by J. D. Landis
“I am in court,” said Einert.
“I should have thought that would be apparent without your having to say so.”
“Your challenge?” Pastor Fischer addressed Einert, his intentions much clearer, noticed Wieck, than when addressing him.
“I challenge the defendant’s request that the court rule in his favor without his even explaining why he objects to the marriage of his daughter to Herr Schumann. For the court to so rule would be to reject all evidence and provide summary judgment when nothing has been presented to summarize.”
“I agree,” said Pastor Fischer, thus inspiring the agreement of his comagistrates, who bobbed sagely.
“Are you therefore telling me that I must tell the court why I will never consent to the marriage of my daughter?” Wieck addressed himself both to Pastor Fischer and to Advocate Einert.
Pastor Fischer, no fool he, looked to Einert for the answer.
“You must!” squeaked the lawyer.
“Let it be on record, then, that it is not through my wishes but through those of the advocate for the very two people who have sued me that I read my declaration.”
“What declaration?” Einert rose, though he was not required to, as if to get a better view of a document that had thus far not been produced.
“This declaration!” Wieck reached into the leather satchel in which he had carried to court the various papers whose disclosure would, once and for all, rescue his daughter from a lifetime of penurious unhappiness with a dissolute madman. From the folder he withdrew the pages, bound by a ribbon, into which he had poured such feelings that, were he a composer and this his magnum opus, he would become immortal for the very unleashed fury of the truth told through his art, much like his old friend Beethoven himself. With one hand he held the pages out before him, toward the court, and with the other he untied the ribbon. The moment the papers were released from their gentle girdle, they began to quiver in his hand, though with his passion or their own no one, including himself, could discern.
“That appears to be quite a lengthy document.” Pastor Fischer was watching the pages wave with the look of a man who realizes at the end of a heavy meal that his host is about to read his own poetry.
“It is only as long as it needs to be, your worship. Would that the same could be said for Herr Schumann’s compositions.”
“Challenge,” said Einert. “We are here to discuss people, not music.”
“If one could tell the singer from the song,” scoffed Wieck. “If you know as little about law as you seem to about music, sir, then perhaps I shall not even have to read my declaration.”
“You plan to read all that?” Now Pastor Fischer pointed at the papers, which caused them immediately to stop shaking in Wieck’s hand. He used this dramatic turn of events to bring the papers before his eyes.
“I have spent what seems to be a lifetime preparing this document. True, it has been only eleven years since Herr Schumann first appeared at my door and began his seduction of my daughter. But eleven years is a long time in anyone’s life these days of railroad trains and magazines from Boston, Massachusetts, and particularly in the life of a girl who is barely past nineteen and thus is, by the law over which you rule with such authority, still under my control. Therefore, while I would, as I told the court, care not to read these pages, I shall, as demanded by my very adversary, read them. I must read them. For they contain the truth.”
“And what do they say?” asked Pastor Fischer.
Friedrich Wieck put on his spectacles and began to read. “‘This is the declaration, for all to hear, of Friedrich Wieck, born on the eighteenth of August, seventeen eighty-five, in Pretzsch, fifty miles from this very—’”
“We know where Pretzsch is, Herr Wieck,” Pastor Fischer said with an impatience that could have been born only of prejudice against his case. “I trust you are not about to declare the names and occupations of your parents and the location and curriculum of your gymnasium.”
Wieck put his free hand over the text, to shield it from eyes that had apparently already managed to read it. He wondered if Pastor Fischer or, more likely, the lackeys who were his comagistrates had somehow managed to go through his locked desk as he had gone so profitably through Clara’s.
“I should think my education would be of extreme importance here since it has resulted in the genius of my daughter.”
For the first time in these proceedings, he allowed himself the luxury of looking toward Clara. He expected he would see her smile at this preposterous remark of his. He had told her often enough that he was the custodian of her genius, not its creator. Of all the people in this cold, vast room, she would be the only one to appreciate the wit and cunning of his statement. It was important she realize he was willing to falsify his own beliefs in order to save her from disaster.
Indeed, she was looking at him. But, like the girl he had apparently trained too well to hide an expression of her feelings so that, when she performed, her music alone would express them, she did not now display her amusement or even her understanding of this secret, among all the many secrets they shared. Her huge eyes looked at him deadly, so restrained in their admiration of his guile that he found himself admiring her ability to conceal her feelings even as he resented her for so doing and thus making him feel he had no allies whatsoever in this court. Aside from Clementine, that is, from whom he was always forced to hide the depth of his love for his one daughter not her own, and aside from his two witnesses, whose self-interest was no secret to him and whom he would banish from his life and most assuredly from Clara’s once he won his case.
“This court is in no position to argue, or to hear arguments, concerning the origins of genius,” said Pastor Fischer. “To do so would be to condemn ourselves to a procedure even more lengthy than that threatened by this declaration of yours. Please move on, Herr Wieck, and do so into some territory of your life that has some relevance to your defense of your position.”
