My Life, Volume II

by Richard Wagner

  All these events seemed to justify the conclusion that my receipts, especially if I included what I might still derive from St. Petersburg, would amply suffice to carry out my project of building a house at Biebrich. I therefore sent a telegram about it to my authorised agent in Wiesbaden from Moscow, and left there after a stay of only ten days. I also forwarded one thousand roubles to Minna, who was complaining that her expenses for settling down in Dresden were very heavy.

  But, unfortunately, on reaching St. Petersburg I met with serious disappointments. Every one advised me to relinquish the idea of giving my second concert on Easter Monday, the date I had fixed, as it was the general custom in Russian society to reserve that day for private gatherings. On the other hand, I could not well refuse to give a concert, on the third day after the date announced for my own, on behalf of those imprisoned for debt in St. Petersburg, seeing that this was to be given at the urgent request of the Grand Duchess Helene herself. In this latter function all St. Petersburg was already interested for the sake of their own credit, as it was under the most distinguished patronage; so that, while every seat was sold in advance for this function, I had to be content with a very empty house at the Nobles' Casino, and with proceeds which luckily did at least cover expenses. By way of contrast, the debtors' concert went off with the greatest success, and General Suwarof, the governor of the city, a strikingly handsome man, handed me a very beautifully wrought silver drinking-horn as a thank-offering from the imprisoned debtors.

  I now set about paying my farewell calls, one of which was on Fraulein von Rhaden, who distinguished herself by the warmth of her sympathy and interest. By way of compensating me for the loss of the receipts I had reckoned upon, the Grand Duchess sent me through this lady the sum of one thousand roubles, coupled with a promise that, until my circumstances improved, she would repeat the gift annually. On discovering this friendly interest, I could not help regretting that the connection thus formed was not likely to have more stable and profitable results. I addressed a petition through Fraulein von Rhaden to the Grand Duchess, praying that she would permit me to come to St. Petersburg for a few months every year, to place my talents at her disposal, both for concerts and theatrical performances, in return for which she would only have to pay me a suitable yearly salary. To this I received an evasive reply. On the day before my departure I informed my amiable guardian of my plan for settling at Biebrich, and in doing so I made no secret of my fear that after spending the money I had earned here in carrying out my building plan, my condition might be very much the same as of yore, a fear which made me wonder whether it would not be better to abandon it altogether. Whereupon I received the spirited reply: 'Build and hope!' At the last moment before starting I gratefully answered her in the same manner, and said that I now knew what to do. Thus at the end of April I departed, carrying with me the hearty good wishes of Seroff and the enthusiastic members of the orchestra, and steamed away across the Russian wilderness without calling at Riga, where I had been invited to give a concert. The long and weary road brought me at last to the frontier station of Wirballen, where I received a telegram from Fraulein von Rhaden: 'Not too rash.' This was in reference to a few lines I had left behind for her, and it conveyed quite enough to revive my doubts as to the wisdom of carrying out my house-building plans.

  I reached Berlin without further delay, and at once made for Bulow's house. During the last few months I had heard no news of Cosima's condition, and it was, therefore, with some trepidation that I stood at the door, through which the maid did not seem disposed to let me pass, saying that 'her mistress was not well.' 'Is she seriously ill?' I asked, and receiving a smilingly evasive reply, at once realised to my joy the true situation, and hastened in to greet Cosima. She had been some time delivered of her daughter Blandine, and was now on the highroad to complete recovery. It was only from casual callers that she remained secluded. Everything seemed well, and Hans was quite gay, the more so that he now thought me freed from all care for some time to come, owing to the success of my Russian trip. But I could not regard this assumption as justified, unless my wish to be invited for some months every year to St. Petersburg for renewed activity there met with a ready response. On this point I was enlightened in a more detailed letter from Fraulein von Rhaden following the above telegram, in which she told me on no account to rely upon this invitation. This distinct statement compelled me to reckon up the balance of my Russian receipts very seriously, and after deducting hotel and travelling expenses, the money sent to Minna, and certain payments to the furniture dealer at Wiesbaden, I found I had very little more than twelve thousand marks left. So the scheme of buying land and building a house had to be relinquished. But Cosima's excellent health and high spirits dispelled all anxious thought for the present. We drove out again in a splendid carriage, and in the most extravagant of good humours, through the avenues of the Tiergarten, dined to our hearts' content at the Hotel de Russie, and made up our minds that bad times had fled for ever.

