THE LOTUS-FLOWER.
The Lotus flower is pining
Under the sun's red light:
Slowly her head inclining,
She dreams and waits for the night.
(Die Lotos-Blume).
"See," says he, with modest pride, "what a vast amount of work I have completed this morning!"
"You are a most diligent creature, Robert!" she tells him, "and yet I cannot but wish sometimes, that this literary work were off your mind—that you had more time to devote towards composing, which is your true métier. I want all the world to understand how great a master you are—I am jealous of every minute spent upon the Neue Zeitschrift!"
"Don't be too ambitious for me, Clärchen: I desire no better place than a seat at the piano with you close by."
"That does not satisfy me," says the impetuous little lady, "I want you to be recognised and applauded by all men. When I am rendering your divine compositions, I feel as though all the while I were declaring: 'Just hear this!—Just listen to that!—This is by Robert Schumann, the greatest genius in Germany: it is an honour to me to be allowed to perform such works.'"
"My dear, those compositions are my poor, weak way of expressing my thoughts about you! The battles which you have cost me, the joy you have given me, are all reflected by my music. You are almost the sole inspiration of my best—the Concerto, the Sonata, the Davidsbündler dances, the Kreisleriana, the Novelletten. Why, dearest, in the Novelletten are my thoughts of you in every possible position and circumstance and all your irresistibleness!... No one could have written the Novelletten, unless he had gazed into such eyes and touched such lips as yours. In short, another may do better work, but nothing just like these."
"That, indeed, I feel," replies Clara with a little sigh, "and the very significance of their meaning, I believe, forbids my doing full justice to their amazing difficulties. You need a pianist like Liszt, my Robert, to interpret you to the best advantage."
"I have every admiration for Liszt's wonderful playing, with its diapason of all the moods between the extremes of fiery frenzy, and utmost delicacy. But his world is not mine—not ours, Clärchen. Art, as we know it—you when you play, I when I compose—has an intimate charm that is worth far more to us than all Liszt's splendour and tinsel."