Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [192]
Perhaps part of Brahms’s mood that summer came from his new closeness to his father. Christiane and Elise Brahms had always handled most of the family letters from Hamburg. After the separation from his wife, however, Johann Jakob began writing regularly to Hannes. It was necessary in any case because Hannes demanded an acknowledgment every time he sent money, which was often. Johannes’s letters to his father are earnest and affectionate, studiously without nuance, unlike his correspondence with anyone else. For his father’s part, there appeared little for the aging, inarticulate man to report in a letter, though in summer 1865 there was one aside that implied more than it appeared to—he wrote that he had finally found a good place to eat lunch. At the moment Johann Jakob still had his old jobs in the militia band and in the Alster Pavilion, and sawed away at his bass in the Philharmonic ignoring the snickers of the younger musicians around him.
Then, in October 1865, Johann Jakob had news indeed for his son, about the woman who had been serving him lunch at her dining room frequented by musicians. Anxious about his son’s reaction, he presented his news carefully:
Life as I am now living, contains so little that is agreeable, it is so dull and empty, that I have decided to make a change.… It is easily understood that I, who for thirty-four years had lived with my family, if not always very happily, must find it hard to accustom myself to the life I have led for the past two years. Therefore, if you think it over, you won’t hold it against me if I tell you that I am thinking of marrying again.… She is a widow, a homely body, forty-one years of age.… I hope … my dear Johannes, that we shall see each other soon, and I hope until then that you will think kindly of my intention, even if it surprises you.20
The widow’s name was Karoline Schnack, and she was eighteen years younger than her fiancé—just as Johann Jakob (fifty-nine now) had been seventeen years younger than his first wife. Abashed and uncertain about his proposing, Johann Jakob had finally approached the handsome widow with this transparent ruse: “You’re a sensible woman, Madam Schnack, who may well give an old muddlehead a piece of good advice. I have a mind to get married again. Now tell me to whom.” Laughing, Karoline had taken her cue and named herself.21 Johannes, astonished at the news but never other than indulgent with his father, wrote in reply:
When I opened your letter and found three handwritten pages, I looked with some trepidation for the news that caused you to write that much. I was indeed greatly surprised.… Dearest father, a thousand blessings and the warmest wishes for your well-being accompany you from here. How gladly would I sit at your side, press your hand, and wish you as much happiness as you deserve, which would be more than enough for one earthly lifetime.22
Johann Jakob married Karoline Schnack the following March and moved into a comfortable apartment, with space for boarders, in the Valentinskamp business quarter. Once again a room was reserved for Johannes, and his library installed there. It turned out a fortunate union, which is not to say without contention. Despite his new wife’s attempts to keep him to a tight budget, Johann Jakob was apt to cruise secondhand shops for bargains, coming home with pounds of honey or a pile of wardrobe hooks and answering his wife’s protests, “Well, I couldn’t let it stand at that price, Lina!” For all Johannes’s consecration of his mother’s memory, he formed an affectionate bond with his stepmother. Karoline seems to have been a staunch and straightforward sort, her cooking revered by Brahmses senior and junior. Soon Johannes began calling her “Mother.” Karoline