  For the immediate present my plans were directed towards Vienna. I had recently heard that Tristan had once more been abandoned, this time owing to the indisposition of Frau Dustmann. In order to have this important matter more directly under my own supervision, and also because I had formed no such intimate artistic ties with any other German city as with Vienna, I clung to this as the most suitable place in which to settle. Tausig, whom I now met there in excellent health and spirits, entirely confirmed me in this opinion, and still further strengthened it by undertaking to find me precisely the pleasant and quiet dwelling in the neighbourhood of Vienna that I had set my mind upon, and through his own landlord he succeeded in getting something exactly to my taste. In what had been the pleasant abode of old Baron von Rackowitz at Penzing, I was offered the most delightful accommodation for a yearly rent of two thousand four hundred marks. I could have the entire upper part of the house and the exclusive use of a shady and fairly large garden. In the housekeeper, Franz Mrazek, I found a very obliging man, whom I at once took into my service, together with his wife Anna, an exceedingly gifted and obliging woman. For many years, amid ever-changing fortunes, this couple remained faithful to me. I now had to begin spending money in order to make my long-desired asylum fit and cosy both for rest and work. The remnant of my household belongings, including iny Erard grand, was sent on from Biebrich, as well as the new furniture I had found it necessary to buy. On the 12th of May, in lovely spring weather, I took possession of my pleasant home, and for a while wasted much time over the exciting cares connected with the fitting up of my comfortable apartments. It was at this period that my connection with Phillip Haas and Sons was first established, which was destined with the lapse of time to give me some cause for anxiety. For the moment every exertion expended on a domicile associated with so many hopes only helped to put me into the best of spirits. The grand-piano arrived in due course, and with the addition of various engravings after Raphael, which had fallen to my lot in the Biebrich division, my music-room was completely furnished in readiness for the 22nd of May, when celebrated my fiftieth birthday. In honour of the occasion the Merchants' Choral Society gave me an evening serenade with Chinese-lantern illuminations, in which a deputation of students also joined and greeted me with an enthusiastic oration. I had laid in a supply of wine, and everything passed off excellently. The Mrazeka looked after my housekeeping fairly well, and thanks to the culinary arts of Anna, I was able to invite Tausig and Cornelius to dine with me pretty frequently.

  But I was soon in great trouble again, on account of Minna, who bitterly reproached me for everything I did. Having made up my mind never to answer her again, I wrote this time to her daughter Nathalie-who was still in ignorance of the relationship between them-referring her to my decision of the previous year. On the other hand, the fact that I sadly stood in need just now of some womanly attentions and care in the management of the household became abundantly clear to me when I expressed to Mathilde Maier of Mayence the ingenuous wish that s
he would come and supply the deficiency.

