"He soon conceived for the handsome seductive woman a pa.s.sion, which seemed to have deprived his otherwise clear mind of all common sense and reason, and which neither the flood of administrative affairs nor the cold breath of duty could extinguish. Vain were all his efforts to conceal it. In a very short time it became the topic of general remark; excited the ridicule or grave anxieties of his friends; involved him in a thousand disagreeable positions; lowered his character, without the slightest compensating advantage to his artistic career; and nigh dragged him down into an abyss beyond hope of rescue.
"The new opera-director was soon lodged in the house of the careless husband of the light woman. She herself may have had some inclination for the man. But as soon as she felt her true power over him, she held out her fair hand only to lead him into a life of torment.
"The woman"s power over her poor victim was immense. He was dragged in her train, against his better reason, to country excursions, suppers, b.a.l.l.s, at which, whilst he watched her every look, her every breath, to discover her slightest wish, although nigh dead with fatigue, she would be bestowing her attention on other men, wholly regardless of her slave.
Now again he would scour the town, in scorching heat or drenching rain, frequently sacrificing the only moments he could s.n.a.t.c.h from business for his dinner, to procure a ribbon, a ring, or some dainty, which she desired, and which was difficult to obtain; and on his return she would receive him perhaps with coldness and toss the prize aside. Sometimes, when the proof became too evident that she had duped, deceived, betrayed him, the scenes between the two were fearful; and then she would cleverly find means of a.s.serting that it was she who had the best right to be jealous, and thus turn the tables on him. By every thought, in every action, in every moment of his life, there was but one feeling ever present--"How will she receive me?"
"Even in his account-book, now so often neglected, are to be found the lamentations of his despairing heart over her unworthiness; and again, but a few hours later, expressions of delight that she had smiled on him. There is something terrible in the bitter slavery to which his better nature was condemned by this wild pa.s.sion. One day he writes: "A fearful scene.... The sweetest dream of my life is over. Confidence is lost for ever. The chain is broken," On the next: "A painful explanation. I shed the first tears my grief has wrung from me.... This reconciliation has cleared the thunder from the air. Both of us felt better," And then again: "My dream is over! I shall never know the happiness of being loved. I must for ever be alone! ... She can sit near me, hours long, and never say one word; and when some other man is mentioned, burst out in ecstasy. I will do all I can to please her; but I must withdraw within myself, bury all my bitter feelings in my own heart, and work--work--work!"" It was in the fall of 1813--_prosit omen!_--that Von Weber met the Brunetti. In the next year he was still clinging to her whom the biographer calls "the rotten plant," and wrote in a note-book: "I found Calina with Therese, and I could scarcely conceal the fearful rage that burned in me." Or an elegy like this: "No joy without her, and yet with her only sorrow."
Cupid has always been jealous of the cook. On Therese"s birthday, Carl presented her with a double gift, first a gold watch with a cl.u.s.ter of trinkets, each of them a symbol of love; with this cl.u.s.ter of trinkets, something very rare and costly in Prague--oysters. Therese glanced--merely glanced--at the jewelry; she fairly gobbled the oysters.
Carl"s love had survived his jealousy of Calina, but he could not endure a rivalry with mollusks. As his son explains: "On a sudden the scales fell from his eyes." Ought he not rather have said, the sh.e.l.ls?
Lacking even this ogress for an idol, poor Carl was lonely indeed. Even music turned unresponsive, and success was only ashes on his tongue.
Then faith gave him, unsought, ability to revenge himself on the Brunetti. She had despised him as a mere genius toddling after the frou-frou of her skirts, but she began to prize him when she saw him casting interested looks in another direction. Now it was her turn to writhe with jealousy, and to writhe in vain. Her storms and tirades had more effect upon him than his pleas had had upon her. But whereas she had formerly been _insouciante_ and amused at his pain, her pain hurt him to distraction, broke down his health, and drove him to ask for a leave of absence, that he might recover his strength. When he went away, he carried with him in his heart a new regret, sweetened, or perhaps embittered, by a tinge of new hope. But he could not know that he had reached the end of the worthless pages of his life, and that the new leaf was to be inscribed with a story of happiness, which was by no means untroubled, but yet was constructive happiness, worth-while happiness.
