom I have known—I thank and bless you all; your memory will be my comfort to my latest hour.
As for you, idiots and blind! You, my Guildenstern, Rosencrantz, Iago and Osric! You, crawling worms of all kinds! Farewell, my friends—I scorn you; may you be forgotten ere I die!
Note.—This was originally the ending of Berlioz’ Mémoires, but his correspondence was voluminous after this date and he also added some chapters to his Life.
To Auguste Morel.
“June 1855.—You ask me to describe my Te Deum, which is rather embarrassing. I can only say that its effect both on the performers and myself was stupendous. Its immeasurable grandeur and breadth struck everyone, and you can understand that the Tibi omnes and Judex would have even more effect in a less sonorous hall than the church of St Eustache.
“I start for England on Friday. Wagner, who is directing the old London Philharmonic (a post I was obliged to refuse, being engaged by the other society) is buried beneath the vituperations of the whole British press. He remains calm, for he says that in fifty years he will be master of the musical world.”
“July.—“My trip to London, where, each time, I become more comfortably established, was a brilliant success.
“I mean to go back next winter after a prospective short tour through Austria and Bohemia—at least if we are not at war with Austria.”
“I do nothing but correct proofs from morning to night, and see, hear, know nothing.”
“Meyerbeer ought to be pleased with the reception of the Etoile du Nord at Covent Garden. They threw him bouquets, as though he were a prima-donna.”
To Richard Wagner.
“September 1855.—Your letter has given me real pleasure. You do well to deplore my ignorance of German, and I have often told myself that, as you say, this ignorance makes it impossible for me to appreciate your writings. Expression melts away in translation, no matter how daintily it is handled.”
“In true music there are accents that belong to special words, separated they are spoilt.”
“But what can I do? I find it so devilishly hard to learn languages; a few words of English and Italian are all I can manage.”
“So you are busy melting glaciers with your Nibelungen! It must be glorious to write in the presence of great Mother Nature—a joy withheld from me, for, instead of stimulating, the sea, the mountain peaks, the glories of this beautiful earth absorb me so completely that I have no room, no outlet for expression. I only feel. I can but describe the moon from her reflection at the bottom of a well.”
“I am sorry I have no scores to send you, but you shall have the Te Deum, Childhood of Christ and Lélio as soon as they come out. I already have your Lohengrin and should be delighted if you would let me have Tannhäuser.
“To meet as you suggest would be indeed a pleasure, but I dare not think of it. Since Paris offers me but Dead Sea fruit I must of necessity earn my bread by travelling for bread—not pleasure.
“No matter. If we could but live another hundred years or so we might perhaps understand the true inwardness of men and things. Old Demiurge must laugh in his beard at the continual triumph of his well-worn, oft-repeated farce.
“But I will not speak ill of him, since he is a friend of yours and you have become his champion. I am an impious wretch, full of respect for the Pies. Forgive the atrocious pun!
“P.S.—Winged flights of many tinted thoughts crowd in upon me and I long to send them, were there but time.
“Write me down an ass until further orders.”
Nearly ten years since I finished my memoir and during that time my life has been as full of incident as ever.
But since, for nothing on earth would I go through the labour of writing again, I must just indicate the chief points.
My work is over; Othello’s occupation’s gone. I no longer compose, conduct, write either prose or verse. I have resigned my post of musical critic and wish to do nothing more. I only read, think, fight my deadly weariness of soul and suffer from the incurable neuralgia that tortures me night and day.
To my great surprise I have been elected a member of the Academy and my relations with my colleagues are, throughout, pleasant and friendly.
In 1855 Prince Napoleon desired me to arrange a great concert in the Exhibition building for the day upon which the Emperor was to distribute the prizes.
I accepted on condition that I had no pecuniary responsibility, and M. Ber, a generous and brave impresario, came forward and treated me most liberally.
These concerts (for there were several besides the official one) brought me in eight thousand francs.
In a raised gallery behind the throne I had placed twelve hundred musicians, who were barely heard. Not that that mattered much on the day of the ceremony, for I was stopped at the most interesting point of the very first piece (the Imperial Cantata which I had written for the occasion) because the Prince had to make his speech and the music was lasting too long!!
However the next day the paying public was admitted and we took seventy-five thousand francs. This time I brought the orchestra down into the body of the hall, with fine effect.
I sent to Brussels for an electrician I knew, who made me a five-wired metronome so that by the single movement of my left hand, I could mark time for the five deputy conductors placed at different points of the enormous space.
The ensemble was marvellous.
Since then most of the theatres have adopted electric metronomes for the guidance of chorus-masters behind the scenes. The Opera alone refused; but, when I undertook the supervision of Alcestis, I introduced it.
In these Palais de l’Industrie concerts the finest effects were obtained from broad, grand, simple and somewhat slow movements, such as the chorus from Armida, the Tibi omnes of my Te Deum and the Apotheosis of my Funeral Symphony.
Letters to Ferrand and Louis Berlioz from
1858 to 1863.
