I hope that fat Tuesday will finally grant me a quiet morning in which to tell my friend a little about myself.
Whenever my head is crammed full of the hundred or so details that my present undertaking brings with it, I find that there is really no sense in talking about myself. For what was always so remarkable about our relationship was precisely the fact that the essential import of our actions and thoughts seemed quite spontaneously to engage our attention in a purified form, allowing us, as it were, to feel emancipated from our real lives the moment we met. If I empty my mind of all the rubbish that it contains in order to make it completely free for you, what remains there can be only the very best, and there can no longer be any question of torment: on the contrary, a vague melancholy settles around my soul, revealing all else to us in an appropriately worthless light: for nothing has any real value for the person who feels how much he must sacrifice whenever he wants to give meaning to the semblance of reality. —
What consoles me, in spite of all the torment that my art causes me, is the fact that it can always appear to you in a serenely cheerful light. You own and like paintings, you read and study and attend lectures: you assimilate whatever seems worthy and noble, untouched by the things that you are able to disregard. All the news you have sent me, including your latest news from this winter, agrees on this one point, namely that you have been granted the happiness of enjoying life calmly and gently. The significance of this enjoyment will now have dawned upon you in full: perhaps it means the same to you as my activities, and perhaps also my distress, mean to me. Yet I often flatter myself that I, too, might be capable of such enjoyment, and that only my mission prevents me from being able to do so. When I consider what I am capable of enduring, I cannot but be amazed, and the longing that so often consumes me for calm and peaceful seclusion is bound to seem totally unjustified. And yet I am always attended by a certain inner calm: that of the deepest and fullest resignation. A thoroughly unmalicious but all the more unerring lack of any belief has taken possession of me: as a result I have not only abandoned all hope but, more especially, all my relations to those who approach me are founded upon so insubstantial a base - in spite of the periodic airing of my often highly communicative nature - that there is no longer any possibility of my ever being shaken in this lack of belief.
Even if weeks or entire months were to pass by before I met someone again who had today made a lively impression upon me, not a single speck of dust would cloud our relationship in consequence. I am never unkind, only incredibly indifferent. Habit has no part of me.
You asked me about the women of my acquaintance. I have got to know a good many, but am not in habitual contact with any of them. Madame Ollivier is very talented and even dazzling by nature, albeit gentler than her sister. When I ask myself why it is that we see each other so rarely, I find above all that it is a certain lack of truthfulness on her part that has driven me away from her, so to speak, and I do not feel sufficiently attracted by her to take Ollivier into the bargain since, for all the kindness that he has shown me, he has one unbelievable quality, which is that of an over-excited and over-excitable barrister. The same is true of all my acquaintances: however much I cultivate their friendship, the chances of any profit on my part are so unequal that I prefer to resign the struggle and - as the mood takes me - put up with whatever fate brings my way.
Among others, these acquaintances include a democratic old maid, a certain Fräulein von Meysenbug, who is at present staying here as governess to some Russian children. She is unbelievably ugly, but she has this in her favour, that when she was first introduced to me some years ago in London, I treated her very badly in a fit of ill-temper provoked by her effusive ideas on improving the world. This memory stirred me now, and, as a result of my remorse, she now feels more at ease in my presence. My own writings had made the unhappy woman somewhat overwrought, but she is now more subdued, and is enjoying the Tannhäuser rehearsals. From the so-called upper class there is a lady whom I used to know only superficially but who has now engaged a greater measure of my attention than was previously the case: it is the Countess Kalergis, a niece of Nesselrode, the Russian Chancellor of State, whom I have no doubt already mentioned to you. As a well-known diplomatic intriguer, she used to excite open loathing on my part. However, she spent part of last summer in Paris, and she visited me here and persuaded me to summon Klindworth from London in order to make music with her. I sang Act II of Tristan with Garcia-Viardot, just the two of us, with Berlioz the only other person present. We also performed part of the Nibelungs. It was the very first time I had done so since leaving you. What drew this woman to my attention was the observation of a strange feeling of satiety on her part, a contempt for the world and a loathing which might have left me indifferent if I had not at the same time observed her quite evident and profound longing for music and poetry, a longing which in the circumstances seemed to me significant. Since she is not without talent in this respect, the woman ended up by engaging my interest. She was also the first person I met who, quite spontaneously, surprised me by her truly magnificent understanding of the position I was in. But even her I was on the whole glad to see the back of again: I simply have no need of all this.
