Christoph Theodor Gottlieb Lemm was born in 1786, in the kingdom of
Saxony, in the town of Chemnitz. His parents, who were very poor, were
both of them musicians, his father playing the hautboy, his mother
the harp. He himself, by the time he was five years old, was already
practicing on three different instruments. At the age of eight, he was
left an orphan, and at ten, he began to earn a living by his art.
For a long time he led a wandering life, playing in all sorts of
places--in taverns, at fairs, at peasants' marriages, and at balls.
At last he gained access to an orchestra, and there, steadily rising
higher and higher, he attained to the position of conductor. As a
performer he had no great merit, but he understood music thoroughly.
In his twenty-eighth year, he migrated to Russia. He was invited there
by a great seigneur, who, although he could not abide music himself,
maintained an orchestra from a love of display. In his house Lemm
spent seven years as a musical director, and then left him with empty
hands. The seigneur, who had squandered all his means, first offered
Lemm a bill of exchange for the amount due to him; then refused to
give him even that; and ultimately never paid him a single farthing.
Lemm was advised to leave the country, but he did not like to go home
penniless from Russia--from the great Russia, that golden land of
artists. So be determined to remain and seek his fortune there.
During the course of ten years, the poor German continued to seek
his fortune. He found various employers, he lived in Moscow, and in
several county towns, he patiently suffered much, he made acquaintance
with poverty, he struggled hard.[A] All this time, amidst all the
troubles to which he was exposed, the idea of ultimately returning
home never quitted him. It was the only thing that supported him. But
fate did not choose to bless him with this supreme and final piece of
good fortune.
[Footnote A: Literally, "like a fish out of ice:" as a fish, taken out
of a river which has been frozen over, struggles on the ice.]
At fifty years of age, in bad health and prematurely decrepid, he
happened to come to the town of O., and there he took up his permanent
abode, managing somehow to obtain a poor livelihood by giving lessons.
He had by this time entirely lost all hope of quilting the hated soil
of Russia.
Lemm's outward appearance was not in his favor. He was short and
high-shouldered, his shoulder-blades stuck out awry, his feet were
large and flat, and his red hands, marked by swollen veins, had hard,
stiff fingers, tipped with nails of a pale blue color. His face was
covered with wrinkles, his cheeks were hollow, and he had pursed-up
lips which he was always moving with a kind of chewing action--one
which, joined with his habitual silence, gave him an almost malignant
expression. His grey hair hung in tufts over a low forehead. His very
small and immobile eyes glowed dully, like coals in which the flame
has just been extinguished by water. He walked heavily, jerking his
clumsy frame at every step. Some of his movements called to mind the
awkward shuffling of an owl in a cage, when it feels that it is being
stared at, but can scarcely see anything itself out of its large
yellow eyes, blinking between sleep and fear. An ancient and
inexorable misery had fixed its ineffaceable stamp on the poor
musician, and had wrenched and distorted his figure--one which, even
without that, would have had but little to recommend it; but in spite
of all that, something good and honest, something out of the common
run, revealed itself in that half-ruined being, to any one who was
able to get over his first impressions.
A devoted admirer of Bach and Handel, thoroughly well up to his work,
gifted with a lively imagination, and that audacity of idea which
belongs only to the Teutonic race, Lemm might in time--who can
tell?--have been reckoned among the great composers of his country,
if only his life had been of a different nature. But he was not born
under a lucky star. He had written much in his time, and yet he had
never been fortunate enough to see any of his compositions published.
He did not know how to set to work, how to cringe at the right moment,
how to proffer a request at the fitting time. Once, it is true, a very
long time ago, one of his friends and admirers, also a German, and
also poor, published at his own expense two of Lemm's sonatas. But
they remained untouched on the shelves of the music shops; silently
they disappeared and left no trace behind, just as if they had been
dropped into a river by night.
At last Lemm bade farewell to every thing Old age gained upon him, and
he hardened, he grew stiff in mind, just as his fingers had stiffened.
He had never married, and now he lived alone in O., in a little
house not far from that of the Kalitines, looked after by an old
woman-servant whom he had taken out of an alms-house. He walked a
great deal, and he read the Bible, also a collection of Protestant
hymns, and Shakspeare in Schlegel's translation. For a long time he
had composed nothing; but apparently Liza, his best pupil, had been
able to arouse him. It was for her that he had written the cantata to
which Panshine alluded. The words of this cantata were borrowed by him
from his collection of hymns, with the exception of a few verses which
he composed himself. It was written for two choruses: one of the
happy, one of the unhappy. At the end the two united and sang
together, "Merciful Lord, have pity upon us, poof sinners, and keep us
from all evil thoughts and worldly desires." On the title-page, very
carefully and even artistically written, were the words, "Only the
Righteous are in the Right. A Sacred Cantata. Composed, and dedicated
to Elizaveta Kalitine, his dear pupil, by her teacher, C.T.G, Lemm."
The words "Only the Righteous are in the Right." and "To Elizaveta
Kalitine" were surrounded by a circle of rays. Underneath was written,
"For you only. Für Sie allein." This was why Lemm grew red and looked
askance at Liza; he felt greatly hurt when Panshine began to talk to
him about his cantata.