Note 21 — INTRODUCTION

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 Mémoires (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 Mémoires 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?