hastily overpassed. But once they were embarked on the maelstrom of
passion, they seem to have been of exquisite torment and terror to each
other. Liszt fell into a period of atheism which, to his
constitutionally religious soul, was agony. As for the comtesse, death
entered upon the romance and took away one of her three children. For
awhile she was only a broken-hearted mother, and the intrigue seems to
have had a moment's pause, but only to return.

Now, however, it had for Liszt something of unfreshness and monotony.
He determined to break loose, and in the spring of 1835 told the
comtesse that he was going to leave her. She, however, would not
consent. He yielding as gracefully as he could, took a lodging in a
quiet part of the city, where his life consisted of music, literature,
and the comtesse, who visited him incessantly. Her love had quite
infatuated her, to take the tone of the time; nowadays we might say
that she found it so serious that she desired to make it honest. The
means she hit upon were such as might strike a foolish woman as an
inspiration. Believing that the long way round was the short way home,
she thought to atone for her past foibles by casting them into sudden
insignificance--to clear the sultry air by a thunder crash.

When Liszt heard that the comtesse planned to leave her husband, and
even her children, and go into foreign exile with him, he felt that the
comtesse was taking the bit into her teeth with a vengeance, but saw as
he would on the lines, and cry "whoa" as he would, the runaway
comtesse still insisted on running away.

Liszt called on her mother to interfere; she was run over. He appealed
to her former confessor; his staying hand was shaken loose. He called
on the venerable family notary; the old man was upset by the