JACOB BERNAYS AND THE ROMANIAN QUEEN: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS.

This is another passage from the memoir of Carmen Sylva (pseudonym of Elisabeth, Queen of Romania), in which she reminisces about the distinguished scholar Jacob Bernays (1824-1881).

The great scholar Bernays was a trusted friend of our family. He spent many hours in the company of my mother who hung on his lips and always learned from him. I was a child then and wondered why he never had dinner with us. He said he was a Jew and wished to comply with his traditions. But he had more knowledge of the New Testament than we, and his thoughts were exceptionally profound.

Bernays always said that the Jewish religion was the only religion free of fetishism. He was right, for the Christian religion was obliged to adapt to all the fetishisms it encountered in diverse countries. That is the disadvantage of a religion that wants to spread its faith. It is forced to make concessions and loses depth. If the Christian religion was still the way it came out of Christ’s mouth, it would be a different faith from the one we call Christian now. If we compare our deeds and thought with the Sermon of the Mount, we can only shut our mouths and blush.

…

The Jews have maintained a purer religion, and that’s a fact, but they never adapted it for the purpose of introducing it elsewhere. They suffered persecution for hundreds of years, and did not diverge from their religion and never tried to impose it on others. Thus the persecution of Jews is not based on religion but on race. A nation does not want to see another nation in their midst gaining more power than they have themselves. That’s the simple truth.

(Source: Carmen Sylva, Mein Penatenwinkel; my trans.)

CLARA SCHUMANN’S LOVE AFFAIR --CONFESSED TO THE QUEEN OF ROMANIA.

Clara Schumann (1819-1896) was a child prodigy. She went on her first concert tour at the age of eleven, and soon played to sell-out crowds. She got to know her husband, Robert Schumann, when he took music lessons from her father and became a lodger at their house. The following (somewhat inaccurate) account appeared in the memoirs of “Carmen Sylva” , the pen name of Elisabeth, Queen of Romania.

My father and mother were divorced. From childhood on I was a little hard of hearing, but my father decided that I should become a musician. At the age of 12 I was already able to give a public performance. At one time he took me to visit my mother in Berlin. He merely pulled open the door and said: Madame, I bring you your daughter. It was very difficult for me because I adored my mother, but my father had remarried, and my stepmother was not good for me.

When I was fourteen, Schumann came to our house. We fell in love and became secretly engaged. He was eighteen, I was fourteen! We kept my strict father in the dark. He had other plans for me.

When my husband was twenty-two and I was eighteen, I stood before a judge between him and my father. Schumann proved that he was of age and fully capable of supporting a family. My father had written a letter to my bridegroom which contained eighteen injurious remarks, which is why he took him to court. And there I was, standing between them, but the judge awarded me to my bridegroom. My father foamed at the mouth, for he had always said: My daughter will not marry a common musician. She is too good even for a duke or a prince.

He threw me out, without allowing me to take my clothes or linen. My stepmother even ripped a small ring from my finger, which I had from my mother, and gave it to her daughter. Thus I was cast out and walked away with my husband, but it was heaven! Ten years of Heaven!

(Source: Carmen Sylva, Mein Penatenwinkel, my trans.)