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Musicians of To-Day by Romain Rolland
page 17 of 300 (05%)
delay.

[Footnote 17: _Mémoires_, I, 98.]

After a time Henrietta reappeared. She had now lost her youth and her
power; her beauty was waning, and she was in debt. Berlioz's passion was
at once rekindled. This time Henrietta accepted his advances. He made
alterations in his symphony, and offered it to her in homage of his
love. He won her, and married her, with fourteen thousand francs debt.
He had captured his dream--Juliet! Ophelia! What was she really? A
charming Englishwoman, cold, loyal, and sober-minded, who understood
nothing of his passion; and who, from the time she became his wife,
loved him jealously and sincerely, and thought to confine him within the
narrow world of domestic life. But his affections became restive, and he
lost his heart to a Spanish actress (it was always an actress, a
virtuoso, or a part) and left poor Ophelia, and went off with Marie
Recio, the Inès of _Favorite_, the page of _Comte Ory_--a practical,
hardheaded woman, an indifferent singer with a mania for singing. The
haughty Berlioz was forced to fawn upon the directors of the theatre in
order to get her parts, to write flattering notices in praise of her
talents, and even to let her make his own melodies discordant at the
concerts he arranged.[18] It would all be dreadfully ridiculous if this
weakness of character had not brought tragedy in its train.

So the one he really loved, and who always loved him, remained alone,
without friends, in Paris, where she was a stranger. She drooped in
silence and pined slowly away, bedridden, paralysed, and unable to speak
during eight years of suffering. Berlioz suffered too, for he loved her
still and was torn with pity--"pity, the most painful of all
emotions."[19] But of what use was this pity? He left Henrietta to
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