[Illustration: BRAHMS AND JOACHIM, 1855.]

Frau Schumann changed her residence to another in Dusseldorf in the month of July, and immediately afterwards went with one of her young daughters to stay with her mother in Berlin, whither Joachim also proceeded on a visit to some of his own particular friends. Dietrich had quitted Dusseldorf some months previously to follow prospects of success in Leipzig; Grimm and Brahms remained behind to take charge of any urgent tidings from Endenich. To Johannes was specially entrusted the congenial task of arranging Schumann's books and music in the new dwelling. This was soon accomplished to his satisfaction, as he writes to Dietrich:

'And now I sit there the whole day and study. I have seldom felt so happy as I do now, rummaging in this library.'

On July 19, the very day of Frau Schumann's departure, the happy news arrived that a marked improvement had taken place in her husband's health. He had spoken of feeling better, expressed a desire to visit his friend Wasielewsky at Bonn; above all, had picked flowers, and evidently wished them to be sent to his wife, whom he had not mentioned during his illness. News and flowers were instantly despatched to Berlin, and were received with almost overwhelming feelings of hope and longing.

'I cannot describe my feelings,' Frau Schumann writes to Dietrich after informing him of the tidings, 'but I never knew till now how difficult it is to bear a great happiness ... it often seems to me as though I should lose my reason; it is too much, all that I have gone through and that is still before me!'

She returned to Dusseldorf after about a fortnight's absence. The succeeding movements of the party are chronicled in a letter written by Johannes to the Amtsvogt Blume of Winsen:

'ULM, _August 16, 1854_.

'HONOURED SIR,

'You certainly think that your dear letter did not give me the least pleasure, as I have left it so long unanswered? Ah, the time lately has been so full of excitement that I was obliged to put it off from day to day. Frau Schumann went with a friend on the 10th of this month to Ostend for the benefit of her health. I, after much persuasion, resolved to make a journey through Swabia during her absence. I did not know how greatly I was attached to the Schumanns, how I lived in them; everything seemed barren and empty to me, every day I wished to turn back, and was obliged to travel by rail in order to get quickly to a distance and forget about turning back. It was of no use; I have come as far as Ulm, partly on foot, partly by rail; I am going to return quickly, and would rather wait for Frau Schumann in Dusseldorf than wander about in the dark. When one has found such divine people as Robert and Clara Schumann, one should stick to them and not leave them, but raise and inspire one's self by them. The dear Schumann continues to improve, as you have read in my letter to my parents. There has been a great deal of gossip about his condition. I consider the best description of him is to be found in some of the works of E.

T. A. Hoffmann (Rath Krespel, Serapion, and especially the splendid Kreisler, etc.). He has only stripped off his body too soon.--If you would give me pleasure, let me find a letter from you in Ddf.--is that quite too bold? I will write to you again, and more rationally, from there. I am writing this letter in the waiting-room of the railway-station, which accounts for its having become, probably, very confused.--A thousand hearty greetings to dear Uncle Giesemann, I will write to him also from Ddf.; heartiest greetings also to Frau Blume and your daughter. Remember with affection

'Your JOHANNES BRAHMS.'[50]

Stopping at Bonn on his return journey to inquire after the patient at Endenich, Brahms obtained permission to look at Schumann, himself unseen, and from his position behind an open window was able, after he had sufficiently controlled his first agitation, to assure himself that the master looked well and wore the kind, tranquil mien natural to him; and on his arrival at Dusseldorf, whom should he find there but Grimm, who, having missed the object of a journey on which he, too, had set, out, had likewise been to Endenich, seen Schumann, and gained an impression of his appearance and manner similar to that which had reassured Johannes!

Grimm left Dusseldorf in November for Hanover, and remained there till the following year, when he accepted a post as conductor of a choral society at Gottingen. Johannes also went north on a visit to his parents, but for a few weeks only. The Schumanns' house had become a second home to him, and his place in the affections of its master and mistress that of a beloved elder son. Almost every particular that had marked the course of his year's acquaintance with them had been of a kind to stir his true, loving, high-strung nature to its depths.

Schumann's noble character, his quick affection for the young stranger and unconditional acceptance of his art, the ideal relation which united the great composer with his wife, the distinguished qualities of the gifted woman who found her greatest happiness in consecrating her genius to the service of her romantic love, the terrible blow which had separated the two lives so closely linked, the sadness of the present, the uncertainty of the future--each and all of these things had aroused in the heart of Johannes a tumult of feeling, a poignancy of affection, that allowed him no rest when he was out of immediate touch with the two people who were its object. He could study to his heart's content in Schumann's library, where books and music were unreservedly at his disposal; could be of use to Frau Schumann, who truly valued his sympathy and returned his affection; he was in constant communication with Joachim, and could have as much pleasant society as he cared for.

