Her accident elicited the greatest sympathy in Paris. Mademoiselle Mars, particularly, came forward, placing her purse, influence, everything she had at poor Ophelia’s disposal. I managed to organise a benefit, in which Chopin and Liszt took part, which brought in enough to pay the most pressing debts.
At last, in the summer of 1833, Henriette being still weak and quite ruined, I married her in the face of the opposition of our two families. All our resources on the wedding day were three hundred francs lent me by Gounet. But what did it matter, since she was mine?
To H. Ferrand.
“Paris, 12th June 1833.—It is really too bad of me to cause you anxiety on my account. But you know how my life fluctuates. One day calm, dreamy, rhythmical; the next bored, nerve-torn, snappy and snarly as a mangey dog, vicious as a thousand devils, sick of life and ready to end it, were it not for the frenzied happiness that draws ever nearer, for the odd destiny that I feel is mine; for my staunch friends; for music, and lastly, for curiosity. My life is a story that interests me greatly.
“You ask how I pass my days? If I am well I read or sleep on the sofa (for I am in comfortable lodgings) or scribble a few well-paid pages for the Europe Littéraire. About six I go to see Henriette who, to my sorrow, is still ailing. I must tell you all about her some day. Your opinion of her is quite wrong; her life, also, is a strange book, of which her points of view, her thoughts, her feelings, are by no means the least interesting part.
“I am still meditating the opera I asked you to write in my letter from Rome eighteen months ago. As, in all this time, you have not sufficiently conquered your laziness to write it, don’t be angry that I have given it to Deschamps and Saint-Félix. I really have been patient!”
“August 1833.—You true friend, not to despair of my future! These cowards cannot realise that, all the time, I am learning, observing, gathering ideas and knowledge. Bending before the storm, I still grow; the wind does but blow off a few leaves; the green fruit upon my branches holds too firmly to be shaken off. Your trust helps and encourages me.
“Have I told you of my parting with Henriette—of our scenes, despair, reproaches, which ended in my taking poison? Her protestations of love and sorrow brought back my desire to live; I took an emetic, was ill three days and am still alive! In her self-abasement she offered to do anything I chose, but now she begins to hesitate again. I will wait no more and have written that, unless she goes with me to the Town Hall on Saturday to be married, I leave for Berlin at once. She shall see that I, who for so long have languished at her feet, can rise, can leave her, can live for those who love and understand me.
“To help me to bear this horrible parting a strange chance has thrown in my way a charming girl of eighteen, who has fled from a brute who bought her—a mere child—and has kept her shut up like a slave for four years. Rather than go back to him, she says she will drown herself and my idea is to take her to Berlin, and by Spontini’s influence, place her in some chorus. I will try and make her love me, and if I succeed, I will fan into life the smouldering embers in my own heart and persuade myself that I love her. My passport is ready; I must make an end of things here. Henriette will be miserable but I have nothing to reproach myself with.
“I would give my life this minute for a month of perfect love with her.