My good Minna,
My kindest greetings and thanks for your letters! The one received to-day, however, was too long overdue; every evening when I came home from dinner my first look was at the table where my letters are always placed, as they generally arrive in that interval: as I found none, and had intended waiting for your answer to my last, I likewise postponed writing to you, since I kept thinking — Her letter is sure to come tomorrow, and then you can answer that as well. You mustn't ever take it ill of me, that I like to have frequent reports on your condition; even when it includes complaints, a letter always reassures me very much — the mere sight of it makes me feel that. I shall write to Pusinelli one of these days. — Dear Minna, nothing concerns me so much, as to have good and gratifying prospects of your health. Everything else lies in human power, and what I cannot attain I must strike from my mind, to turn what remains to me to the utmost advantage. By which I mean, as regards the final settlement of our patriation question: let it fall out in this year as it will, in our hands it lies to decide for ourselves — according to circumstances — and establish our domestic hearth as well as possible. But — health: that's what you have to bring to it, good Mutz! Take thorough good care of yourself, and think of nothing now beyond procuring yourself everything, and observing everything, that is of service to you; that is your duty, not only to yourself — but also to me. —
The symptoms which alarm you now and then at present are truly no matter for wonder; all your organs have been taxed in the highest degree by your incessant heart-trouble and sleeplessness. In a lower degree that was also the case before, particularly in the form of prolonged debility after agitating conditions. But if the heart-beat only improves a little (as indeed you have assured me, to my joy!), the principal cause disappears, and — after rest, recreation, a good cure and cheerful visit to the country — the organs will regain their strength at last, and — ultimately your good constitution will enduringly conquer, especially if all moral sufferings stay more and more aloof. And that lies in our own — in my hands; I'll see to that, I promise you! —
I am fairly melancholy on the whole now; I have to keep on calling to myself with all my might: Hold out! Patience! Sit firm! — Neither should I care to pursue this sort of life for long; though I mostly choke my longing for varied activity and an ampler, more stimulating life in general by recalling my past experience, and reflecting that this world can only yield me more annoyance and dissatisfaction, at bottom, than contentment and uplifting. When I think of the celebrity I now have reached, the number and variety of those by whom my works are admired and loved, and yet that I cannot even attain to so much as to be able to exist and move about in unmolested safety, the question can't but haunt me, What can be the matter with the whole of this world? All have words, words, regrets, condolences — but definite, thorough-going help occurs to none. — My sole remaining trust is pinned to the Grand Duke of Baden.
In a very short time, the next few days perhaps, I must know the last answer from Saxony. Devrient wrote me last time that the G.D. had instantly expressed his readiness to grant my wish and make definitive enquiries forthwith at Dresden concerning my projected visit to Carlsruhe; at the same time he sent me word that, after the declarations already received, he was sure of obtaining no refusal to his request, and consequently I might count on it as positively as one could count on anything in matters human. Devrient is so sure of his affair that I have already had to forward him the first act of Tristan for copying out, since his copyists are very slow and he would like to have something rehearsed before the summer vacation. So let us wait for that definitive answer from Dresden. If it turns out according to the G.D.'s expectation, I think I shall let that suffice for the present, and do nothing further in the matter. Once I'm at Carlsruhe and can get into personal contact with the young Highnesses, I hope for sure to bring the whole affair to a definitive conclusion there. Should there be nothing else for it, however, I am determined then to go from Carlsruhe to Dresden with a safe-conduct, to bring the matter to a legal head and final clearance; you have my word on that! So — everything shall certainly be set in order this year.