“I should think that my marriage—my marriage to the mother of Fräulein Wieck, that is—would meet your requirements of relevance. To continue”—and he moved ahead several pages into the document—“‘On June twenty-third, eighteen sixteen, I married Marianne Tromlitz of Plauen, a town in the southeastern part of Saxony, some sixty miles from…’ But let me once more dispense with the geography,” he said, as he saw Pastor Fischer about to interrupt him yet again. “‘It was a marriage that began in the bliss of conjugal morn and ended in the nightmare of treachery. Marianne Wieck became the mother of Clara Josephine Wieck on September thirteenth, eighteen nineteen. Less than five years later, after burdening me with three useless sons, she showed herself as wanton and debauched in her behavior as her daughter has proved herself to be in her relations with Herr Schumann.’”
For the first time, Pastor Fischer seemed genuinely interested in this case before him. “I beg your pardon!” he nearly bellowed.
“That is correct, your honor. Wanton and debauched. The woman took up with her own piano teacher and before my very eyes, as it were, in my very home, proceeded to seduce him and to be seduced by him—as you know, it takes two to allemande—with the result that I was betrayed in the most—”
“I was under the impression that you were her only piano teacher,” said Pastor Fischer.
“I am referring to my ex-wife, for God’s sake, not to my daughter!”
“It is not your ex-wife, Herr Wieck, who has brought this case against you. Confine your remarks to your daughter. And I warn you, sir, do not bring forth such accusations without proof. I have never heard a man speak in such fashion of his own daughter. It would seem to be to bring shame to the entire family, himself included. If these are the kind of statements that continue in this declaration of yours, I must forbid you from reading from it. Proof, sir. Proof.”
Wieck slammed his declaration down on the table before him and picked up from it his leather satchel, into which he thrust his hand. “If it is proof you are after, I have documents. A
nd I shall have witnesses as well. Behold.”
He removed the letters one by one and placed them on the table before him, until they made quite a stack. This was a much more dramatic approach to the presentation of his evidence than if he had simply dumped the letters out together. The court was completely silent while he did this, all eyes on the letters as they accumulated. He could feel the desire in the room to know what was written on these pieces of paper. He had counted on that desire. What, after all, could be more enticing than the prospect of becoming privy to an intimate correspondence that was intended to be irretrievably private?
“What have we here?” asked Pastor Fischer, as if it were not obvious.
“Letters.”
“From whom to whom?”
Wieck pointed over at the table where Schumann and Clara sat with their lawyer. “Him to her.”
He thought she had known. He thought she must have recognized them. But, to judge from the paleness that seized her face like a winter fog, she was only now becoming aware of the trouble to which he was willing to go to save her. Not for a moment taking her eyes off the letters, she whispered something to Robert and their lawyer. Even her lips were pale.
“And how do these letters relate to the case?” inquired Pastor Fischer.
“These letters, sir, are so full of intimate revelations that they cause a father the most profound shame over the behavior of his daughter.”
“The shame, Herr Wieck, is yours!”
Where, suddenly, had Einert found so deep a voice?
“You are out of order, Herr Einert,” warned Pastor Fischer.
“Will the court ask Herr Wieck where he found these letters.”
“The court will not. But you may.”
Without waiting to be asked, Wieck said, “Where do you think I found these letters? Where do most people keep letters? In her desk!”
“And was that desk locked?” asked Einert.
“Of course it was locked. Do you have any idea what these letters say? What they mean? One would have to be even more immodest than my daughter is proved by these letters to be to leave them lying about unsecured.”
“So you admit to unlocking Fräulein Wieck’s desk without her knowledge or permission and stealing these letters.”
“Stealing? Stealing! Does a thief come into court and produce from a pouch what he has stolen? What kind of lawyer are you, Herr Einert, if you cannot distinguish between stolen property and evidence? As for whether I unlocked my daughter’s desk, how else would you have me gather my evidence? It is a father’s right to have access to his child’s property. Are you telling me I cannot read her letters? Her diary? What is a parent for if not to know his child? And still, I will admit, I didn’t know her well enough. And I didn’t find these letters soon enough. But if they prove to leave any doubt after I have read them to the court that my daughter was seduced—willingly seduced, I might add—by that man who sits there so forlornly and inexpressively at her side, then this letter will clear up that doubt for all eternity.”
“And what letter might that be?” asked Pastor Fischer unnecessarily, for Wieck had it out of the satchel and was unfolding it before his eyes.
“Allow me,” he said. “This letter was sent to me from Dresden when news was made public of the present conflict between my daughter and myself. ‘Dear Herr Wieck. Having become aware of the painful and completely unjustified lawsuit brought against your good person by your profligate daughter and her insane magazine-editor suitor who even were he not insane would be too old for her, I feel it is my sad duty to inform you of a fact that, as shocking as it will be for you to hear, will allow you to triumph against your persecutors and prevent forever a marriage that would destroy your daughter’s life. Approximately three and a half years ago, when your daughter was only sixteen years old and under your protection in my own city of Dresden, you were called away from Dresden on urgent business. No sooner were you gone than your daughter made known your absence to Herr Robert Schumann, the magazine editor in question, who arrived in Dresden posthaste and proceeded to relieve your daughter of her virtue. Allow me to repeat that: to relieve her of her virtue! Far from finding this loss to be shameful, your daughter, it nearly shames me to have to say, so reveled in such concupiscence that she repeated such act with Herr Schumann until such time as all four wheels of your coach had crossed the border of the Altstadt upon your return to Dresden. I trust this news will, even if it breaks your heart, secure your victory in the battle you fight for fathers everywhere. Yours in sad sincerity.’”
