Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt Volume II Part 27

Your

RICHARD.

250.

January 1st, 1858.

I want to consecrate my pen for the new year, and cannot do so better than by a greeting to you, my dear Franz. Above all other wishes is my wish of seeing you and enjoying you to my heart's content. The worst loss of the past year has been that of the visit you had promised me. If I were to try to imagine the greatest delight that could be vouchsafed to me, it would be to see you suddenly in my room. Are you inclined at all for such a stroke of genius? If I were only free you would experience such a surprise from me, but I must no longer hope for miracles; everything comes to me in a laborious and gradual way, and, after all, I have to share it with a host of Zurich professors. You perceive I am not very many-sided. My ideas move in a somewhat narrow circle, which, fortunately, through the objects it comprises, becomes as large as the world to me (I do not count the Zurich professors amongst those objects). If I have a grudge against your eternal and manifold obligations and engagements, you will understand my very special reason, viz., that they take you away from ME so much. Candidly speaking, my being together with you is everything to me; it is my fountain, all the rest is but overflow. When I sit down to write to you I do not know what to say. Nothing occurs to me but what I cannot write. To speak to you of "business" is altogether an abomination to me, for when I deal with you my heart grows large, while business narrows it in the most deplorable manner. It is bad enough when, as formerly was too often the case, I am compelled to trouble you with my private sorrows. Especially today these must be far from me, for the first stroke of my pen in the new year is to convey nothing but a pure, sonorous greeting to you. I want to tell you, however, that yesterday, at last, I finished the first act of "Tristan." I shall work at "Tristan" a.s.siduously; at the beginning of the next winter season I want to produce it somewhere.

My reading is, at present, confined to Calderon, who will at last induce me to learn a little Spanish. Heaven forbid that in that case I should remind you of H. Nageli. The necessary cache-nez I possess. My wife has given me one, together with a splendid carpet with swans on it, a la Lohengrin. I heard recently of your Dresden life with Gutzkow, Auerbach, etc., etc. Oh, you tremendous fellow! You can do anything. Perhaps you, too, will appear to me in a Spanish light, when I shall have a good laugh at you. I have struck up a friends.h.i.+p with the X.'s for the sole purpose of not being again left out of their invitation when the time comes. But I begin already to regret having done so, and any amount of enthusiasm cannot make me appreciate this abominable race of professors. But you will see by my having made the attempt that I wish to get rid of my roughness, in order to be quite amiable at your next visit. Did I recently write something stupid to the dear Child? I cannot remember exactly, but G.o.d must forgive me all my sins, just as I forgive Him many things in His world, and where G.o.d forgives, the Child should not be sulky. You ought to be angry least of all, for you must know that I love no one as I love you, and that it was you who taught me to love. If the Princess is angry with me I want her to give a good scolding one of these days to Professor M., or Professor V., etc., for it is in reality the fault of this type of men if I make any one angry.

I am delighted above everything at your being well again, although I find it difficult to believe that there are men who can go through what you go through. I am in fairly good health, and still have to thank Vaillant for it. I wish I could reward him.

Let me hear from you soon, and do not mind my nonsense. Greet the Altenburg with a will, and tell the dear ladies that they are to hold me in kind remembrance.

The blessings of a world on you, my Franz. Farewell.

Your R. W.

251.

DEAREST FRANZ,

I intend to go to Paris in order to look after my interests there. If it is too far for you, or if you do not like to come to Paris, we might as well meet at Stra.s.sburg, I should like to consult you about my whole position, in order to have the consent of my only friend to my new undertakings. For the present you will see, at least, that I am not acting hastily. I wait for some money coming in. Everything leaves me in the lurch. I have had to send a power of attorney to Haslinger in Vienna, in order to compel the manager there to pay me some considerable sums which he owes me, but I cannot with any certainty reckon upon success within a month. At Berlin they have given "Tannhauser" exactly once during last quarter, and for the first time I received very little money, while formerly I used to draw considerable sums from there during the winter. The Hartels, to whom I made some days ago the offer of "Tristan" on certain conditions, I cannot ask for an advance of money, even in the favourable case of their accepting my offer, because I should not be able to send them the ma.n.u.script before the end of February. The housekeeping money of my wife is in the last stage of consumption, and she longingly expects funds from me to meet the new year's bills. In such circ.u.mstances, and being absolutely without resources, I am in the painful position of having to delay my necessary journey, which I could not undertake, even if I had only the actual travelling money, because I must not leave my wife without means for ever so short a time. I shall therefore require at least one thousand francs in order to get away. By Easter at the latest, and perhaps sooner, I shall ask Hartel for a considerable sum on account of the first act, and promise faithfully to return the money then. Please consider from whom, and how, you can get the money for me. Send me the money, and let me know at the same time where you can meet me, at Stra.s.sburg or in Paris.

Farewell! Au revoir very soon.

Your

RICHARD.

252.

DEAREST RICHARD,

At Weymar I cannot raise ten thalers just at present, but I have written at once to Vienna, and in a week's time the sum of a thousand francs, named by you, will be handed to you by my son- in-law, M. Emile Ollivier (avocat au barreau et depute de la ville de Paris). Call on him at the end of next week. He lives rue St. Guillaume, No. 29, Faubourg St. Germain.

If it is of use to you to have some conversation with me, I will come to Stra.s.sburg for one day, although I find it difficult to leave Weymar at the present moment.

The Princess has had an excellent idea, of which you will hear more before long. She will write to you as soon as she has had an answer with regard to it.

G.o.d be with you!

F. L.

FRIDAY, January 15th, 1858.