Should King Johann on the other hand revoke his promise to the G.D., against all expectation, it then remains agreed that I address myself exhaustively to the Minister of Justice, as we settled before, and — if there's nothing else whatever for it — surrender myself at Dresden before Carlsruhe. It surely would be disgraceful, though, if these grudging hard-hearted folk should think needful thus to torture me first; but — I can't conceal it from myself — one may credit them with anything! Even here I have recently heard that the Saxon ambassador to Vienna had actually demanded my instant expulsion from Venice: that was the time when my pass was redemanded of me. The Vienna ministry replied by asking the ambassador whether he would present a formal request for my expulsion in the name of his Government: Austria would be very loth to comply with it, more particularly as I had a good Swiss pass and stood under the protection of Switzerland, whilst Austria was on very friendly terms with Switzerland at present. The ambassador thereon said nothing more about it, and — I was allowed to stay. — This was reported hither through an official of the Vienna ministry; therefore your communication to a similar effect finds me already acquainted with the matter. All the more reason, now we see what pleasant little gentlemen these are at Dresden, for my not wishing you to give yourself away. Indeed it will avail you nothing: in the best event a few fair words, but without any serious results. —
Now I have shewn you the way I mean to go, I hope you will agree to it. I shall know something quite definite very soon, you see, and hope for a good issue; for — as I told you last time — even Liszt, the mysterious, writes very confidently at last. He simply points to the fact of the Duke of Coburg (who — entirely between ourselves — wants to dedicate his new opera to me!!??) having lately taken very serious counsel about my situation, and — as it seems — set measures on foot (perhaps in the Bundestag) which have inspired Liszt with such great confidence. So I really think it's bound to come to pass in a fashion honourable to myself at last. —
Liszt is quite disheartened about his position at Weimar, and has given the Opera up entirely. — It has been a singular tale with Rienzi. You know how long that opera has been going to come out there. It seems that Liszt had been put off at Court, particularly through Dingelstedt. I had commissioned Liszt to extract me a specially handsome fee for it; even then he thought I had better not set it too high, as he had difficulties in bringing out the opera at all. In itself that riled me. Finally Dingelstedt sends me an official letter of enquiry, a short time back, about Rienzi and what fee I should ask. I answered him just as tersely, that I had never asked a fee from Weimar, but received what they deemed becoming! Reply: he offers me 25 louis d'or, to be paid after the first representation. I forwarded that letter to Liszt, made somewhat merry over it, and simply remarked that I was accustomed to receive my fee from every theatre immediately on its receipt of the score. After a while he begged me not to leave Dingelstedt without an answer, as the latter made a point of it. Then the thing disgusted me at last; I wrote Liszt a letter for him to shew, telling him I didn't care a rap about the Weimar production of Rienzi etc., yet giving him to understand they still might suit me if they sent me a respectable fee at once. Honestly, that was my only real object; but Liszt, who has long been in strained relations with Dingelstedt, and was merely watching for a good excuse for rupture, seized this occasion to withdraw Rienzi and proudly declare he would conduct no more operas. — Really that was too much for me, and I answered Liszt, with humour, that he had taken the thing too seriously, I had simply meant to give him a weapon for threatening with and quickly extracting a good fee. Well, he has taken that amiss again. Nonsense without end! —
Now I'll answer a few things in your letter. — I can only understand X's silly behaviour to you on the assumption of his being (between ourselves) a good person. You are the friend (probably he also believes, the confidante) of his wife, and that is enough to make him suspect you. Just leave him alone for the present. — But tell me for Heaven's sake, what is all this about a "Hotel de Saxe" story which I am supposed to know already, and regarding which you make use of strange expressions to me? I haven't a notion: let that suffice you. Moreover, accept my assurance that I have not made X my confidant with a single word; never have I mentioned the least thing to him. Another piece of rubbish!! —
Would you like to know how I brought about the acceptance of Rienzi at Hanover after all? You having written me that Niemann had taken fright as to getting through the part after hearing Tichatscheck in it, I wrote and asked him if he hadn't detected that T. was really covering up his true weakness with that immense, often quite needless parade and display of staying power; or if he believed there was nothing else in Rienzi than just one everlasting cheerful outlet for the voice? By all means T. imposed thereby, and his strict object was simply to prove that nobody could imitate him in that; with thorough love of mischief, he had done this for the benefit of Niemann also, who is young still and certainly nothing like so distinguished a singer. So I shewed him how the role should be conceived, to solve my task, instead of merely cloaking it with staying-power. Then I told him that if he gave the role so originally, according to my own conception, he for the first time might shew T. himself what there lay in Rienzi. That is my honest opinion, and I may tell yourself that T. is by no means my ideal Rienzi. In this part, where nothing ever serves him save his strength of voice and staying-power, he does me positive harm; and I want a more intelligent performer to solve the task, and at the same time prove it isn't only T. who can sustain it. — Well, that gave Niemann quite another notion; and the opera at once was set down for performance in H. — Perhaps you will reproach me with a little treachery to T.; but reflect, dear child, how oppressed and contraried I always have felt by intimacy with this sort of people, who strictly stand the breadth of heaven apart from me. I can't deny it, I do not make much account of friendships of this kind. His attachment touches me, however, and so I take a good deal else into the bargain. —
In general I have grown rather fastidious toward the Dresden art-world, for example, through my long exile; a certain class of trashy talk has become very painful to me. Had even the Devrient nothing better to say of my Tristan, than her remark about the long death-scene in the third act? So this act is nothing save a death-bed? Well, I can see in it a deal besides, and even the practical side of its execution has been well thought out by me. Really, the lady is only cut out for the stage; to which, I'm astonished to hear from you, she would like to return. Can she never conceive of art as art, then, but merely as stage-routine?
