That explanation, however, does not seem to be extant; all we can know is that Ernestine and he parted as friends, and that six years later he dedicated to her a volume of songs (Opus 13).  Three years after the separation she married, to become Frau von Zedtwitz; but her husband did not live long, nor did she survive him many years.

Aside from the disillusionment that had taken the glamour from Ernestine, Schumann had been slowly coming more and more under the spell of Clara Wieck.  The affair with Ernestine seemed to have been only a transient modulation, and his heart like a sonata returned to its home in the original key of “carissima Clara, Clara carissima.”  Clara, who had found small satisfaction in her fame out-of-doors, since she was defeated in her love in her home, had the joy of seeing the gradual growth in Schumann’s heart of a tenderness that kept increasing almost to idolatry.  Her increasing beauty was partly to blame for it, but chiefly it was the nobility yet exuberant joy of her soul, and her absolute sympathy with his ideals in music, criticism, literature, and life.

To both of them, art was always a religion; there was no philistinism or charlatanism in the soul or the career of either.  At this time, when Schumann found it difficult to get any attention paid to his compositions, Clara, from childhood, was able both to conquer their difficulties and to express their deep meanings.  While Schumann was earning his living and a wide reputation by publishing the praises of other composers, by burrowing in all the obscure meaning of new geniuses, and revealing their messages to the world, his own great works were lying ignored and uncomprehended and seemingly forgotten.  At this time he found a young girl of brilliant fame, honoured by Chopin, Liszt, by Goethe, by the king, by the public; and yet devoted to the soul and the art of the fellow pupil of her father.  Even before he broke his engagement with Ernestine, he found Clara’s charms irresistible.

Chopin came to Leipzig in 1834, and in Schumann’s diary after his name stands the entry:  “Clara’s eyes and her love.”  And later, “The first kiss in November.”

It was on the 25th.  He had been calling on Clara, and when it came time to go home, she carried a lamp to light him down the steps.  He could keep his secret no longer from himself or from her; he declared his love then and there.  But she reminded him of Ernestine, and, with that trivial perjury to which lovers are always apt, he informed her that Ernestine was already engaged to some one else.  There was no further resistance, but nearly a serious accident.  The kiss that set their hearts afire came near working the same effect upon the house.  As Clara wrote afterward: 

“When you gave me that first kiss, then I felt myself near swooning.  Before my eyes it grew black!...  The lamp I brought to light you, I could hardly hold.”