ydn." Haydn had come to her for sympathy, since,
as Pohl says and we have seen, "thanks to his wife he had hell at home"
[_die Holle im House_].

When increasing fame took Haydn by the hand and led him away to royal
triumphs in London, he did not take jealousy along with his other
luggage. He seems to have heard that his place was promptly filled in
Polzelli's heart, but with all his geniality, he could write of the
rumoured rival as "this man, whose name I do not know, but who is to be
so happy as to possess thee." Then there was a recrudescence of the old
ardour:

"Oh, dear, dear Polzelli, thou lingerest always in my heart; never,
never shall I forget thee (_O cara Polzelli, tu mi stai sempre nel
core, mal, mal scordeo di te_)."

When some one in London told him that Polzelli had sold the piano he had
given her, he could not believe it, and only wrote her, "See how they
tease me about you" (_vedi come mi seccano per via di te_). Still less
will he believe that she has spoken ill of him, and he writes:

"May God bless thee, and forgive thee everything, for I know that love
speaks in thee. Be careful for thy good name, I beg thee, and think
often of thy Haydn, who cherishes and tenderly loves thee and to thee
will always be true."

Even to Bologna, whither Polzelli went with her two sons, says Pohl,
"followed Haydn's love--and his gold." He intended after his first
London visit to go to Italy to visit her, and wrote further:

"I cherish thee and love thee as on that first day, and am always sad
that I cannot do more for you. Yet have patience. Surely the day will
come when I can show thee how much I love thee."

Loisa's choice of a spouse had been unhappy, as so many marriages have
been where the wife is a singer on the stage, and the husband a fiddler
in the band. Haydn seems to have sympathised with Loisa in her unhappy
domestic affairs, as cordially as she had sympathised with him in his.
He had sympathy, too, for her similarly ill-matched sister, Christine
Negri, for he writes of her as--

"Already long separated from her husband, that beast, she has been as
unhappy as even you, and awakes my sympathy."

Also in March, 1791, he wrote Loisa about her husband in a manner
implying that he was a brute or a maniac: "Thou hast done well to have
him taken to the hospital to save thy life." Haydn and Loisa, being
Catholics, never thought of seeking divorce: their only hope of
celebrating a formal marriage lay in