In short, he felt that for the present his place was at Dusseldorf, and at Dusseldorf he remained.

It was in the spring of 1854 that he made the acquaintance of Julius Allgeyer, who, four years his senior, was at the time a student of copper-plate engraving in Dusseldorf under Josef Keller.

'Brahms,' says Allgeyer in a letter of this date, 'has Schiller's striking profile; his compositions sound different from everything else known to me. He has the bad manners of a frolicsome child and the understanding of a man.'

There was much in the circumstances and characters of the two young men to foster an intimacy between them. Allgeyer's youth had, like that of Johannes, been passed in struggle, and he resembled Brahms in his restless hunger after general culture, which he endeavoured to satisfy by constant and varied reading. The composition of Brahms' Ballades for pianoforte, Op. 10, which belongs to this time, has a direct association with Allgeyer, to whom the young musician was indebted for his acquaintance with Herder's 'Stimmen der Volker,' the volume containing a translation of the Scotch ballad 'Edward' that inspired the first of the pieces in question. Brahms' memory for such details is well illustrated by his dedication to Allgeyer of the Lieder und Romanzen for two voices, with pianoforte accompaniment, Op. 75, published in 1878, the first number of which is a setting of 'Edward.' Another avowed instance of his partiality for Herder's collection is to be found in a still later work, No. 1 of the three Intermezzi for pianoforte, Op. 117, and it may be surmised that the book contains the secret key to the composer's thoughts during the writing of more than one other of the short pieces for pianoforte designated by the general name of 'Intermezzo' or 'Capriccio.'

Brahms and Allgeyer remained intimate, though with intervals of some estrangement--if this be not too strong a term to express a temporary cessation of intercourse without alleged cause--until Brahms' death; and Allgeyer, who was introduced by Johannes to Frau Schumann, came to be regarded by her as belonging to the circle of her valued friends.[51]

Schumann's desire that his young protege should apply his powerful ideal gifts and his skill in the handling of form to the composition of an orchestral work had not been disregarded by Brahms. He had tried his hand at an overture early in the year, and had worked through the spring and summer at a symphony, making his first attempts at instrumentation with the help of Grimm. It could not be otherwise than that the rapid succession of extraordinary events and vivid emotions which had agitated his spirit should prove a strong stimulus to his imagination; and it is not surprising to find that they moved him to the composition of a series of movements, two of which remain amongst the most powerful produced by him, one having been accepted by thousands of mourners all the world over as the most fitting musical expression known to them in the presence of profound grief. The symphony, as such, was never completed, but the work was thrown into the form of a sonata for two pianofortes, of which the first two movements have become known to the world as the first and second of the Pianoforte Concerto in D minor, and the third is immortalized in the 'Behold all Flesh,' the wonderful march movement in three-four time of the German Requiem. Brahms frequently played the sonata in private at this period with Frau Schumann or Grimm.

The two sets of Variations on Schumann's theme were published simultaneously, by Brahms' desire, in the autumn, with his Songs, Op. 7, dedicated to Dietrich, and the B major Trio; the variations by Johannes appearing as his Op. 9. The song 'Mondnacht' also appeared this year, without opus number, in a book of 'Album-Blatter' published at Gottingen.

The improvement in Schumann's condition went on so steadily that on September 13, the thirty-fifth anniversary of his wife's birthday, he was permitted to receive a letter from her. It contains no allusion to Brahms, but brings Schumann's tenderness in his home relationships so vividly before the mind that a short extract from it will, we think, be welcomed by the reader:[52]

'ENDENICH, _Sept. 14, 1854_.

'How I rejoiced, beloved Clara, to see your handwriting. High thanks for having written to me on such a day, and that you and the dear children still remember me. Greet and kiss the little ones!

Oh, if I could see you and speak to you again, but the way is too far. So much I should like to know; how your life is going on; where you are living and if you still play as gloriously as formerly; if Marie and Elise continue to make progress, if they still sing also--if you still have the Klems pianoforte [a present from Schumann to his wife], where my collection of scores is (the printed ones) and what has become of the manuscripts (such as the Requiem, the Sanger's Fluch); where our album is, containing autographs of Goethe, Jean Paul, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and many letters addressed to you and me.'

On the 18th he writes:

'What joyful news you have again sent me ... that Brahms, to whom you will give my kind and admiring greetings, has come to live in Dusseldorf; what friendship! If you would like to know whose is my favourite name, you will no doubt guess his, the unforgettable one!... If you write to Joachim, greet him. What have Brahms and Joachim been composing? Is the overture to Hamlet published? Has he finished anything else? You write that you are giving your lessons in the pianoforte-room. Who are the present pupils? Who the best?

