Soon Clara at a public concert in Leipzig dared to put upon the programme the F Sharp Minor Sonata, in which Schumann had given voice to his heart’s cry ("Herzensschrei nach der Geliebten").  Schumann’s name did not appear on the programme, but it was credited to two of his pen-names, Eusebius and Florestan.  Now, as Litzman notes, the answer to that outcry came back to him over the head of the audience.  Clara knew he would be there, and that he would understand.  Her fingers seemed to be giving expression not only to his own yearning, but to her answer and her like desire.  It was a bold effort to declare her love before the world, and, as she wrote him later:  “Do you not realise that I played it since I knew no other way to express my innermost feelings at all.  Secretly, I did not dare express them, though I did it openly.  Do you imagine that my heart did not tremble?”

The musical message renewed in Schumann’s heart a hope and determination that had been dying slowly for two years.  His friend Becker came to Leipzig, and took up the cause of the lovers with great enthusiasm.  He carried letters to and fro with equal diplomacy and delight.  He appeared in time to play a leading role in a drama Schumann was preparing.  Wieck’s enmity to Schumann had been somewhat mitigated after two years of meeting no opposition.  Schumann was encouraged to hope that, if he wrote a letter to Wieck on Clara’s birthday, September 13, 1837, it might find the old bear in a congenial mood.  He had written to Clara the very morning after the concert at daybreak, saying:  “I write this in the very light of Aurora.  Would it be that only one more daybreak should separate us.”  He tells her of his plan, asking only one word of approval.  Clara, overcome with emotion when Becker brought her the first letter she had received in so long a time from Schumann, was so delighted at the inspiration that she wrote: 

“Only a simple ‘Ja’ do you ask.  Such a tiny little word ... so weighty though ... could a heart, as full of unspeakable love as mine not speak this tiny little word with the whole soul?  I do it and my soul whispers it for ever.  The grief of my heart, the many tears, could I but describe them ... oh, no!  Your plan seems to me risky, but a loving heart fears no obstacles.  Therefore once more I say yes!  Could God turn my eighteenth birthday into a day of mourning?  Oh, no! that were far too gruesome.  Ah, I have long felt ‘it must be,’ and nothing in the world shall make me waver, and I will convince my father that a youthful heart can also be steadfast.  Very hastily,

“Your CLARA.”

And now, letters began to fly as thickly as swallows at evening.  She found a better messenger than Becker, in her faithful maid, “Nanny,” whom she recommended to complete confidence:  “So Nanny can serve as a pen to me.”  At last the lovers met clandestinely by appointment, as Clara returned from a visit to Emily List.  Both were so agitated that Clara almost fainted, and Schumann was formal and cold.  She wrote later: