Some time before the performance of my Requiem, Nicolaï had made me acquainted with an eminent composer named Becker, who devoted himself entirely to chamber music. A quartette party met at his house every week, and Holz, the first violin, had known Beethoven very intimately; a fact which, putting his own talent aside, made him very interesting company. Becker was also considered the most capable musical critic in all Germany at that time. He came to hear my Requiem, and published a critique couched in terms of such high compliment as to be an immense encouragement to so young a man as I then was. My score, he said, "though evidently from the hand of a novice whose style is still unformed, and who has scarcely realised whither his powers may lead him, displays a grandeur of conception which is exceedingly rare now-a-days."
This heavy piece of work, undertaken and carried through within such a short space of time, knocked me up so completely that I fell ill with a violent attack of sore throat, complicated with abscesses. Not wishing to frighten my mother, I confided the true state of my health to nobody except my dear friends the Desgoffes, who were then in Paris. The moment Desgoffe knew I was lying ill in Vienna he left wife, daughter, and the pictures he was painting for the Salon, without a moment's hesitation, and started off to watch by my bedside and nurse me.
The journey from Paris to Vienna took five or six days at that time. It was now mid-winter, December in fact, and what would have been bad enough in any case at that season, was made far worse by the serious illness my poor friend contracted on the way. When he arrived at Vienna he stood sorely in need of care himself. Yet he spent no fewer than twenty-two days at my bedside, snatching a few moments' sleep on a mattress on the floor, and watching over my every movement with the most motherly care. He only left me and returned to Paris when the doctor had satisfied him that I was completely convalescent.
Such friendship is not often met with; but, indeed, Providence has been more than good to me in that respect.
The success of my Requiem had made me alter my plans as to my stay in Germany, and I determined to prolong my sojourn in Vienna. Count Stockhammer gave me a fresh commission on behalf of the Philharmonic Society. This time it was a vocal Mass without accompaniment, to be sung in Lent in the same church, dedicated to St. Charles, my patron saint. I was glad to take this fresh opportunity, not only of gaining practice in my art, but also of getting my work performed—a rare and precious privilege at the opening of any man's career. This was the second considerable piece of work I did at Vienna, and my last. I left that city immediately after the performance for Berlin, viâ Prague and Dresden, in neither of which towns did I stay long. But I felt I must not leave Dresden without visiting that admirable museum which, among other treasures, contains the famous Madonna by Holbein, and that other wonderful Madonna known as the "San Sisto," painted by Raphael's master-hand.
As soon as I reached Berlin I went, according to her request, to call on Madame Henzel. But within three weeks I was seriously ill again, this time with internal inflammation, and that just when I had written my mother that I was about to start homewards, and that we should soon be reunited after our weary separation of over three and a half years.
Madame Henzel at once sent her own doctor to me, and to him I presented the following ultimatum—
"Sir, I have a mother waiting for me in Paris, counting the hours till I get back; if she were to hear I am prevented from getting home by illness, she would probably start off to join me, and she might quite possibly lose her reason on the road. She is getting old. I must make up some explanation of my delay, but it can only be a very short one. I can only give you a fortnight, either to bury me or set me on my legs again."
"Very good," quoth the doctor; "if you will make up your mind to obey my orders, you may travel in a fortnight."
He kept his word; on the fourteenth day I was out of the wood, and eight and forty hours after I had started for Leipzig, where Mendelssohn was living, with a letter of introduction to him from his sister, Madame Henzel.