To Humbert Ferrand.
“November 1858.—I have nothing to tell you, I simply want to write. I am ill, miserable (how many I’s to each line!) Always I and me! One’s friends are for oneself, it ought to be oneself for one’s friends.
“My dejection melts away as I write; for pity’s sake let us write oftener! These years of silence are insupportable.
“Think how horribly quickly we are dying and how much good your letters do me!
“Last night I dreamt of music, this morning I recalled it all and fell into one of those supernal ecstasies.... All the tears of my soul poured forth as I listened to those divinely sonorous smiles that radiate from the angels alone. Believe me, dear friend, the being who could write such miracles of transcendent melody would be more than mortal.
“So sings great Michael as, erect upon the threshold of the empyrean, he dreamily gazes down upon the worlds beneath.
“Why, oh, why! have I not such an orchestra that I, too, could sing this archangelic song!
“Back to this lower earth! I am interrupted. Vulgar, commonplace, stupid life! Oh! that I had a hundred cannon to fire all at once!
“Good-bye. I feel better. Forgive me!”
“6th July 1861.—The Trojans has been accepted for the Opera, but I cannot tell when they will produce it as Gounod and Gervaert have to come first. But I am determined to worry myself no more; I will not court Fortune, I will lie in bed and await her.
“All the same, I could not resist a little uncourtly frankness when the Empress asked me when she should hear The Trojans.
“‘I do not know, madame, I begin to think one must live a hundred and fifty years in order to get a hearing at the Opera.’
“The annoying part is that, thanks to these delays, my work is getting a sort of advance reputation that may injure it in the end.
“I am getting on with a one-act opera for Baden, written round Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. It is called Beatrice and Benedict; I promise there shall not be much Ado in the shape of noise in it. Benazet, the king of Baden, wants it next year.
“An American director has offered me an engagement in the Disunited States; but his proposals are unavailing in view of my unconquerable antipathy to his great nation, and my love of money is not sufficiently great to prick me on. I do not know whether your love for American utilitarian manners and customs is any more intense than my own.
“In any case, it would be a great mistake to go far from Paris now; at any moment they might want The Trojans.”
“30th June 1862.—In my bereavement I can write but little.
“My wife is dead—struck down in a moment by heart disease. The frightful loneliness, after the wrench of this sudden parting, is indescribable. Forgive me for not saying more.”
To Louis Berlioz.
“January 1858.—Perhaps you have heard that a band of ruffians surrounded the Emperor’s carriage as he went to the opera. They threw a bomb that killed and wounded both men and horses, but, by great good luck, did not touch the Emperor; and the charming Empress did not lose her head for a moment. The courage and presence of mind of both were perfect.
“I have just had a long letter from M. von Bulow, Liszt’s son-in-law, who married Mlle. Cosima. He tells me that he performed my Cellini overture with the greatest success at a Berlin concert. He is one of the most fervent disciples of that crazy school of the ‘Music of the Future,’ as they call it in Germany.”
“They stick to it, and want me to be their leader and standard-bearer, but I write nothing, say nothing, but just let them go their way. Good sense will teach reasonable people the truth.”
“May 1858.—The foreign mail leaves to-morrow, and I must have a chat with you, dear Louis. I long for news. Are you well? happy?
“Here we are rather miserable. I am somewhat better, but my wife is nearly always in bed and in pain.”
“November 1860.—Dear Boy,—Here is a hundred-franc note. Be sure to acknowledge it. I am thankful you are better. I, too, think my disease is wearing itself out. I am certainly better since I gave up remedies. Ideas for my little opera throng in so fast that I cannot find time to write; sometimes I begin a new one before I finish the old.”
“You ask how I manage to crowd Shakespeare’s five acts into one. I have taken only one subject from the play—the part in which Beatrice and Benedict, who detest each other, are mutually persuaded of each other’s love, whereby they are inspired with true passion. The idea is really comic.”
“14th February 1861.—It worries me to hear of your state of mind.
“I cannot imagine what dreams have made your present life so impossible. All I can say is that I was, at your age, far from being as well off as you are.
“Nay, more; I never dared to hope that, so soon after getting your captain’s certificate, you would find a berth.
“It is natural that you should wish to get on, but sometimes the chances of one year bring more change into a man’s life than ten years of strenuous endeavour.
“How can I teach you patience? Your mania for marriage would make me laugh were I not saddened by seeing you striving after the heaviest of all fetters and after the sordid vexations of domestic life—the most hopeless and exasperating of all lives. You are twenty-six, and have eighteen hundred francs, with a prospect of rapid promotion. When I married your mother I was thirty, and had but three hundred francs in the world—lent me by my friend Gounet—and the balance of my Prix de Rome scholarship.
“Then there were your mother’s debts—nearly fourteen thousand francs—which I paid off gradually, and the necessity of sending money to her mother in England, besides which I had quarrelled with my family, who cast me off, and was trying hard to make my first small mark in the musical world.