Are you not doing too much, dear Clara?'

He goes on to recall the happiness of the journeys made in his wife's company, begs that their double portrait may be sent him, would like some money, in order to be able to give to the poor people whom he meets in his walks, wants a list of his children's birthdays.

A week later, September 26, he says:

'What you write about ... has given me the greatest pleasure. So also about Brahms and Joachim and their compositions. I am surprised that Brahms is working at counterpoint which does not seem like him. I should like to make acquaintance with Joachim's three pieces for pianoforte and viola. I can remember de Laurens'

portrait of Brahms, but not the one of me. Thank you for the children's birthday dates. Who are to be sponsors for the little one, and in what church is he to be baptized?...'

In October he acknowledges the arrival of Brahms' variations, sent him by his wife:

'DEAREST CLARA,

'What pleasure you have again given me! Your letter and Julie's, Brahms' variations on the theme which you have varied, the three volumes of Arnim Brentano's Wunherhorn.... I remember Herr Grimm very well, we used to be together with Brahms and Joachim at the railway-station [in Hanover]; greet him and above all Fraulein Leser. I shall write to Brahms myself....'

That this renewal of intercourse with her husband cheered and encouraged Frau Schumann for the performance of her arduous public duties during the autumn season will be readily believed. Under the necessity of a heavily increased weight of responsibility to her young children, she had bound herself to the fulfilment of a long list of concert engagements, which scarcely allowed her an interval of rest. Happily, the reports from Endenich continued favourable. Joachim, writing to Liszt on November 16, says:

'What a happiness it is that Schumann's condition is distinctly improved. I had a letter from him from Endenich lately. He relates some of our common experiences quite clearly, expressing himself in a kind, gentle way as though he had just awakened from a dream.

Everything seems new to him, and he would like to participate in what is going on; asks about compositions, about friends; one may certainly hope for the best.'

On November 27, having had time to study Brahms' variations, he writes, in the course of a letter to his wife:

'The variations of Johannes delighted me at first sight and do so still more on deeper acquaintance. I shall myself write also to Brahms; does his portrait by de Laurens still hang in my study? He is the most attractive and gifted young fellow. I recall with delight the splendid impression he made that first time with his C major Sonata, and afterwards with the F sharp minor Sonata and the Scherzo in E flat minor. Oh, if I could only hear him again! I should like his ballades also.'

To Brahms, enclosed in the above:

'Could I but come to you myself, to see you again and to hear your splendid variations, or [to hear them] from my Clara of whose wonderful interpretation Joachim has written to me. How incomparably the whole is rounded off, how one recognises you in the rich brightness of the imagination and again in the profound art, united as I have not yet known them. The theme emerging here and there, but very secretly, then so vehement and tender. The theme then quite vanishing, and at the end, after the fourteenth [variation], so ingeniously written in canon in the second; how splendid is the fifteenth in G flat major, and the last. And I have to thank you, dear Johannes, for all your kindness and goodness to my Clara; she always writes to me about it. She sent me yesterday to my pleasure, as you perhaps know, volumes of my compositions and Jean Paul's Flegeljahre. Now I hope soon to see your handwriting, however great a treasure it is to me, in another form also. The winter is fairly mild. You know the Bonn neighbourhood. I enjoy Beethoven's statue and the beautiful view of the Siebengebirge. We saw each other last in Hanover. Only write soon to

'Your affectionate and appreciative 'R. SCHUMANN.'

Brahms' answer speaks for itself:

'HAMBURG, _2 December 1854_.

'MOST BELOVED FRIEND,

'How can I describe to you my pleasure at your dear letter! You have already so often made me happy when you have remembered me so affectionately in the letters to your wife, and now I have a letter belonging entirely to myself. It is the first I have had from you; I value it beyond measure. Unfortunately I received it in Hamburg, where I had come to visit my parents; I would much rather have received it from the hand of your wife.

'I expect to return to Dusseldorf in a few days; I long to be there.

'The overmuch praise which you bestow on my variations fills me with happiness. I have been studying your works industriously since the spring; how much I should like to hear your praise of them also! I have passed this year since springtime at Dusseldorf; I shall never forget it, I have learned all the time to love you and your glorious wife more and more.

'I have never yet looked forward so cheerfully and confidently, never believed so firmly in a splendid future as now. How I wish it were near, and nearer still the happy time when you will be quite restored to us.

'I cannot then leave you any more; I shall try to earn more and more of your dear friendship.

'Good-bye, and think of me with affection.

'Your warmly venerating JOHANNES BRAHMS.