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Hector became more or less resigned to Rome, now that the Moke affair was definitely at an end; but was never completely at home there. He enjoyed the company of Mendelssohn, for the two were well matched, intellectually, if not well balanced by temperament. However, Felix adored Gluck as much as Hector and the two youths delighted in singing and playing “Armide” together. They agreed whole-heartedly in their worship of Mozart, Beethoven and Weber but disagreed on Bach, whom the German idolized but to whom Berlioz remained cold. When the pair went over Hector’s prize-crowned “Sardanapale” and the Frenchman frankly expressed his dislike for a certain number in it, Mendelssohn told his friend he was happy to see that he really displayed such good taste! Hector made the usual excursions, saw the regulation sights, visited the mountains of the Abruzzi, wandered about the Campagna, renewed his Virgilian recollections, sang, strummed his guitar, heard the operas and the generally trivial and ill performed church music and mingled with the painters at the Café Greco. In short, he went more or less through the customary tourist routine.
Also, he composed. He made changes in the score of the “Fantastique” adding, for one thing, a coda to the Ball Scene; he wrote overtures to “The Corsair”, based on Byron, and “Rob Roy” based on Scott, not to mention an ambitious pendant to the “Fantastique”, “Le Retour à la Vie”, to which he subsequently gave the alternative title of “Lélio”. But by 1832 he decided he had endured as much of Rome as he could stomach. After a compromise with Horace Vernet he cut short his stay at the Villa Medici by six months promising to spend a year in Germany—an ambition he had always cherished.
In November, 1832, Berlioz was back in Paris, and in that very house where Henrietta Smithson had lodged on her first visit. In fact, she had moved out only a day earlier and settled in an apartment on the Rue de Rivoli. Small wonder that Hector discerned the working of destiny once more!
This time Henrietta had come to Paris with her own theatrical company. Incredible as it may seem, she and Hector had not yet actually met. The Irish actress divined his passion fully when, at a performance under the conductor Habeneck (at which not only the “Fantastique” but also the monodrama, “Lélio”, were performed) she heard from the actor who spoke the text the words: “Ah, could I but find this Juliet, this Ophelia, whom my heart is ever seeking.... Could I but sleep my last sad sleep in her beloved arms”! Instead of going to Germany at New Year’s, 1833, Berlioz determined to remain, for the moment, in Paris. His love for Henrietta had been newly awakened; and she was now willing to be formally introduced to him.
“From that day I had not a moment’s rest. Terrible fears were succeeded by delirious hopes. What I went through ... cannot be described. Her mother and sister formally opposed our union. My own parents would not hear of it. Discontent and anger on the part of both families, and all the scenes to which such opposition gives birth in these cases”.
Portents of trouble followed thick and fast. Henrietta Smithson’s theatrical venture failed disastrously. Financially she was utterly ruined, the more so as she had contracted immense debts. Next, she fell and broke her leg. She was bed-ridden and she remained an invalid. Hector organized a benefit concert for her. Among the first to offer their services were Liszt and Chopin. Enough was realized to settle “Harriet’s” most pressing obligations. And then, despite his parents’ objections and the venomous hostility of Henrietta’s hunchbacked sister, Hector married her in the autumn of 1833—first, how ever, staging a spectacular suicide act to frighten her into wedlock. She was, he assured his friend Humbert Ferrand, “aussi vierge qu’il soit possible de l’être”.
To keep the domestic pot boiling he found it advisable about this period to take up musical journalism. Although Berlioz had been contributing on and off to certain publications his present connection with L’Europe littéraire is, to all intents, the official beginning of that critical activity of his which was to span almost the remainder of his life. As subsequent music reviewer on the influential Journal des Débats he spent no end of time and effort in commenting on compositions and performances, good, bad and indifferent, which he might infinitely better have dedicated to creative work. The labor revolted him but he found himself as helpless as a galley slave. Enforced attendance at innumerable concerts and operas he came to loathe to such an extent that, late in his career when he was finally able to shake off the journalistic fetters, he enjoyed walking up and down in front of a theatre or concert hall just for the pleasure of reflecting that he did not have to go in! And yet, of all celebrated composers, Berlioz was by all odds the most brilliantly gifted litterateur, whose writings even today preserve most of their individuality, polished style, barbed irony and scintillant humor. Aside from his countless feuilletons and other articles, his Memoirs, Soirées de l’Orchestre, A Travers Chants and much else are literary masterpieces of their kind, which even today retain their freshness and sparkle. Undoubtedly his important journalistic affiliations had the effect of involving him in numberless intrigues and difficulties inseparable from posts of influence, besides sapping his energies that should have been employed otherwise. Yet he knew how to draw profit from the means of publicity and power which his connections placed in his hands and he did not hesitate to promote, as best possible, his personal interests.
* * *
When their marriage was solemnized at the British Embassy (with Liszt as best man) Hector had exactly two hundred francs and Harriet—a mountain of debts! For their honeymoon they could travel no further than the suburb of Vincennes. The wedding trip, according to the groom, was “a masterpiece of love”. All the same, he soon had chances to notice that his bride was not in the least musical; likewise, that she harbored a streak of jealousy. Not even the birth of their son, Louis, on August 15, 1834, at their home on the hill of Montmartre helped smooth this unhappy state of affairs, which was to deepen as time went on. Harriet grew violently opposed to her husband’s traveling, though Berlioz claims that “a mad and for some time an absolutely groundless jealousy was at the bottom of it”.