As if reading this letter for the first time, Wieck, under the burden of its terrible news, sank slowly into his chair. Once seated, he crushed the letter violently in his hand and then brought that hand even more violently down upon the table, once, twice—over and over until Pastor Fischer interrupted this display of grief and justifiable anger.
“Who is the author of this letter, Herr Wieck?”
Wieck unfolded the letter and smoothed it out upon the table and gazed down upon it. “Anonymous,” he said.
“Anonymous!” uttered Pastor Fischer and Herr Einert in harmony so synchronous as to appear suspiciously rehearsed.
“Of course Anonymous!” said Wieck. “If you wrote such a letter to a father such as I, would you put your name on it? What if you feared the messenger might be killed? What if you feared that you yourself would be called into this very court and be forced to utter such blasphemies aloud, before the world? Merely to report such behavior is enough to destroy the reputation of an honorable man. Look what it has done to those whose behavior it actually was.”
As once more he crushed the letter in his hand, he turned an accusing eye toward Clara and Schumann and their lawyer. But they were huddled together over another piece of paper, paying no attention to him whatever.
Finally, Einert looked up and said, “May I see that letter, please.”
“It is addressed to me.”
“Once you have introduced it to the court, it belongs to the court,” Pastor Fischer directed. “And consider, sir, that we are not even breaching the privacy of your locked desk in order to obtain it. Show him the letter.”
Wieck threw the crumpled letter through the air. It did not reach the table and fell at the feet of Einert, who bent down to retrieve it. This did not entail much of a journey.
Einert smoothed out the letter on the table and placed it next to the piece of paper at which he and his clients had been looking. Now they appraised both papers together, eyes moving from one to the other. Then they nodded in a suspicious common rhythm and looked up at him, the two men smiling, Clara still blank-faced.
Einert rose, addressing the court. “I have in my hand, in addition to the letter that Herr Wieck has attempted to obliterate into unidentifiability, another letter. This is signed by a Herr Lehmann and is addressed to Fräulein Wieck. I will not try the patience of the court or the sensibilities of my clients by reading it aloud. Suffice it to say that this letter is nothing more nor less than a villainous and wholly unjustified attack upon Herr Schumann. It describes him in the most scurrilous terms and warns Fräulein Wieck that her association with him will lead to her destruction. And I would like to ask Herr Wieck, what sort of man would write such a letter?”
“A wise man.”
“What sort of man would write such a letter to his own daughter?”
“Do you mean to tell me that this Lehmann also has a daughter who has betrayed and humiliated him? And with this selfsame Schumann?”
“I mean to tell you, sir, that your anonymous correspondent and Herr Lehmann are the same person.”
“Extraordinary! The poor man!”
“They are you!”
“I?”
“You.”
“Impossible! It is one thing for you to ask the court to believe that a man might be two men at once, namely Anonymous and Lehmann. But for you to think any man, let alone a man as busy as I with his teaching and his selling of pianos and the guidance of the
career of she who would be the greatest pianist in Europe if only she will give up the idea that she should marry…for you to think that any man might be three men, and one of them Friedrich Wieck, is preposterous. I don’t even have time to write my own letters, aside from those required by my present wife when I am away in distant cities with my daughter, attempting—unsuccessfully, I am sadly informed by both Anonymous and this Lehmann of yours—to keep her from being seduced. On what basis could you possibly accuse me of being the author of these letters?”
“Handwriting,” answered Einert.
“But those letters are not written in the same hand.”
“And how would you know that, Herr Wieck? You have not been shown the Lehmann letter.”
“I know that because it is one thing for you to accuse me of being the author of both those letters, but it is another for you to accuse me of being stupid enough to have written both letters in the same hand. Therefore, if I am the author of both letters, they cannot be written in the same hand. And if they are not written in the same hand, then neither I nor anyone else can be the author of both letters. Ergo, it is established that I am not the author of both letters.”
Wieck sat down but was immediately called upon by Pastor Fischer to stand up. “Bring me your declaration, Herr Wieck. It is, is it not, written in your own hand?”
“It is, your worship. But it is, as I trust you realize by now, a document most intensely and intimately private. I cannot allow any eyes but mine to gaze upon it.”
Pastor Fischer rested his face in his hands. “These eyes have seen things even more pitiable than autobiographical ravings and more contemptible than forgery.” Now Pastor Fischer let loose his face, those very same eyes inflamed with what Wieck could not distinguish between compassion and scorn. “Bring me your declaration, Herr Wieck. And you, Herr Einert, bring me the two letters that you claim are written not only by the same man but by the same man who wrote the declaration to whose profane accusations this court has lately been subjected. I shall compare the handwriting.”