“Compare my hardships with your present discontent! Even now, do you think it is very lively for me to be bound to this infernal galley-oar of journalism?
“I am so ill I can hardly hold my pen, yet I am forced to write for my miserable hundred francs, the while my brain teems with work and plans and designs that fall dead—thanks to my slavery.
“You are well and strong, while I writhe in ceaseless, incurable pain. Marie[25] thanks you for your kind messages. She, too, is ill. Dear boy! you have at least a father, friend, devoted brother, who loves you more than you seem to think, but who wishes that your character were firmer, your mind more decided.
“21st February 1861.—Wagner is turning our singers into goats. It seems impossible to disentangle this Tannhäuser. I hear that the last general rehearsal was awful, and only finished at one in the morning. I suppose they will get through somehow.
“Liszt is coming to prop up the charivari.
“I have refused to write the critique, and have asked d’Ortigue to do it. It is best for every reason, and besides, it will disappoint them! Never did I have so many windmills to run a-tilt of as I have this year. I am deluged with fools of every species, and am choking with anger.
“5th March 1861.—The Tannhäuser scandal grows apace. Everyone is raging. Even the Minister left the rehearsal in a towering passion. The Emperor is far from pleased; yet there are still a few honest enthusiasts left—even among French people.
“Wagner is decidedly mad. He will die of apoplexy, just as Jullien did last year.
“Liszt never came after all. I think he expected a fiasco. They have spent a hundred and sixty thousand francs over mounting the opera. Well, we shall see what Friday brings forth.”
“21st March 1861.—The second performance of Tannhäuser was worse than the first. No more laughter, the audience was too furious, and, regardless of the presence of the Emperor and Empress, hissed unmercifully. Coming out, Wagner was vituperated as a scoundrel, an idiot, an impertinent wretch. If this goes on, one day the performance will stop abruptly in the middle, and there will be an end of the whole thing.
“The press is unanimous in damning it.”
“18th April 1861.—Write, dear Louis, if you can, without the cruel knife-thrusts you gave me in your last letter.
“I am worse than usual to-day, and have not strength to begin my article. I had an ovation at the Conservatoire after the performance of Faust. I dined with the Emperor a week ago, and exchanged a few words with him. I was magnificently bored.”
“2nd June 1861.—You are worried, and I can do nothing for you. Alexis is trying to find you a position in Paris, but is unsuccessful. I am as inefficient as he is. You alone can command your fate. They wish me to bring out Alcestis at the Opera as I did Orpheus at the Théâtre Lyrique, and offer me full author’s rights, but I have refused for various reasons.
“They believe that, for money, artists will stultify their consciences; I mean to prove that their belief is false.[26]
“My obstinacy has offended many. Instead of amusing themselves by spoiling Gluck’s chef d’œuvre, I wish they would spend their money over mounting The Trojans. But of course they won’t, since it is the obvious thing to do! Liszt has conquered the Emperor; he played at Court last week, and has been given the Legion of Honour.
“Ah, if one only plays the piano!”
“28th October 1861.—Dear Louis,—Did I not know what a terrible effect disappointment has on even the best characters, I should really feel inclined to let you have some home truths. You have wounded me mortally with a deliberate calmness that shows you were master of your language. But I can forgive, for you are not a bad son after all.
“You go too far. Is it my fault that I am not rich, that I could not let you live idly in Paris with a wife and children? Is there a shadow of justice in reproaching me as you do? For nearly three months you keep silence, then comes this ironical letter! My poor dear boy, it is not right.
“Don’t worry about your debt to the tailor; send me the bill and I will pay him.
“You ask me to beg a post for you. From whom? You know there never was a more awkward man than I at asking favours.
“Good-bye, dear son, dear friend, dear unlucky boy—unlucky by your own fault, not by mine.”
“17th June 1862.—You have received my letter and telegram,[27] but I write to ask whether you can come to me in Baden on the 6th or 7th August, as I know you would enjoy hearing the last rehearsals and first performance of my opera. In my leisure moments you would be my companion, you would see my friends, we should be together.
“Could you leave your ship so near its date for sailing?
“I am not sure how much money I can send you. The expenses of that sad ceremony—the transference from St Germain—will be great.
“I am rather afraid, too, of trusting you in a gambling town, but if you will give me your word of honour not to stake a single florin I will trust you.
“My mother-in-law came back yesterday just after I had left home to find only her daughter’s body. She is nearly frantic and is constantly watched by a friend who came to our help. Think of the anguish! Write soon, my dear, dear boy.”
“Baden, 10th August 1862.—Beatrice was applauded from end to end, and I was recalled more times than I could count. My friends were delighted, but I was quite unmoved, for it was one of my days of excruciating pain and nothing seemed to matter.
“To-day I am better and can enjoy their congratulations.
“You will be pleased too, but why have you left me so long without a letter? Why do they keep transferring you from boat to boat? Do not write here again as I soon go back to Paris. Now I am called and must go and thank my radiant singers.”
To H. Ferrand.