  I had certainly thought that my good friend was sensible enough to interpret my meaning correctly without feeling put to the blush, and I was very likely right, but I had not made sufficient allowance for her mother and her bourgeois surroundings generally. She appears to have been thrown into the greatest excitement by my proposal, while her friend Louise Wagner was in the end so powerfully influenced that she frankly advised me, with homely shrewdness and precision, to obtain a legal separation from my wife first of all, after which everything else would be easily arranged. Grievously shocked, I at once withdrew my offer, as having been made without due deliberation, and strove as far as possible to allay the excitement thus produced. On the other hand, Friederike Meyer's inexplicable fate still caused me much involuntary anxiety. After she had spent several months of the previous winter in Venice, apparently to her benefit, I had written to her from St. Petersburg suggesting that she should meet me at the Bulows' in Berlin. I had taken into mature consideration the kindly interest which Cosima had conceived for her, with a view to discussing what steps we could take to bring order into our friend's flagrantly disorganised circumstances. She did not appear, however, but wrote instead to inform me that she had taken up her abode with a lady friend at Coburg, as her very delicate state of health seriously interfered with her theatrical career, and was endeavouring to maintain herself by occasional appearances at the small theatre there. It was obvious that for many reasons I could not send her an invitation such as that sent to Mathilde Maier, though she expressed a violent desire to see me once more for a short time, assuring me that afterwards she would for ever leave me in peace. I could only regard it as purposeless and risky to accede to this wish just then, though I kept the idea in reserve for the future. During the course of the summer she repeated the same request from several places, until, as I was engaged late in the autumn for a concert at Karlsruhe, I at last appointed that time and place for the desired meeting. From that time forth I never received the slightest communication from this most singular and attractive friend of mine, and as, moreover, I did not know where she was, I looked upon our connection as severed. Not until many years later was the secret of her position-certainly a very difficult one-revealed to me, and from the facts then stated I could only conclude that she shrank from telling me the truth concerning her connection with Herr von Guaita. It appeared that this man had much more serious claims upon her than I had suspected, and she had apparently been compelled by the necessities of her situation to accept his protection, as he was the only friend left to her, while his devotion was undeniably genuine. I heard that she was then living in complete retirement both from the stage and from society on a tiny estate on the Rhine with her two children, being, it was believed, secretly married to Herr von Guaita.

  But my careful and elaborate preparations for a quiet spell of work had not yet been successful. A burglary in the house, which robbed me of the golden snuff-box presented by the Moscow musicians, renewed my old longing to have a dog. My kind old landlord consequently handed over to me an old and somewhat neglected hound named Pohl, one of the most affectionate and excellent animals that ever attached itself to me. In his company I daily undertook long excursions on foot, for which the very pleasant neighbourhood afforded admirable opportunities. Nevertheless I was still rather lonely, as Tausig was confined to bed for a long time by severe illness, while Cornelius was suffering from an injured foot, the result of a careless descent from an omnibus when visiting Penzing. Meanwhile I was in constant friendly intercourse with Standhartner and his family. Fritz, the younger brother of Heinrich Porges, had also begun to visit me. He was a doctor who had just set up practice, a really nice fellow, whose acquaintance with me dated from the serenade of the Merchants' Glee Club, of which he had been the originator.

  I was now convinced that there was no longer any chance of having Tristan produced at the Opera, as I had found out that Frau Dustmann's indisposition was merely a feint, Herr Ander's complete loss of voice having been the real cause of the last interruption. Good old Conductor Esser tried hard to persuade me to assign the part of Tristan to another tenor of the theatre named Walter, but the very idea of him was so odious to me that I could not even bring myself to hear him in Lohengrin. I therefore let the matter sink into oblivion, and concentrated myself exclusively on getting into touch with the Meistersinger again. I first set to work on the instrumentation of the completed portion of the first act, of which I had only arranged detached fragments as yet. But as summer approached, the old anxiety as to my future subsistence began to pervade all my thoughts and sensations in the present. It was clear that, if I were to fulfil all my responsibilities, particularly with regard to Minna, I should soon have to think of undertaking some lucrative enterprise again.