I have already expressed my views on the Princess Metternich. She is certainly a strange creature. I was told that her dancing is utterly enchanting, and that she sings with a most original accent. She asked me recently whether I had written any fugues. She said she would enjoy playing them! I looked at her wide-eyed with amazement, and recalled how her wretched Viennese piano was perpetually out of tune and how she always asks the most incredibly naive questions. But — I told myself, everything is possible here! However, I have not yet had an opportunity to convince myself of her talents. I have had to decline all her invitations so far, and have put in an appearance only when I was obliged to entreat her to issue some command or other on my behalf, an appeal that I always preferred to address to her rather than to anyone else since I always seemed to give her great pleasure by doing so. Her husband, the young prince, is quiet and genuinely good-natured, but without any real warmth. He, too, is a composer, and has asked my permission to dedicate something to me.
Frau von Pourtalès, the wife of the Prussian ambassador, seems to be not without a certain depth, and certainly appears to have refined tastes. I have discovered that the wife of the Saxon ambassador, Frau von Seebach, is a woman of real substance. She is very ugly and coarse in her appearance, but I was surprised by a certain gentle fire glowing here beneath the lava. She could not understand how anyone could fail to see the tremendous passion of my conceptions, and thought it a risky business to take her young daughter with her to see Tannhäuser. One makes such curious acquaintanceships here! But that is all they are - acquaintanceships that I need to remind myself periodically of ever having made! The husbands of the aforementioned women are distinguished by their good-naturedness and by their very slender talent. I believe, however, that they lead a much more brutal life on the whole than the women. On the contrary, it is a common experience here, too, to find that intelligent men generally have very uninteresting wives. It is they whom I like best, namely the husbands. Their wives are not an embarrassment, and my dealings with them pass off without any difficulty, but ultimately very little hinges upon them.
Ah! child - let us speak no more of such things! Believe me, only in this way can one drag oneself along, effortfully, effortfully - and scarcely pleased to have to account for the way one does so. It is vain to wish for anything: to act and to torment oneself is the only way to forget one’s misery. Your decision, my child, not to come to Tannhäuser saddened me deeply - as you can well imagine! - simply because it robbed me of the pleasure of seeing you again in the near future. The reasons that combined to produce this decision I was obliged to accept as the promptings of your innermost heart, for it was always the safest course for me to adopt when I strove to understand you, enriching and often correcting my own feelings by appropriating yours. I was sad - and said nothing. -
Then Otto wrote to me recently to say that you would be attending the event after all. Believe me, my pleasure at this news was painfully intense! I knew that you had done yourself an injustice, and this news made me so happy that I scarcely dared hope that its promise would be fulfilled. - Now Otto has written to me again - you will not be coming with him. I find this unspeakably unsettling! Can you not see that? -
For all that your friend has had a hard struggle recently, let him now say to you quite calmly: -
The first few weeks of Tannhäuser will involve me in a great deal of work: I do not think that this is an auspicious time for answering the silent needs of our souls. A good deal of unnecessary work will be unavoidable, and everything will tend to be superficial and unedifying. I would therefore do better to agree to your own suggestion and wait for a more settled period when I can present the first performance of a complete new work of mine with the same degree of meticulous preparation as has been the case here with Tannhäuser: the performance itself must, and indeed will, have much to offer you then, when the atmosphere is calmer, and we ourselves can enjoy it calmly. -
I say all this and admit it quite openly. But should I make a secret of the fact that everyone and everything fades into insignificance beside the thought of finally being able to see you again - even for an hour? - No! My child, I shall not keep this a secret from you. And - if, in spite of everything, you were to come and risk finding little of me and my true self, I would nevertheless - egoist that I am! - give thanks for the hour that enabled me to gaze once more in your eyes! -
Enough! You know all this better than I! - At present I have a certain peace and quiet, since there are not rehearsals every day. But I have a great deal of extra work which continues to make extreme demands upon my time. The rehearsals are progressing, and receiving an unprecedented degree of care which often strikes me as incomprehensible; at all events, the forthcoming performance will be altogether exceptional. Niemann is altogether sublime; he is a great artist of the rarest kind. The success of the other parts will owe rather more to artifice: but I hope that the extreme care that has been expended here will succeed in covering up the joins. -
And now, a thousand sincere good wishes! Give Otto my warmest thanks for his loyal perseverance: whatever he finds when he arrives here, I am sure he will endure it and will certainly take away with him a significant impression.
Adieu, my friend!
The performance is still fixed for Friday the 22nd. But Otto should also be prepared for Monday the 25th!
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 263