Musicians of To-Day | Page 7

are mistaken; I asked for Mme. Berlioz.'
"'And I tell you, I am Mme. Berlioz.'
"'No, you are not. You are speaking of the old Mme. Berlioz, the one
who was abandoned; I am speaking of the young and pretty and loved
one. Well, that is myself!'
"And Recio went out and banged the door after her.

"Legouvé said to Berlioz, 'Who told you this abominable thing? I
suppose she who did it; and then she boasted about it into the bargain.
Why didn't you turn her out of the house?' 'How could I?' said Berlioz
in broken tones, 'I love her'" _(Soixante ans de souvenirs_).]
And Berlioz did nothing--"How could I? I love her."
One would be hard upon such a man if one was not disarmed by his
own sufferings. But let us go on. I should have liked to pass over these
traits, but I have no right to; I must show you the extraordinary
feebleness of the man's character. "Man's character," did I say? No, it
was the character of a woman without a will, the victim of her
nerves.[21]
[Footnote 21: From this woman's nature came his love of revenge, "a
thing needless, and yet necessary," he said to his friend Hiller, who,
after having made him write the Symphonie fantastique to spite
Henrietta Smithson, next made him write the wretched fantasia
Euphonia to spite Camille Moke, now Mme. Pleyel. One would feel
obliged to draw more attention to the way he often adorned or
perverted the truth if one did not feel it arose from his irrepressible and
glowing imagination far more than from any intention to mislead; for I
believe his real nature to have been a-very straightforward one. I will
quote the story of his friend Crispino, a young countryman from Tivoli,
as a characteristic example. Berlioz says in his _Mémoires_ (I, 229):
"One day when Crispino was lacking in respect I made-him a present of
two shirts, a pair of trousers, and three good kicks behind." In a note he
added, "This is a lie, and is the result of an artist's tendency to aim at
effect. I never kicked Crispino." But Berlioz took care afterwards to
omit this note. One attaches as little importance to his other small
boasts as to this one. The errors in the _Mémoires_ have been greatly
exaggerated; and besides, Berlioz is the first to warn his readers that he
only wrote what pleased him, and in his preface says that he is not
writing his Confessions. Can one blame him for that?]
* * * * *
Such people are destined to unhappiness; and if they make other people

suffer, one may be sure that it is only half of what they suffer
themselves. They have a peculiar gift for attracting and gathering up
trouble; they savour sorrow like wine, and do not lose a drop of it. Life
seemed desirous that Berlioz should be steeped in suffering; and his
misfortunes were so real that it would be unnecessary to add to them
any exaggerations that history has handed down to us.
People find fault with Berlioz's continual complaints; and I, too, find in
them a lack of virility and almost a lack of dignity. To all appearances,
he had far fewer material reasons for unhappiness than--I won't say
Beethoven--Wagner and other great men, past, present, and future.
When thirty-five years old he had achieved glory; and Paganini
proclaimed him Beethoven's successor. What more could he want? He
was discussed by the public, disparaged by a Scudo and an Adolphus
Adam, and the theatre only opened its doors to him with difficulty. It
was really splendid!
But a careful examination of facts, such as that made by M. Julien
Tiersot, shows the stifling mediocrity and hardship of his life. There
were, first of all, his material cares. When thirty-six years old
"Beethoven's successor" had a fixed salary of fifteen hundred francs as
assistant keeper of the Conservatoire Library, and not quite as much for
his contributions to the _Debits_-contributions which exasperated and
humiliated him, and were one of the crosses of his life, as they obliged
him to speak anything but the truth.[22]
[Footnote 22: _Mémoires_, II, 158. The heartaches expressed in this
chapter will be felt by every artist.]
That made a total of three thousand francs, hardly gained on which he
had to keep a wife and child--"_même deux_," as M. Tiersot says. He
attempted a festival at the Opera; the result was three hundred and sixty
francs loss. He organised a festival at the 1844 Exhibition; the receipts
were thirty-two thousand francs, out of which he got eight hundred
francs. He had the Damnation de Faust performed; no one came to it,
and he was ruined. Things went better in Russia; but the manager