Ask Papa Fischer if he knows of any poet who wrote a drama in a state of amorousness (Verliebtheit)! As if Schiller must have written his Robbers among a pack of bandits, or Shakespeare his Othello as a jealous husband! One can depict nothing truly (nichts wahrhaft dichten), particularly in Drama, which does not stand outside one, so that one sees it as if in front of him; if one is involved in it, he is incapable of clear poesy. But that is not given to everyone to comprehend, and least of all that the poet, just because he is a poet, can even portray a world he has never seen, as Jean Paul an Italy he never had travelled. — I still can remember Count Redern's surprise when he made my personal acquaintance in Berlin after the Flying Dutchman: "Good God — he said — but you're quite a pleasant sort of man; from your opera I should have expected to find a gloomy, forbidding character." Ah — no doubt I shall have plenty more of that kind of stuff to hear, once I get about in the world again; but I also shall grow indifferent to it! For the present I'm mostly a trifle too melancholy; I grant it, my seclusion has its shady sides. Moreover, I'm never quite well; my susceptibleness is always increasing. The long want of movement has put my liver (Unterleib) out of order. What I chiefly suffer from are chills; never have I frozen so much, as in Italy. Certainly my apartments are only reckoned for summer, as they have no sun, the bedroom never; what that costs for firing in these wretched stoves, with these badly fitting doors and windows, is enough to make your hair stand. My only hope remains an early advent of Spring, when I mean to enjoy my lodgings thoroughly at last; but it will then be getting time to think of turning out!! —
Doubtless Karl has told you of my soirée? An Italian music-master, a great enthusiast of mine, had played the Minstrels' Contest on the piano to Prince Dolgoruki; then I told them they could form no notion of it that way, they must come to me one evening and I would sing it. And so it befell. To wind up, I gave them ices. For that matter, it won't be repeated. —
Here come my evening callers, Karl and Winterberger; so I suppose I must conclude here, as the brats won't take No for an answer. I will write you about Karl another time: he has shewn me his piece; it has great beauties, but also great defects, which he's altering at my suggestion. — I am instrumenting at present, and think of sending Härtels some manuscript again at last; God grant I may be able to go on undisturbed now. I may tell you so much: I have never written such a piece of music as this second act; all my other works are indifferent to me now in comparison. Only trust me; when I do compose, it turns out nothing ordinary.
But farewell for to-day, dear good Minna! Put your best foot forward and defy the scurvy climate, which seems indeed to be exquisitely bad in Dresden. Here it's nearly always bright, even if somewhat cold on account of the North wind. If I could only give you ever-smiling skies and fine soft air! Even for that, tho', means may yet be found. Meanwhile — just a little more patience and calm! Good times will come! —
Give Nette my best regards, and thank her in my name for her care of you. Should anything good turn up, you shall hear of it promptly; otherwise — always an answer by return. Adieu, hearty greeting and kiss from
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 157