Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Part 13

Count d'Agoult was a hard-headed man of affairs--stern, sensible and reasonably amiable--that is to say, he never smashed the furniture, nor beat his wife. She submitted to his will, and all the fine, girlish, bubbling qualities of her mind and soul were soon held in check through that law of self-protection which causes a woman to give herself unreservedly only to the One who Understands. Yet the Countess was not miserable--only at rare intervals did there come moods of a sort of dread longing, homesickness and unrest; but calm philosophy soon put these moods to rout. She had focused her mind on sociology and had written a short history of the Revolution, a volume that yet commands the respect of students. At intervals she read her essays aloud to invited guests. She studied art, delved a little in music, became acquainted with the leading thinking men and women of her time, and opened her salon for their entertainment.

Three children had been born to her in six years. Maternity is a very necessary part of every good woman's education--"this woman's flesh demands its natural pains," says a great writer in a certain play. A staid, sensible woman was the Countess d'Agoult--tall, handsome, graceful, and with a flavor of melancholy, reserve and disinterestedness in her make-up that made her friendship sought by men of maturity. She talked but little, and won through the fine art of listening.

She was neither happy nor unhappy, and if the gaiety of girlhood had given way to subdued philosophy, there were still wit, smiles and gentle irony to take the place of laughter. "Life," she said, "consists in molting one's illusions."

The Countess was twenty-nine years of age when "Le Grand Prodige," aged twenty-three, arrived in Paris. She had known him when he was "Le Pet.i.t Prodige"--when she was a girl with dreams and he but a child. She wished to see how he had changed, and so went to hear him play. He was insincere, affected and artificial, she said--his mannerisms absurd and his playing acrobatic. At the next concert where he played she sought him out and half-laughingly told him her opinion of his work. He gravely thanked her, with his hand upon his heart, and said that such honesty and frankness were refreshing. After the concert Liszt remembered this woman--she was the only one he did remember--she had made her impression.

He did not like her.

Soon Liszt was invited to the salon of the Countess d'Agoult, and he, the plebeian, proudly repulsed the fair aristocrat when her attentions took on the note of patronage. They mildly tiffed--a very good way to begin a friendship, once said Chateaubriand.

The feminine qualities in the heart of Liszt made a lure of the person who dared affront him. He needed the flint on which his mind could strike fire--nothing is so depressing as continual, mushy adulation. He sought out the Countess, and together they traversed the border-land of metaphysics, and surveyed, as the days pa.s.sed, all that intellectual realm which the dawn of the Twentieth Century thinks it has just discovered.

She taunted him into a defense of George Sand, who had but recently returned from her escapade to Venice with Alfred de Musset. Liszt defended the author of "Leone Leoni," and read to the Countess from her books to prove his case.

When haughty, proud and religious ladies mix mentalities with sensitive youths of twenty-four, the danger-line is being approached. The Grand Pa.s.sions that live in history, such as that of Abelard and Heloise, Petrarch and Laura, Dante and Beatrice, swing in their orbit around world-weariness. Love does not concern itself with this earth alone--it demands a universe for its free expression. And the only woman who is capable of the Grand Pa.s.sion--who stakes all on one throw of the dice--is the melancholy woman, with this fine, religious reserve. No one suspected the Countess d'Agoult of indiscretion--she was too cold and self-contained for that!

And so is the world deceived by the Eternal Paradox of things--that law of ant.i.thesis which makes opposites look alike. Beneath the calm dignity of matronly demeanor the fires of love were banked. Probably even the Countess herself did not know of the volcano that was smoldering in her heart. But there came a day when the flames burst forth, and all the reserve, poise, quiet dignity, caution and discretion were dissolved into nothingness in love's alembic.

Poor Franz Liszt!

Poor Countess d'Agoult!

They were powerless in the coils of such a pa.s.sion. It was a mad tumult of wild intoxication, of delicious pain, of burning fears, and vain, tossing unrest. The woman's nature, stifled by its six years of coaxing marital repression, was a.s.serting itself. Liszt did not know that a woman could love like this--neither did the woman. Once they parted, after talking the matter over solemnly and deciding on what was best for both--they parted coldly--with a mere touching of the lips in a last good-by.

The next week they were together again.

Then Liszt fled to the Abbe Lamennais, and in tears sought, at the confessional and in dim retirement, a surcease from the pa.s.sion that was devouring him. Here was a pivotal point in the life of Liszt, and the Church came near then, claiming him for her own. And such would have been the case, were it not for the fact that one of the children of the Countess d'Agoult was sick unto death. He knew of the sleepless vigils--the weary watching of the fond mother.

The child died, and Franz Liszt went to the parent in her bereavement, to offer the solace of religion and bid her a decent, respectful farewell, ere he left Paris forever. He thought grief was a cure for pa.s.sion, and that in the presence of death, love itself was dumb. How could he understand that, in most strong natures, tears and pain, and hope and love are kin, and that each is in turn the manifestation of a great and welling heart!

