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.