When death comes, life comes as well, like a gale blowing
through the house. The tears are closers to the eyes, then, but the laughter as
well; the stories of good times, of joys shared, of triumphs too are as much a
part of grief as the sobs, the wails, the wrenching loss. I know that now, I
knew that then—but after my first wife María Barbara died, I felt a grief I had
not suffered in all my life.
She was as much a part of my life as—well, as I was. Which
meant that with her death I had died, too; who, then, was this shadow that was
left behind? Who was playing the music, directing the choir, fighting the
bureaucrats, testing the organs, conducting rehearsals? Couldn’t they see that
I was dead?
A death that can be shared is a death that can be tolerated,
but who was it who could share this death? María Barbara’s sister, of course,
was in the house, and was grieving as well, but she had had a month or two to
adjust, as well as the chores of raising her nephews and nieces and running the
household. And she had a sharp temper, accompanied by a biting tongue that
never was fully kept in check.
There were friends, of course, and there were those greatest
of remedies: work and routine. And so I resumed my daily tasks, and to the
outside world, I was little changed. Ah, but inside! I had lost not just the
woman who had borne my children and raised them, but who listened to me as I
protested the many indignities I had endured.
“Think,” she would say, “think, Sebastian, before you send
that letter.”
And then she would explain that the prince or the elector or
the town council—whoever it was that had enraged—may have had very good reason
for doing whatever they did. At last, I would agree not to send the letter
until I had reread it the next day. And how many of those letters did I send?
Few, very few.
She calmed me. At night, there was no greater pleasure than
falling asleep next to her; I would feel her gentle breath against my chest, as
we embraced, and I would marvel—what great fortune had sent her to me? For she
understood me both as a man and as a musician: as my second cousin, she knew
the family tradition of music-making well indeed.
I was twenty-one when we married, but how much had I done
already? I had secured an appointment at Weimar as court musician, later become
organist at St. Boniface’s in Arnstadt, and then given that up to study, for
four months, with the great Buxtehude. And so I fancied myself a man of the
world; I had no doubts about my abilities, whether recognized or not.
But who was I, as a man?
Every wise man knows it: a man is nothing until he marries. And
the truly wise know something else, as well: a woman mothers a child, but the
wife mothers the man.
Yes, she taught me as much in my manhood as my mother taught
me in my childhood. Did I know death? I thought I did: it had first entered my
life when I was six. A few years later, it carried away first my mother and
then my father. There was, I felt, nothing it could teach me. But how little
prepared I was for the years 1712 and 1713!
The first two children had come earlier: first a girl, and
then Wilhelm Friedemann. And can there
be any greater pleasure for a man than holding his first child in his arms? But
almost from the start of her third pregnancy, it was obvious that something was
wrong. She gained little weight, and seemed more fatigued than she had with the
other pregnancies. She would stop in her chores, gasp, and look far off, as if
willing herself to be somewhere else.
“You must tell her to rest,” said Friedelena Margarita, and
I did so. But did I persevere? Did I insist that she take to her bed, when she
laughed and said that she would later, or the next day? No, I was busy, with a
man’s affairs of providing for the family, coupled with my own daemon of
composing. And so I assumed that all would be well, and no man need bother
himself with what were, after all, women’s affairs.
I did notice, however, that Friedelena Margarita was
watching her closely, and often I came upon them when they were arguing quietly
about some chore or other. But was I surprised? No, they were as different as
could be: María Barbara gentle and uncomplaining, her sister harsh and
demanding.
Soon there was tension in the house, as the sisters seemed
to grow both closer and yet more angry with each other. I began to hear Friedelena’s
voice get sharper; as well, I imagined that I could hear muffled sobs? Could it
be that María Barbara was crying? But why?
“She must see a doctor, and if you won’t see to it, then I
shall,” said Friedelena.
It was late in the evening, I was yearning for bed, and I
was impatient, too, with the tension. Was I not master in my own house? Was I
to be treated so by a woman—admittedly a second cousin—whom I had taken in when
nobody else had done so? And was there to be no peace in my own home?
I spoke sharply: “My wife will see a doctor when and if she
pleases. Who better than she knows what is happening in her body? She must be
the judge of whether to go to the doctor or not!”
To this argument Friedelena was deaf.
“Indeed, she is the last person to know that she needs help.
She doesn’t want to trouble you, or to put you through the expense of a
doctor’s visit, or the expense of hiring a woman to care for her and look after
the house when the doctor tells her—as he surely will—that she must take to her
bed.”
Her voice was rasping at all times; now, it was particularly
unpleasant. And is it any wonder that I—already the greatest of Bach’s, the
preeminent musical dynasty of Germany—would be especially sensitive to the
qualities (good or otherwise) of the human voice?
And so we argued bitterly, and as always in an argument,
neither side became less adamant. At last I rose to go to bed. She, of course,
would have the last word.
“Be it on your head, Sebastian, when those babies are born
still, if born they ever be at all!”
I very nearly ordered her out of the house. I went to bed
trembling with rage, and it was there that María Barbara found me, perhaps an
hour later. She sought to appease me, and pleaded for me to forgive her sister.
But had not my authority in the house been challenged? Had I not been virtually
ordered as to how to act in my very home? Was it not she who should apologize.
Still raging, I turned my back on my wife’s pleas, and tried my best to sleep.
The days that followed were awful. The two sisters were
barely speaking; Friedelena and I ignored each other. Worse, I grew impatient
with my wife: could she not see that she should side with me, her husband? How
could she plead her sister’s cause, when it was I who had been insulted?
Shouldn’t she cleave unto her man, as the Bible bade her to do?
Any man knows—a pregnant woman can be moody, changeable. And
a man also knows that all things blow over: was I to stay at home amid the
intolerable tensions of two sisters, one of them great with child? Wasn’t it
easier to stay a bit later in the church, inspecting the progress of the organ
restoration, which was being done at great expense? Wasn’t it in fact my
obligation, since it had been I who had convinced the church and town to pay
handsomely for the work?
Did I absent myself deliberately? I wish I could say no, but
it pains me to admit that yes: I had grown tired of the tensions and the
squabbling and the suppressed anger. Friedelena at last chose to speak.
“You have abandoned your duties as husband, Sebastian. Never
before has your wife needed you more, and where are you to be found. Smoking
your pipe and drinking beer with friends in a public house, while your wife
languishes at home, too tired to drag herself to bed. What manner of man are you?
How can you treat your wife thus?”
It was now very late in the pregnancy; we were all very much
on edge. But did I pay more attention to my wife? No, even though I came more
and more often upon her as she stood, breathing shallowly and rapidly and looking
far away. And I noticed that more and more often, there would be a dampened rag
in the bathroom.
She told me later—while I had been at the public house with
my friends, she had repaired to her bed, the rag clenched between her legs to try
to stanch the flow of blood. She knew something was wrong: there were pains she
had never had with the other two pregnancies. There was the blood—minor on some
days, worse on others. And there were the contractions that would come and go—contractions
that shouldn’t have been there.
And so it was no surprise to her when she gave birth to
twins; the boy, Johann Cristoph died within moment of the birth. The girl, María
Sophía, lasted barely three weeks.
It was then that I discovered whom I had married.
