DEAREST RICHARD,
How could I think of you otherwise than with constant love and sincerest devotion in this city, in this room where we first came near to each other, when your genius shone before me? "Rienzi" resounds to me from every wall, and when I enter the theatre I cannot help bowing to you before every one, as you stand at your desk. With Tichatschek, Fischer, Heine, and others of your friends in the orchestra here I talk of you every day. These gentlemen appear well inclined towards me, and take a warm interest in the rehearsals of the "Prometheus" and "Dante" symphonies, which are to be given next Saturday at a concert for the benefit of the Pension Fund of the chorus of the Court theatre. The Princess and her daughter will arrive this evening. The Child is mad about your "Tristan," but, by all the gods, how can you turn it into an opera for ITALIAN SINGERS, as, according to B., you intend to do? Well, the incredible and impossible are your elements, and perhaps you will manage to do even this. The subject is splendid, and your conception wonderful. I have some slight hesitation as to the part of Brangane, which appears to me spun out a little, because I cannot bear confidantes at all in a drama. Pardon this absurd remark, and take no further notice of it. When the work is finished my objection will, no doubt, cease.
For February 16th, the birthday of the Grand Duchess, I have proposed "Rienzi," and I hope Tichatschek will sing in our first two performances. The third act will necessarily have to be shortened very much. Fischer and some others even thought that we might omit it altogether. The Weymar theatre, like the Weymar state, is little adapted to military revolutions; let me know on occasion what I am to do. The rehearsals will begin in January.
My daughter Blandine has married at Florence, on October 22nd, Emile Ollivier, avocat au barreau de Paris, and democratic deputy for the city of Paris. I am longing to get back to my work soon, but unfortunately, the inevitable interruptions caused by my innumerable social relations and obligations, give me little hope for this winter. I wish I could live with you on the Lake of Zurich, and go on writing quietly.
God be with you.
Your
F. LISZT. MY DEAR, DEAR FRANZ,
I want you to receive these lines just as you are going to the first performance of your "Dante." Can I help feeling grieved to the very depth of my existence, when I am compelled to be far from you on such an evening, and cannot follow the impulse of my heart, which, were I but free, would take me to you in all circumstances, and from a distance of hundreds of miles in order to unite myself with you and your soul on such a wedding-day? I shall be with you, at least in the spirit, and if your work succeeds as it must succeed, do honour to my presence by taking notice of nothing that surrounds you, neither of the crowd, which must always remain strange to us, even if it takes us in for a moment, nor of the connoisseur, nor of the brother artist, for we have none. Only look in my eye just as if you would do if you were playing to me, and be assured that it will return your glance blissfully, brightly, and gladly, with that intimate understanding which is our only reward.
Take my hand and take my kiss. It is such a kiss as you gave me when you accompanied me home one evening last year—you remember, after I told you my sad tale. Many things may lose their impression upon me. The wonderful sympathy which was in your words during that homeward walk, the celestial essence of your nature, will follow me everywhere as my most beautiful remembrance. Only one thing I can place by the side of it, I mean that which you tell me in your works, and especially in your "Dante." If you tell the same thing to others today, remember that you can do so in the sense alone in which we display our body, our face, our existence to the world. We wear ourselves out thereby, and do not expect to receive love and comprehension in return. Be mine today, wholly mine, and feel assured that by that means you will be all that you are and can be.
Good luck on your way through hell and purgatory! In the supernal glow with which you have surrounded me, and in which the world has disappeared from my eyes, we will clasp hands.
Good luck!
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" assiduously; 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 friendship 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 God must forgive me all my sins, just as I forgive Him many things in His world, and where God 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 Strassburg, 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 manuscript 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 circumstances, 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 Strassburg or in Paris.
Farewell! Au revoir very soon.
Your
RICHARD.
252.