Mouche

Mouche, affectionate name given by H. Heine to Elise Krinitz (1830-97). Married early and abandoned by her husband, ‘die Mouche’ called on Heine in July 1855, bringing greetings from an admirer of the poet in Vienna, and she continued to visit him until his death. One of his most moving poems is superscribed Für die Mouche. Late in life, under the pseudonym Camille Selden, she published her recollections of Heine (Les Derniers Jours de Henri Heine, 1883).