SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
Berlioz’s passion was at once rekindled
After a time Henrietta reappeared. She had now lost her youth and her power; her beauty was waning, and she was in debt. Berlioz’s passion was at once rekindled. This time Henrietta accepted his advances. He made alterations in his symphony, and offered it to her in homage of his love. He won her, and married her, with fourteen thousand francs debt. He had captured his dream–Juliet! Ophelia! What was she really? A charming Englishwoman, cold, loyal, and sober-minded, who understood nothing of his passion; and who, from the time she became his wife, loved him jealously and sincerely, and thought to confine him within the narrow world of domestic life. But his affections became restive, and he lost his heart to a Spanish actress (it was always an actress, a virtuoso, or a part) and left poor Ophelia, and went off with Marie Recio, the Inès of Favorite, the page of Comte Ory–a practical, hardheaded woman, an indifferent singer with a mania for singing. The haughty Berlioz was forced to fawn upon the directors of the theatre in order to get her parts, to write flattering notices in praise of her talents, and even to let her make his own melodies discordant at the concerts he arranged.[18] It would all be dreadfully ridiculous if this weakness of character had not brought tragedy in its train.
So the one he really loved, and who always loved him, remained alone, without friends, in Paris, where she was a stranger. She drooped in silence and pined slowly away, bedridden, paralysed, and unable to speak during eight years of suffering. Berlioz suffered too, for he loved her still and was torn with pity–«pity, the most painful of all emotions.»[19] But of what use was this pity? He left Henrietta to suffer alone and to die just the same. And, what was worse, as we learn from Legouvé, he let his mistress, the odious Recio, make a scene before poor Henrietta.[20] Recio told him of it and boasted about what she had done.
[Footnote 18: «Isn’t it really devilish,» he said to Legouvé, «tragic and silly at the same time? I should deserve to go to hell if I wasn’t there already.»]
[Footnote 19: Mémoires, II, 335. See the touching passages he wrote on Henrietta Smithson’s death.]
[Footnote 20: «One day, Henrietta, who was living alone at Montmartre, heard someone ring the bell, and went to open the door.
this was: Berlioz’s Passion Was At Once Rekindled
go to next chapter: Mme. Berlioz