Your telegram, arrived a day before your letter which I received last night. Let me have your address; poste restante is not safe.

253.

DEAREST FRANZ,

Tired to death and worn out, I write only to tell you that I have arrived at Paris, and that my address is Grand Hotel du Louvre (No. 364).

In a modest room on the third floor, overlooking the inner courts, I found at last the quiet position which is necessary to me.

I expect help from you. My difficulty is great. In a few days I shall write more calmly.

Your

R. W.

254.

GRAND HOTEL DU LOUVRE, No. 364, PARIS.

You dear, splendid man! How can I be unhappy, when I have attained the supreme happiness of possessing such a friend, of partic.i.p.ating in such love? Oh, my Franz! could we but live always together! Or is the song to be right after all: "Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath, da.s.s von dem liebsten was man hat, muss scheiden?"

Farewell; tomorrow I shall write about other things. A thousand greetings!

Your

R. W.

255.

Yet another friend, dearest Franz, has a kind fate vouchsafed to me. I was permitted to feel the delight of becoming acquainted with such a poet as Calderon in my mature stage of life. He has accompanied me here and I have just finished reading "Apollo and Klymene," with its continuation "Phaeton." Has Calderon ever been near to you? I can unfortunately approach him through a translation only on account of my great want of gift for languages (as for music). However, Schlegel, Gries, who has translated the more important pieces, Malsburg, and Martin (in the Brockhaus edition) have done much towards disclosing the spirit and even the indescribable subtlety of the poet to us. I am almost inclined to place Calderon on a solitary height.

Through him I have discovered the significance of the Spanish character--an unheard of incomparable blossom, developed with such rapidity, that it soon had to arrive at the destruction of matter, and the negation of the world. The fine and deeply pa.s.sionate spirit of the nation finds expression in the term "honour," which contains all the n.o.blest and at the same time most terrible elements of a second religion; the most frightful selfishness and the n.o.blest sacrifice simultaneously find their embodiment in it. The essence of the "world" proper could never have been expressed more pointedly, more brilliantly, more powerfully and at the same time more destructively, more terribly. The most striking imaginings of the poet have the conflict between this "honour" and a profoundly human pity for their subject. This "honour" determines the actions which are acknowledged and praised by the world, while wounded pity takes refuge in a scarcely expressed, but all the more deeply moving, sublime melancholy, in which we recognise the essence of the world to be terror and nothingness. It is the Catholic religion which tries to bridge over this deep chasm, and nowhere else did it gain such profound significance as here, where the contrast between the world and pity was developed in a more pregnant, more precise, more plastic form than in any other nation. It is very significant for that reason that almost all the great Spanish poets took refuge in priesthood in the second half of their lives. It is a unique phenomenon that from this refuge, and after conquering life by ideal means, these poets were able to describe the same life with greater certainty, purity, warmth, and precision than they had been capable of while they still were in the midst of life. Yea, the most graceful, most humorous creations were given to the light from that ghostly refuge. By the side of this marvellously significant phenomenon, all other national literatures appear to me without importance. If nature produced such an individual as Shakespeare amongst the English, we can easily see that he was unique of his kind; and the fact that the splendid English nation is still in full blossom, carrying on the commerce of the world, while the Spanish nation has perished, moves me so deeply, because it enlightens me as to what is really important in this world.

And now, dear friend, I must tell you that I am very satisfied with myself. This curious and unexpected fact is particularly useful to me for my stay in Paris. Formerly Paris used to fill me with fears of boding evil; in one sense it excited my desire, while on the other it repelled me terribly, so that I continually felt the sufferings of Tantalus. At present only the repulsive quality remains, while every charm has lost its power. The nature of that repulsiveness I now fully understand, and it appears to me as if my eyes had always possessed an unconscious faculty which has at last become conscious to me. On a journey, in carriages, etc., my gaze always tried involuntarily to read in the eyes of fellow-travellers whether they were capable of, or destined for salvation, that is, negation of the world. A closer acquaintance with them often deceived me as to this point; my involuntary wish frequently transferred my divine ideal to the soul of another person, and the further course of our acquaintance generally led to an increase of painful disappointment, until, at last, I abandoned and violently cut short that acquaintance.

FIRST sight is less fallible, and as long as my intercourse with the world is of a pa.s.sing kind, my feeling with regard to it is free from any doubt, resembling, as it does, that perfect consciousness which comes to us on better acquaintance with people, after we have thrown off prolonged and laboriously sustained illusions. Even the pa.s.sing sight of individuals, in whose features I see nothing but the most terrible error of life,--a restless, either active or pa.s.sive, desire,--affects me painfully; how much more then must I be terrified and repelled by a ma.s.s of people whose reason for existence appears to be the most shallow volition. These finely and very clearly cut physiognomies of the French, with their strong feeling for charming and sensuously attractive things, show me the qualities which I see in other nations in a washed-out, undeveloped state, with such precision as to make illusion even for a moment impossible. I feel more distinctly than elsewhere in the world that these things are quite strange to me, just because they are so precise, so charming, so refined, so infallible in form and expression. Let me confess to you that I have scarcely been able to look at the marvellous new buildings erected here; all this is so strange to me that, although I may gaze at it, it leaves no impression on the mind. As no delusive hope, that might be excited here, has the slightest attraction for me, I gain by my absolutely unimpa.s.sioned position towards these surroundings a calmness which--let me say it with a certain ironic humour--will probably be of advantage to me in gaining that for which I strove here in my early days, and which now, as it has become indifferent to me, I shall probably attain.