In the year 1810 his opera "Sylvana" had been sung, as I have said, with Caroline Brandt in the t.i.tle role. When, in 1813, he was given the direction of the opera at Prague, though he fell into the clutches of the Brunetti, he had unconsciously prepared himself a better, cleaner experience by engaging for the very first member of his new company this same Caroline Brandt, who happened to write him that she happened to be "at liberty," as they say.
Like Carl himself, she had known stage-life from childhood, being the daughter of a tenor, and appearing on the stage at the age of eight.
She is described as "small and plump in figure, with beautiful, expressive gray eyes and fair wavy hair, and a peculiar liveliness in her movements." She was a woman of large and tender heart, electrified with a temper incisive and immediate. She was an actress of genuine skill, "her sense of grace and beauty in all things infallible." She did not appear at the theatre in Prague until the first day of January, 1814. She bore a curious resemblance to Therese Brunetti in a fresher edition, and was not long in giving that lady a sense of uneasiness. The oysters, as we have seen, had given the Brunetti the _coup de disgrace_.
Caroline won the poor director"s grat.i.tude first by being quick to adopt suggestions, and to rescue him from the embarra.s.sments buzzing about the head of an operatic manager. She was glad to undertake tasks, and slow to show professional jealousy. She lived in seclusion with her mother, and received no visits. Even the young n.o.blemen could not woo her at the stage door, though the Brunetti advised her to accept the advances of a certain banker, saying: "He is worth the trouble, for he is rich."
Having failed to drag Caroline into her own game, the Brunetti tried to keep Von Weber from breathing the better air of her presence. As we have seen, she drove him almost to distraction, and sent him a wreck to the baths in Friedland.
Caroline"s mother had permitted Von Weber to pay his court to her, and her father and brother had found his intentions worthy. Caroline had not hesitated to confess that her affection was growing with Carl"s. But what she had seen of his life with the Brunetti, and what she must have heard of his magnificent dissipations, gave her pause. Therefore, when Carl went away for his health, he took with him a riddle, and left behind "a sweet, beloved being who might--who may--make me happy." "The absence of three months shall test our love." They wrote each other long and daily letters; his were all of yearning, while hers were mingled with fear, lest he be, as she wrote him, "a sweet poison harmful to the soul."
After taking the baths, he went on to Berlin, arriving there August 3d in the very ferment of rapture over the downfall of Napoleon at Prague.
He was moved to write a number of patriotic songs from Koerner"s "Leier und Schwert." These choruses for men were sung throughout the Fatherland, as they still are sung.
But from the height of glory to which he was now borne, as the living voice of the nation, he was dragged back to the depths by the little hand and the little finger-nails of Caroline, who could be jealous enough to suspect that not all the adoration Von Weber was receiving from the women of Berlin was pure and impersonal patriotism.
Von Weber had from the first insisted that no marriage of theirs could have hope of success, unless she left the stage. This sacrifice of herself and her career and her large following among the public was a deal to ask, and a deal to grant. Her combined reluctance to sacrifice her all, and her jealous fears that he would not find her all in all, at last led her to write him that they would better give up their dream, and break their troth.
In his first bitterness at this inopportune humiliation, coming like a drop of vinegar in the honey of royal favour, he wrote furiously to Gansbacher, "I see now that her views of high art are not above the usual pitiful standard--namely, that art is but a means of procuring soup, meat, and shirts." To another friend, Lichtenstein, he wrote more solemnly:
"All my fondest hopes are vanishing day by day. I live like a drunken man who dances on a thin coating of ice, and spite of his better reason would persuade himself that he is on solid ground. I love with all my heart and soul; and if there be no truth in her affection, the last chord of my whole life has been struck. I shall still live on,--marry perhaps some day,--who knows? But love and trust again, never more."