Liszt stood by the side of the Countess as the grave closed over the body of her firstborn child. And as they stood there, under the darkening sky, her hand went groping blindly for his. She wrote of this, years and years after, when seventy winters had silvered her hair and her steps were feeble--she wrote of this, in her book called, "Souvenirs," and tells how, in that moment of supreme grief, when her life was whitened and purified by the fires of pain, her hand sought his. The deep current of her love swept the ashes of grief away, and she reached blindly for the hands--those wonderful music-making hands of Liszt--that they might support her. And standing there, side by side, as the priest intoned the burial service, he whispered to her, "Death shall not divide us, nor is eternity long enough to separate thee from me!"

It was only a few days after that Liszt left Paris--but not for a monastery. He journeyed to Switzerland, and stopping at Basle he was soon joined by the Countess, her two children, and her mother.

All Paris was set in an uproar by the "abduction." The George Sand school approved and loudly applauded the "eclat"; but it was condemned and execrated by the majority. As for the injured husband, it is said he gave a banquet in honor of the event; his feelings, no doubt, being eased by the fact that the goodly dot his wife had brought him at her marriage was now his exclusive possession. He had never gauged her character, anyway, and he inwardly acknowledged that her mind was of a sort with which he could not parry.

And now she had wronged him; yet in his grief he took much satisfaction, and in his martyrdom there was sweet solace.

The chief blame fell on Liszt, and the accusation that he had "broken up a happy home" came to his ears from many sources. "They blame you and you alone," a friend said to him.

"Good! good!" said Liszt, "I gladly bear it all."

George Sand, plain in feature, quiet in manner, soft and feminine when she wished to be, yet possessing the mind of a man, went to Switzerland to visit the runaway Liszt and the "Lady Arabella." At first thought, one might suppose that such a visit, after the former relationship, might have been a trifle embarra.s.sing for both. But the fact that in the interval George Sand had been crunching the soul of Chopin formed an estoppel on the memory of all the soft sentiment that had gone before.

George Sand brought her two children, Maurice and Solange, and the "Lady Arabella" had two of her own to keep them company. A little family party was made up, and with a couple of servants and a guide, a little journey was taken through the mountain villages, all in genuine gipsy style.

George Sand, who worked up all life, its sensations and emotions, into good copy, has given us an account of the trip, that throws some very interesting side-lights on the dramatis personae.

The recounter and her children were all clothed in peasant costume--man-style, with blouses and trousers. Gipsy garbs were worn by the servants, and Liszt was arrayed like a mountaineer, and carried a reed pipe, upon which he, from time to time, awoke the echoes. When the dusty, unkempt crew arrived at a village inn, the landlord usually made hot haste to secrete his silverware. Once when a sudden rainstorm drove the wayfarers into a church, Liszt took his seat at the organ and played--played with such power and feeling that the village priest ran out and called for the neighbors to come quickly, as the Angel Gabriel, in the guise of a mountaineer, was playing the organ. Anthem, oratorio, and sweet, subtle, soulful improvisation followed, and the villagers knelt, and eyes were filled with tears. George Sand records that she never heard such playing by the Master before; she herself wept, and yet through her tears she managed to see a few things, and here is one picture which she gives us: "The Lady Arabella sat on the bal.u.s.trade, swinging one foot, and cast her proud and melancholy gaze over the lower nave, and waited in vain for the celestial voices that were supposed to vibrate in her bosom.

"Her abundant light hair, disheveled by the wind and rain, fell in bewildering disorder, and her eyes, reflecting the finest hue of the firmament, seemed to be wandering over the realm of G.o.d's creation after each sigh of the huge organ, played by the divine Liszt.

"'This is not what I expected,' said she to me languidly.

"'Ah, that is what you said of the mountain peaks and the glacier, yesterday,' said I."

It will be seen, by those who have read between the lines, that George Sand did not much like "the fair Lady Arabella of the wondrous length of limb." In pa.s.sing, it is well to note, in way of apology for this allusion as to "length of limb," that George Sand was once spoken of by Heine as "a dumpy-duodecimo." It is to be regretted that we have no description of George Sand by the Lady Arabella.

Years pa.s.sed in study and writing, with occasional concert tours, wherein the public flocked to hear the greatest pianist of his time. The power, grasp and insight of the man increased with the years, and wherever he deigned to play, the public was not slow in giving him that approbation which his masterly work deserved. Liszt was one of the Elect Few who train on. On these short concert trips his wife (for such she must certainly be regarded) seldom accompanied him--this in deference to his wish, and this, it seems, was the first and last and only cause of dissension between them.

The Countess was born for a career and her spirit chafed at the forced retirement in which she lived.

Ten years had gone by and three children had been born to her and Liszt.

One of these, a boy, died in youth, but one of the daughters became, as we know, the wife of Richard Wagner, and the other daughter married Oliver Emile Ollivier, the eminent statesman and man of letters--member of the Cabinet in that memorable year, Eighteen Hundred Seventy, when France declared war on Germany. Both of these daughters of Liszt were women of rare mentality and splendid worth, true daughters of their father.

Position is a pillory; sometimes the populace will pelt you with rose-leaves--at others, with ancient vegetables. Liszt believed that for his wife's peace of mind, and his own, she should not crowd herself too much to the front--he feared what the mob might say or do. We can not say that she was jealous of his fame, nor he of hers. However, as a writer she was winning her way. But the fateful day came when the wife said, "From this day on I must everywhere stand by your side, your wife and your equal, or we must part."

They parted.

Liszt made princely provision for her welfare, and the support of their children, as well as those that had come to her before they met.

She went south to Italy, and he began that most wonderful concert tour, where, in Saint Petersburg, sums equal to ten thousand dollars were taken at the door for single entertainments.

Countess d'Agoult was the respected friend of King Emmanuel, and her salon at Turin was the meeting-place of such men as Renan, Meyerbeer, Chopin, Berlioz and Rossini. She carried on a correspondence with Heinrich Heine, was the trusted friend of Prince Jerome Bonaparte, Lamartine and Lamennais, and was on a footing of equality with the greatest and best minds of her age. She wrote several plays, one of which, "Jeanne d'Arc," was presented at the Court Theater of Turin, with the Royal Family present, and was a marked success. Her criticism on the work of Ingres made that artist's reputation, just as surely as Ruskin made the fame of Turner. But one special reason why Americans should remember this woman is because she first translated Emerson's "Essays"

and caused them to be published in Italian and French.

I am not sure that Liszt ever quite forgave her for not dying of broken heart, when they parted there at Lake Maggiore. He thought she would take to opium or strong drink, or both. She did neither, but proved, by her after-life, that she was sufficient unto herself. She was worthy of the love of Liszt, because she was able to do without it. She was no parasitic, clinging vine that strangles the st.u.r.dy oak.

The Abbe Lamennais, the close friend of Liszt, once said, "Liszt is a great musician, the greatest the world has ever seen, but his wife can easily take a mental octave which he can not quite span."

The Countess d'Agoult died March Fifth, in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six, at the age of seventy years. When tidings of her pa.s.sing reached the Abbe Liszt, he caused all of his immediate engagements to be canceled and went into monastic retirement, wearing the robe of horsehair and a rope girdle at his waist. He filled the hours for the s.p.a.ce of a month with silent reverie and prayer.

And even in that cloister-cell, with its stone floor and cold, bare walls, the leaden hours brought the soundless presence of a tall and stately woman. Through the desolate bastions of his brain she glided in sweet disarray, looked into his tear-dimmed eyes, smoothing softly the coa.r.s.e pillow where rested that head with its lion's mane which we know so well--a head now whitened by the frost of years. No sound came to him there, save a soft voice which Fate refused to silence, and this voice whispered and whispered yet again to him: "Death shall not divide us, nor is eternity long enough to separate thee from me!"

Religion is not the cure of love. Perhaps religion is love and love is religion--anyway, we know that they are often fused. For a time after Liszt had parted from the Countess, fortune smiled. Then came various loans to friends, managerial experiments, the backing of an ill-starred opera, and a season of overwrought nerves.

Luck had turned against the supposed invincible Liszt. Then it was that the Princess Wittgenstein appears on the scene. This fine woman, earnest, strong in character, intellectual, had tried ten years of marital hard times and quit the partnership with a daughter and a goodly dot.

The Princess had secretly loved Liszt from afar, and had followed him from town to town, glorying in his triumphs, feeding on his personality.

When trouble came she managed to have a message conveyed to him that an unknown woman would advance, without interest or security, enough money for him to pay all his debts and secure him two years of leisure in which he might regain his health and do such work as his taste might dictate.

Of course Liszt declined the offer, begging his unknown friend to divulge her ident.i.ty that he might thank her for her disinterested faith in the cause of Art.

A meeting was brought about and the result was as usual. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Saxe-Weimar, in the face of scandal, took the Abbe and Princess under protection, giving them the Chateau of Altenburg, near Weimar, for a retreat. There Liszt, guarded from all intrusion, composed the symphonies of "Dante" and "Faust," sonatas, ma.s.ses and parts of "Saint Elizabeth." For thirteen years they lived an idyllic existence.

Then, having married her daughter by her first husband to Prince Hohenlohe, the Princess set out for Rome to obtain a dispensation from the Pope, so she and the Abbe could be married. Her husband, who was a Protestant, had long before secured a divorce and married again. Pope Pius the Ninth granted her wish, and she hastened home and prepared for the wedding. It was said that flowers were already placed on the altar, the marriage feast was prepared, the guests invited, when news came that the Pope had changed his mind on the argument of one of the lady's kinsmen. We now have every reason to believe, though, that the Pope changed his mind on the earnest request of Liszt.