[Footnote 18:  “Isn’t it really devilish,” he said to Legouve, “tragic and silly at the same time?  I should deserve to go to hell if I wasn’t there already.”]

[Footnote 19:  Memoires, II, 335.  See the touching passages he wrote on Henrietta Smithson’s death.]

[Footnote 20:  “One day, Henrietta, who was living alone at Montmartre, heard someone ring the bell, and went to open the door.

“‘Is Mme. Berlioz at home?’

“‘I am Mme. Berlioz.’

“‘You are mistaken; I asked for Mme. Berlioz.’

“‘And I tell you, I am Mme. Berlioz.’

“’No, you are not.  You are speaking of the old Mme. Berlioz, the one who was abandoned; I am speaking of the young and pretty and loved one.  Well, that is myself!’

“And Recio went out and banged the door after her.

“Legouve said to Berlioz, ’Who told you this abominable thing?  I suppose she who did it; and then she boasted about it into the bargain.  Why didn’t you turn her out of the house?’ ‘How could I?’ said Berlioz in broken tones, ‘I love her’” (Soixante ans de souvenirs).]

And Berlioz did nothing—­“How could I?  I love her.”

One would be hard upon such a man if one was not disarmed by his own sufferings.  But let us go on.  I should have liked to pass over these traits, but I have no right to; I must show you the extraordinary feebleness of the man’s character.  “Man’s character,” did I say?  No, it was the character of a woman without a will, the victim of her nerves.[21]

[Footnote 21:  From this woman’s nature came his love of revenge, “a thing needless, and yet necessary,” he said to his friend Hiller, who, after having made him write the Symphonie fantastique to spite Henrietta Smithson, next made him write the wretched fantasia Euphonia to spite Camille Moke, now Mme. Pleyel.  One would feel obliged to draw more attention to the way he often adorned or perverted the truth if one did not feel it arose from his irrepressible and glowing imagination far more than from any intention to mislead; for I believe his real nature to have been a-very straightforward one.  I will quote the story of his friend Crispino, a young countryman from Tivoli, as a characteristic example.  Berlioz says in his Memoires (I, 229):  “One day when Crispino was lacking in respect I made-him a present of two shirts, a pair of trousers, and three good kicks behind.”  In a note he added, “This is a lie, and is the result of an artist’s tendency to aim at effect.  I never kicked Crispino.”  But Berlioz took care afterwards to omit this note.  One attaches as little importance to his other small boasts as to this one.  The errors in the Memoires have been greatly exaggerated; and besides, Berlioz is the first to warn his readers that he only wrote what pleased him, and in his preface says that he is not writing his Confessions.  Can one blame him for that?]