In September he returned to Prague with an anxious heart, and took up in person a new battle for Caroline"s hand. They were agreed upon the subject of affection, but wrangled upon the clauses in the treaty of marriage. While this debate was waging, Weber took care of her money and her mother"s. A benefit being given her, he announced that he himself would sell the tickets at the box-office, and he spent a whole day bartering his quick wit and his social influence, for increased prices.
Such public devotion brought scandal buzzing about the ears of the two.
But still Caroline would not give up her career, nor Weber his opinion of stage marriages.
Even his patriotic songs, "The Lyre and the Sword," were a cause of disagreement, for Caroline, like so many women, deified Napoleon, and her lover"s lyric a.s.saults upon him were so much sacrilege; while to him her adoration of that personified prairie-fire, who had devastated the Fatherland, was treason. The Brunetti, being well out of the running, Caroline found new cause of jealousy in the newly engaged actress, Christine Bohler. Indeed, Carl and Caroline did little but fight and make up for months, until even Caroline was convinced that one of the two must leave Prague, at least for a period of probation. It was Carl who left, and in a condition of almost complete spiritual collapse.
How little music has to do with one"s state of mind, may be seen from the fact that in his weak and complaining despair, he composed one of his st.u.r.diest works, "Kampf und Sieg." He settled in Munich, and continued to correspond with Caroline, writing her the most minute descriptions of his life and his lodgings, and begging her to write him with equal fulness. His loneliness, however, at length told upon his spirits, and gradually stifled his creativeness.
At length it became time for him to return to Prague again, and on the eve of his home-going he received a letter from Caroline, which she said she had been for weeks trying in vain to write. She was now convinced that they must absolutely give up all thought of love and marriage. This blow smote him to the ground. He had no strength even for wrath; he could only write in abject meekness, as if thanking her for delaying the blow so long:
"Be not angry, my beloved one, that I repeat my words of love and sorrow again and again. They flow from a pure heart, that knows no other wish than your happiness. When time shall have gone by, and you can look back in peace and quiet on the broken tie between us, you will then acknowledge that never was a truer heart than mine. Thanks, my dearest life, my never-to-be-forgotten love, for the many sweet flowers you have woven into the garland of my life, for all your love, for all your care.
Forgive me for my excess of love--forgive the pa.s.sion that may have torn many a wound, when it should have soothed and healed--forgive me all the sorrow I have caused you, though Heaven knows it was through no will of mine--forgive me for having stolen one whole sweet year of your precious life, for which I would willingly give ten of my own, could I but buy it back for you.... Farewell--farewell."
On the 7th of September he arrived in Prague. His first view of Caroline was as she sang the Cinderella on the stage. The sight of her was too much; he broke down and ran home. But still, as director, he must frequently meet her in more or less familiar situations. And as for her, she later confessed that she was suffering even more than Carl.
Her every strength and resolution melted away one afternoon in the autumn, at a reception, where the lovers met face to face. Their gaze blended; their hands blended; the war was over.
Instantly, with the resumption of his love-life, his interest in music began again. Caroline, apparently alarmed at the condition of his health, never robust, persuaded her mother to let him board at her house. New health and old-time gaiety began again. But he was tired of Prague, and determined to find a larger field elsewhere. While he was hunting for a place for himself, he secured a starring engagement for Caroline at the then high salary of ten gold louis, per performance.
Before he left Prague, he announced his engagement publicly. By a curious coincidence, the engagement was announced at a reception, just after a total eclipse of the sun. When the daylight came out of the darkness, Carl rose and proclaimed his conquest.
On Christmas morning he received a costly ring from the King of Hanover, a splendid snuff-box from the King of Bavaria, and an appointment as Kapellmeister to the King of Saxony.
At Dresden there were honours enough and jealousies more. But Carl a.s.sailed them with new strength. And now, he took up an opera on a subject he had thought of but discarded, fortunately for himself and the world. He wrote Caroline that a friend of his was writing a libretto based on the old national legend, "Der Freischutz." Kind, the librettist, wrote night and day for ten days, and Carl, in great enthusiasm, forwarded the libretto for Caroline"s opinion. She sent it back with violent criticisms, based upon her long stage experience and her intuition of stage effects. We can never thank her sufficiently for cutting out endless pages of songs and recitative by the melancholious old Hermit who, in the original version, was to commence the opera, and wander in and out of it incessantly. Caroline wrote, like Horace:
"Away, with all these scenes.... Plunge at once into the popular element. Begin with the scene before the tavern." This seemed outrageous mutilation at first to the composer, and the librettist took it with still more violence; threatening for a time to withdraw his book completely. But often, thereafter, did Carl express his grat.i.tude to her, whom he called his "Public with two eyes." Would to heaven, that there had been some Caroline Brandt to give similar advice to Wagner concerning his Wotan and his King Mark!
Meanwhile, during the composition of "Der Freischutz," which was to mean so much for the happiness of Germany and the betterment of opera generally, Carl, the genius who struck out the magnificent work, was spending almost less time upon the details of composition and scoring than upon the purchase of articles for the home he was making for his bride-to-be. He wrote her long letters, describing his purchases of "chairs, crockery, curtains, knives, forks, spoons, pails, brooms, and mustard-pot."
She had ceased to be in his mind the brilliant and fascinating soubrette, and had become in the silly lover"s-Latin, his "pug, his duck, his bird." He answered a letter she wrote him describing her success in the "Magic Flute:"
"I was amused with your account of the "Zauberflote," but you know I hope soon to see you lay by all your pretty Papagena feathers. All your satins and ermines must give place to a coa.r.s.e ap.r.o.n then. You will be only applauded by my hungry stomach, called out before the cook-wench, and saluted with "da capo" when you kiss your Carl. It is very shocking, I know. What will my own pearl say to be dissolved in the sour vinegar of domestic life, and swallowed by a bear of a husband?"
In March, 1817, Weber was called to Prague, on business connected with his opera company; he was overjoyed at the thought of seeing Caroline, who was still singing there. Just as he was stepping into the travelling-carriage, a letter was handed him, saying that the firm in Prague, with which he had deposited all his savings and those of Caroline, was about to go into bankruptcy. There was indeed, of his long and careful h.o.a.rdings only as much left as Caroline had deposited on his advice. Her savings were quite swept away.
But, without saying a word to her, he transferred the last penny he had in the world to her name, and left himself, except for his strength and fame, a pauper. It was many years after, and then only by chance, that Caroline learned the beautiful sacrifice he had made from his great love for her. When he reached Prague, he concealed from her all the distress he had suffered, and there was nothing but happiness in their reunion.
Returning to Dresden, he took up more seriously the composition of "Der Freischutz." The first note of it that he wrote was the second act duet between Agathe and Aennchen; he took Caroline as his ideal. Indeed, through the whole composition of the work, he declared that he saw Caroline always presiding. He seemed to hear her voice singing every note, and saw her fingers playing it on the piano; now smiling, over what she liked; now shaking her head over what displeased her. This spirit he took as the critic and judge of the whole work. There have rarely been such instances of actual personal inspiration in any work of art, and certainly none which do more credit to the absorption of the artist-mind in the worship of its idol. Furthermore, much of the composition was done at the home preparing for Caroline"s actual presence, and he wrote those suave and optimistic pages of music to an accompaniment of hammers and saws, the wrangling of carpenters, painters, upholsterers, and scrub-women; sleeping at nights in the kitchen, and glad to find a kitchen-table to compose upon. The longed-for marriage could not take place until a court wedding for which he was writing music. This was postponed and postponed, until he was driven to distraction. But at last, when the royal bridegroom was sent on his way the composer fled toward Prague. Caroline surprised him by coming part way to meet him. On November 4, 1817, they were married.
