In 1853 he and Clara went to the Netherlands, where he found his music well known and himself highly honoured, though they say that the King of Holland, after praising Clara’s playing, turned to Robert and said:  “Are you also musical?” But then one does not expect much from a king.  The musicians knew Schumann’s work, and he rejoiced at finding friends of his art in a far-away country.  “But,” says Reissman, “this was destined to be his last happiness.”

For the dread affliction which throws a spell of horror across his life and his wife’s devotion, did not long delay in seizing upon him after his marriage.  As early as 1833, the ferocious onslaughts of melancholia had affected him at long intervals.  In 1845, on the doctor’s advice, he moved to Dresden.  His trouble seems to have been “an abnormal formation of irregular masses of bone in the brain.”  He was afraid to live above the ground floor, or to go high in any building, lest he throw himself from the window in a sudden attack.  He was subject to moods of long, and one might almost say violent, silence.  In 1845 he described it as “a mysterious complaint which, when the doctor tries to take hold of it, disappears.  I dare say better times are coming, and when I look upon my wife and children, I have joy enough.”

Later he wrote to Mendelssohn, that he preferred staying at home, even when his wife went out.

“Wherever there is fun and enjoyment, I must still keep out of the way; the only thing to be done is hope ... hope ... and I will!”

His wife was still “a gift from above,” and his allusions to her were affectionate to the utmost.  In 1846, and again in the summer of 1847, he suffered a violent melancholia.  In these periods he experienced an inability to remember his own music long enough to write it down.  He saw but few friends, among them the charming widow of Von Weber, Ferdinand Hiller, Mendelssohn, Joachim, and a few others.  Wagner wrote some articles for Schumann’s journal and was highly thought of at first, but Schumann soon lost sympathy with him; the final sign of the break-up of his wonderful appreciation of other men’s music.

His life was more and more his home, and that more and more a voluntary prison.  In 1853 he presented his wife on her birthday with a grand piano, and several new compositions.  He took great delight in his family, and could even compose amid the hilarity and noise of his children.  Concerning children he had written in 1845 to Mendelssohn, whose wife had presented him with a second child, “We are looking forward to a similar event, and I always tell my wife, ’one cannot have enough.’  It is the greatest blessing we have on earth.”

Clara bore him eight children, and at her concerts there was usually a nurse with a babe in arms waiting for her in the wings.  Schumann wrote three sonatas for his three daughters, and other compositions for them.  His famous “Kinderscenen” were, however, composed before his marriage.