[Footnote 17: _Memoires_, 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 Ines 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.
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