Old Love Stories Retold | Page 7

thinks herself a better
writer than myself--but for a simple woman of the elements, no more
learned than a rose, and as meaningless, if you will, as the rising
moon."
Just such a woman Heine found in his Mathilde, and it is to be
remembered that for years before the illness which left him, so to speak,
at her mercy, he had loved and been faithful to her. There are letters
which seem to show that Mathilde had the defects of those qualities of
buxom light-heartedness, of eternal sunshine, which had kept a fickle
Heine so faithful. Sometimes, one gathers, she as little realized the
tragedy of Heine's suffering as she understood his writings. As such a
woman must, she often left Heine very lonely; and seemed to feel more
for her cat, or her parrot "Cocotte," than her immortal, dying husband.
"Oh, what a night we have had!" Heine exclaimed one day to his friend
Meissner. "I have not been able to close an eye. We have had an
accident in our house; the cat fell from the mantelpiece and scratched
her right ear; it even bled a little. That gave us great sorrow. My good
Mathilde remained up and applied cold poultices to the cat all night
long. For me she never remains awake."
And another time, he said, even more bitterly, to another friend: "I felt
rather anxious yesterday. My wife had finished her toilet as early as
two o'clock and had gone to take a drive. She promised to be back at
four o'clock. It struck half-past five and she had not got back yet. The
clock struck eight and my anxiety increased. Had she, perhaps, got tired
of her sick husband and eloped with a cunning seducer? In my painful
doubt I sent the sick-nurse to her chamber to see whether 'Cocotte' the
parrot was still there. Yes, 'Cocotte' was still there. That set me at ease
again, and I began to breathe more freely. Without 'Cocotte' the dear
woman would never go away."
A great man like Heine must necessarily have such moods about a little
woman like Mathilde; but the important fact remains that for some

twenty years Heine was Mathilde's faithful husband, and that the
commonplace, pretty, ignorant, pleasure-loving, bourgeoise Mathilde
was good and faithful to a crippled, incomprehensible mate. Perhaps,
after all, the wonder in this marriage is even more on the side of
Mathilde than of Heine. Think what such a woman must have had to
forego, to suffer, to "put up with," with such a man--a man, remember,
whose real significance must have been Chinese to her. Surely, all of us
who truly love love by faith, and the love of Heine for Mathilde, and of
Mathilde for Heine, alike is only to be explained by that mysterious
explanation--faith.
That Heine understood his love for Mathilde, so far as any man of
genius can understand his love, and was satisfied with it so far as any
man of genius can be with any love, we may be quite sure. His many
letters about her, and to her, prove it. All the elemental simplicities of
her nature--the very bourgeoise traits which made his friends
wonder--alike interested him, and drew him closer toward her. When
she weaves a rug for his friend Lewald, how seriously he takes it! He
could laugh at all things in heaven and earth, but when Mathilde
weaves a rug for his friend he takes life seriously.
How "domestic" Heine could be is witnessed by a letter of his--to
Mathilde from Hamburg in 1823--in regard to her buying a hat for his
sister and another for his niece--giving careful directions as to style and
price. Mathilde and he had then been each other's for over eight years,
but none the less--nay, let us say all the more--he ended his letter:
"Adieu! I think only of thee, and I love thee like the madman that I
am."
Perhaps the truest proof of Heine's love for Mathilde is the way in
which, in his will, he flattered his despicable cousin, Carl Heine, for her
sake, so that she might not suffer any loss of his inheritance. There is
no doubt that Heine knew the worth of his Mathilde. If so terrible a
critic of human nature was satisfied to love and live with her for so
many years, we may be sure that Mathilde was a remarkable woman.
She didn't indeed talk poetry and philosophy, like little "Mouche," but
then the women who do that are legion; and Mathilde was one of those

rarer women who are just women, and love they know not why.
In saying this, we mustn't forget that "Camille Selden" said it was
ridiculous to sentimentalize about Mme. Heine. Yet, at the same time,
we must remember