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
[Illustration: MONTMARTRE CEMETERY]
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!
De profundis ad te clamo!
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.
“... Forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.”
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!’
“‘Juliet is dead. Throw flowers!
Death lies upon her, softly as frost on April grass. Throw flowers!
Her love song is a funeral knell. Throw flowers!
Her marriage feast the feast of Death. Throw flowers!
Her marriage blossoms deck her tomb. 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.”
XXXIII
DEAD SEA FRUIT
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.”
XXXIV
1863--GATHERING TWILIGHT
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.