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Old Love Stories Retold By: Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947) |
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Heine and Mathilde by Richard Le Gallienne
The love story of Heine and his Mathilde is another of those stories
which fix a type of loving. It is the love of a man of the most
brilliant genius, the most relentless, mocking intellect, for a
simple, pretty woman, who could no more understand him than a cow can
understand a comet. Many men of genius have loved just such women,
and the world, of course, has wondered. How is it that men of genius
prefer some little Mathilde, when the presidents of so many women's
clubs are theirs for the asking? Perhaps the problem is not so
difficult as, at first sight, it may seem. After all, a man of
genius is much like other men. He is no more anxious than any other
man to marry an encyclopedia, or a university degree. And, more than
most men, he is fitted to realize the mysterious importance and
satisfaction of simple beauty though it may go quite unaccompanied
by "intellectual" conversation and the value of simple
woman goodness, the woman goodness that orders a household so
skillfully that your home is a work of art, the woman goodness that
glories in that "simple" thing we call motherhood, the woman goodness
that is almost happy when you are ill because it will be so wonderful
to nurse you. Superior persons often smile at these Mathildes of the
great. They have smiled no little at Mathilde Crescence Mirat; but
he who was perhaps the greatest mocker that ever lived knew better
than to laugh at Mathilde. The abysses of his brain no one can, or
even dare, explore but, listen as we will at the door of that
infernal pit of laughter, we shall hear no laugh against his faithful
little Mathilde. It is not at Mathilde he laughs, but at the
precious little blue stocking, who freshened the last months of his
life with a final infatuation that still unidentified "Camille
Selden" whom he playfully called "la Mouche." "La Mouche," naturally, had a very poor opinion of Madame Heine, and
you need not be a cynic to enjoy this passage with which she opens her
famous remembrances of "The Last Days of Heinrich Heine": "When I first saw Heinrich Heine he lived on the fifth floor of a
house situated on the Avenue Matignon, not far from the Rond Point of
the Champs Elysees. His windows, overlooking the avenue, opened on a
narrow balcony, covered in hot weather with a striped linen awning,
such as appears in front of small cafes. The apartments consisted of
three or four rooms the dining room and two rooms used by the master
and the mistress of the house. A very low couch, behind a screen
encased in wall paper, several chairs, and opposite the door a
walnut wood secretary, formed the entire furniture of the invalid's
chamber. I nearly forgot to mention two framed engravings, dated
from the early years of Louis Philippe's reign the 'Reapers' and the
'Fisherman,' after Leopold Robert. So far the arrangements of the
rooms evidenced no trace of a woman's presence, which showed itself
in the adjoining chamber by a display of imitation lace, lined with
transparent yellow muslin, and a corner cupboard covered with brown
velvet, and more especially by a full length portrait, placed in a
good light, of Mme. Heine, with dress and hair as worn in her
youth a low necked black bodice, and bands of hair plastered down
her cheeks a style in the fashion of about 1840. "She by no means realized my ideal Mme. Heine. I had fancied her
refined, elegant, languishing, with a pale, earnest face, animated by
large, perfidious, velvety eyes. I saw, instead, a homely, dark,
stout lady, with a high colour and a jovial countenance, a person of
whom you would say she required plenty of exercise in the open air.
What a painful contrast between the robust woman and the pale, dying
man, who, with one foot already in the grave, summoned sufficient
energy to earn not only enough for the daily bread, but money besides
to purchase beautiful dresses... Continue reading book >>
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Genres for this book |
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Biography |
Literature |
Romance |
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