  It was therefore most opportune when a quite unexpected invitation from the management of the National Theatre in Buda- Pesth reached me to give two concerts there, in compliance with which I went at the end of July to the Hungarian capital, and was received by the manager Radnodfay. There I met a really very talented violinist named Remenyi, who at one time had been a protege of Liszt, and showed boundless admiration for me, even declaring that the invitation to me had been given entirely on his initiative. Although there was no prospect of large earnings here, as I had professed myself content to accept a thousand marks for each of the two concerts, I had reason to be pleased both with their success and with the great interest manifested by the audience. In this city, where the Magyar opposition to Austria was still at its strongest, I made the acquaintance of some exceedingly gifted and distinguished-looking young men, among them Herr Rosti, of whom I have a pleasant recollection. They organised a truly idyllic festivity for me, in the form of a feast, held by a few intimates on an island in the Danube, where we gathered under an ancient oak tree, as though for a patriarchal ceremony. A young lawyer, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, had undertaken to propose the toast of the evening, and filled me with amazement and deep emotion, not only by the fire of his delivery, but also by the truly noble earnestness of his ideas, which he based upon a perfect knowledge of all my works and undertakings. We returned home down the Danube in the small boats of the Rowing Club, of which my hosts were members, and on our way had to face a hurricane, which lashed the mighty stream into the wildest tumult. There was only one lady in our party, Countess Bethlen-Gabor, who was seated with me in a narrow boat. Rosti and a friend of his who had the oars were concerned solely with the fear that our boat would be shivered against one of the timber-rafts, towards which the flood was carrying us, and therefore exerted themselves to the utmost to avoid them; whereas I could see no other way of escape, especially for the lady sitting beside me, than by boarding one of these very rafts. In order to effect this (against the wish of our two oarsmen) I seized with one hand a projecting peg on a raft we were passing and held our little vessel fast, and, while the two rowers screamed that the Ellida would be lost, quickly hoisted the lady out of the skiff on to the raft, across which we walked to the shore, calmly leaving our friends to save the Ellida as best they could. We two then continued our way along the bank through a terrific storm of rain, but yet on safe and sure ground, towards the city. My conduct in presence of this danger did not fail to increase the respect in which my friends held me, as was proved by a banquet given in a public garden at which a great number of my admirers were present. Here they treated me quite in Hungarian style. An enormous band of gipsy musicians was drawn up, and greeted me with the Rakoczy March as I approached, while the assembled guests joined in with impetuous shouts of 'Eljen!' There were also fiery orations with appreciative allusions to myself and my influence which extended far and wide throughout Germany. The introductory parts of these speeches were always in Hungarian, and were meant to excuse the fact that the main oration would be delivered in German for the sake of their guest. Here I noticed that they never spoke of me as 'Richard Wagner,' but as 'Wagner Richard.'

 
; Even the highest military officials were not behindhand in offering me their homage, through the medium of Field-Marshal Coronini. The Count invited me to a performance by the military bands in the castle at Ofen, where I was graciously received by him and his family, treated to ices, and then conducted to a balcony whence I listened to a concert given by the massed bands. The effect of all these demonstrations was exceedingly refreshing, and I almost regretted having to leave the rejuvenating atmosphere of Buda-Pesth, and return to my dull and musty Viennese asylum.

  On the homeward journey, in the beginning of August, I travelled part of the way with Herr von Seebach, the amiable Saxon Ambassador, whom I had known in Paris. He complained of the enormous losses he had incurred through the difficulty of administering the South Russian estates he had acquired by marriage, and from which he was just returning. On the other hand, I was able to reassure him as to my own position, which seemed to give him genuine pleasure.

  The small receipts from my Buda-Pesth concerts, of which, moreover, I had only been able to carry away half, were not calculated to afford me any effectual relief as to the future. Having now staked my all on what I trusted might be a permanent establishment, the first question was how best to secure a salary, which should at least be certain though not necessarily over-large. Meanwhile I did not consider myself bound to abandon my St. Petersburg connection, nor the plans I had founded upon it. Nor did I entirely disbelieve the assurances of Remenyi, who boasted that he had great influence with the Magyar magnates, and assured me it would be no great matter to obtain a pension in Buda-Pesth, such as I had thought of securing in St. Petersburg and involving similar obligations. He did, in fact, visit me soon after my return to Penzing, accompanied by his adopted son, young Plotenyi, whose extraordinary good looks and amiability made a very favourable impression on me. As for the father himself, although he won my warm approbation by his brilliant performance of the Rakoczy March on the violin, yet I quickly perceived that his glowing promises had been meant rather to create an immediate impression on me than to ensure any permanent result. In accordance with his own desire, I very soon afterwards lost sight of him altogether.