I promised to return in two days and inform them if the lord wanted
the instrument; but on that date I was at Ruedesheim, drinking
Ruedesheimer." In another place he gives an account of "a scene
worthy of Van Dyck, and a most genial evening" he spent with some
students at a tavern filled with peasants. They had some grog, and at
the request of the peasants one of the students declaimed, and
Schumann played. Then a dance was arranged. "The peasants beat time
with their feet. We were in high spirits, and danced dizzily among
the peasant feet, and finally took a touching farewell of the company
by giving all the peasant girls, Minchen, etc., smacking kisses on
the lips."
Were women, like men, afflicted with retrospective jealousy,
Schumann's widow, in editing these letters, would have received a pang
from many other passages revealing Schumann's fondness for the fair
sex. He allowed no good-looking woman to pass him on the street
without taking the opportunity to cultivate his sense of beauty. After
his engagement to Clara he gives her fair warning that he has the
"very mischievous habit" of being a great admirer of beautiful women
and girls.
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