I was filled with feverish agitation; I sang the
theme; I was going to get up ... but the reflections of the day
before restrained me; I steeled myself against the temptation, and
clung to the thought of forgetting it. At last I went to sleep; and
the next day, on waking, all remembrance of it had, indeed, gone
for ever."[23]
That page makes one shudder. Suicide is less distressing. Neither
Beethoven nor Wagner suffered such tortures. What would Wagner have done
on a like occasion? He would have written the symphony without
doubt--and he would have been right. But poor Berlioz, who was weak
enough to sacrifice his duty to love, was, alas! also heroic enough to
sacrifice his genius to duty.[24]
[Footnote 23: _Memoires_, II, 349.]
[Footnote 24: Berlioz has already touchingly replied to any reproaches
that might be made in the words that follow the story I have quoted.
"'Coward!' some young enthusiast will say, 'you ought to have written
it; you should have been bold.' Ah, young man, you who call me coward
did not have to look upon what I did; had you done so you, too, would
have had no choice. My wife was there, half dead, only able to moan; she
had to have three nurses, and a doctor every day to visit her; and I was
sure of the disastrous result of any musical adventure.
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