[35] He
was wasted with disease. In 1856, at Weimar, following great fatigue, he
was seized with an internal malady. It began with great mental distress;
he used to sleep in the streets. He suffered constantly; he was like "a
tree without leaves, streaming with rain." At the end of 1861, the
disease was in an acute stage. He had attacks of pain sometimes lasting
thirty hours, during which he would writhe in agony in his bed. "I live
in the midst of my physical pain, overwhelmed with weariness. Death is
very slow."[36]
[Footnote 33: _Memoires_, II, 420.]
[Footnote 34: "I do not know how Berlioz has managed to be cut off like
this. He has neither friends nor followers; neither the warm sun of
popularity nor the pleasant shade of friendship" (Liszt to the Princess
of Wittgenstein, 16 May, 1861).]
[Footnote 35: In a letter to Bennet he says, "I am weary, I am
weary...." How often does this piteous cry sound in his letters towards
the end of his life. "I feel I am going to die.... I am weary unto
death" (21 August, 1868--six months before his death).]
[Footnote 36: Letter to Asger Hammerick, 1865.]
Worst of all, in the heart of his misery, there was nothing that
comforted him.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46