Bedridden and wracked with pain, the German poet Heinrich Heine was visited one day by an attractive young German woman, Elise Krinitz, who had come to Paris to give the poet a few sheets of music from an admirer of his poetry. Heine called her “Mouche”, because she wore a seal that was embellished with a fly. She visited him almost daily, read aloud to him, translated some of his poems into French and acted as his amanuensis. Mathilde, Heine’s wife, tolerated the relationship but avoided all contact with her. Mouche brightened the poet’s final days, inspired the most moving love poems he ever penned, and wrote down some of his late verse to Heine’s own dictation.

Offering a personal, poignant, intimate look at the final eight months of Heine’s life in Paris, Mouche: The Last Days of Heinrich Heine will surprise and enchant all admirers of the great German lyric poet and all music lovers.

This edition contains short biographies of the characters mentioned in the text, as well as all the poems that Heine wrote about Mouche and Mathilde.

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