Carl gave Caroline"s mother a pension of nine hundred thalers, though her husband and son were living. The honeymoon was paid for by concerts here and there, in which both took part, and by a benevolent royal commission to hunt for artists. Caroline, though her matrimonial treaty forbade her singing on the stage, was allowed to sing at concerts, and at some of them she sang duets, with Carl at the piano, while she played the guitar.
Carl had often told Caroline that she must expect a chaos in her new home in Dresden. When she arrived, and found everything beautiful and in perfect order, she wept with rapture. Late on the last night of the year 1817, Carl wrote in a diary these words; they show what depths there were in the soul and what heights in the ambition of one whose youth and training and early recklessness had promised so little of solidity and solemnity.
"The great important year has closed. May G.o.d still grant me the blessing He has. .h.i.therto so graciously accorded me; that I may have the power to make the dear one happy; and, as a brave artist, bring honour and advantage to my Fatherland! Amen!"
As for Caroline, who had been so volatile a soubrette and so happy in the footlight glitter, she turned out to be even a greater success as a _Haus-frau._ She began to win a more limited, but an equally profound, reputation for her perfect dinners and receptions, and for the minute care with which she kept all her "account-books, housekeeping-books, cellar-books." Finally, she even learned to cook, and the household became a dove-cote!
The instinct of jealousy is one that is not easily uprooted, and Caroline did not permit Carl"s life to grow too monotonous. His high favour at court kept her in subjects for uneasiness. He finally attempted a violent cure. He began to absent himself from the house with unusual frequence, but would not explain where he had been, even though Caroline wept and wailed. At length he wrought her to the pitch of desperation by his heartless indifference; then, one day, he brought home a portrait bust which a sculptor friend had made and with it a signed record of every hour and minute of his absence. This, if not a permanent cure, was at least a partial remedy.
Weber"s home became a proverb of hospitality and good cheer. The two sang duets, or Caroline recited poems, while Carl improvised accompaniments; excursions to the fields, and water parties, and hilarious reunions of the opera-troupe kept life busy. Later, he took a country home, where he surrounded himself with the dumb animals whose society he so enjoyed; these included a large hound, a raven, a starling, an Angora cat, and an ape.
On December 22, 1818, the first child, a girl, was born. Caroline was dangerously ill; the child was not strong, and Carl"s own health, always at the brink of wreckage, broke down. Caroline, hardly able to be about, nursed her husband and concealed from him the serious condition of the child. Just as he was beginning to recover, in April, his firstborn died. The news could not be kept from him, and he was sent into delirium. Caroline"s health gave way completely, and "the unhappy couple lay in neighbouring rooms, where they could only cry "Comfort!"
to each other through the wall; and where, in the still hours of night, each smothered the sobs of grief in the pillows, that the other might not hear."
Caroline was the first to recover. Carl"s health and strength were on the final ebb--the long, slow ebb that made of his last years one dismal tragedy, which only his superb devotion to his wife and his immitigable optimism could brighten. In July, 1820, they decided to take a tour.
They met with great success, but he found his weakness almost unbearable. At Hanover, he and Caroline were both prostrated, and could not join in the concert planned. On the road to Bremen, the postilion fell asleep and the coach was overturned into the ditch. The driver was stunned and the sick Carl had himself to revive the man, untie the baggage from the roof, unharness the horses, put everything in place again, and drive the postilion to the next station. At Hamburg, Caroline was too ill to continue the tour; she was about to become a mother, and Carl was compelled to go on without her, but he wrote her daily letters full of devotion. It was the first separation of their married life.
Later she rejoined him, and at Hamburg, the oyster entered once more into Weber"s domestic career. The Brunetti had cured him of his love for her by her inordinate fondness for bivalves. Caroline, on the other hand, hated them. But Weber said:
"There can be no true sympathy between us while you detest a food I relish. For the love of me, swallow this oyster."
The first three were a severe trial, but, as the French might say, "Ce n"est pas que la premiere huitre qui coute." Afterward Weber would groan, "Alas, why did I ever teach you the trick?"