In this, as in so many other episodes of Wagner's life, we have unfortunately only his version of what happened. He calls just the witnesses he wants, elicits just the evidence that suits him, and then complacently gives the verdict in his own favour. To the outsider it looks as if he had been extremely foolish with Madame Laussot and extremely arrogant with her husband; and we may reasonably suppose that if they could tell the story from their side they could make the case rather worse for Wagner than he has done for himself. The real facts will perhaps never be known: I say "the real facts," for no one who has studied the autobiography carefully, with a knowledge of such cases as those of Hornstein, Lachner, Hanslick, the Wesendoncks, and others, can believe that Wagner's account of the affair gives us the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But letting that pass, we may now observe how once more the story in Mein Leben fails to square with the evidence obtainable elsewhere.
That Madame Laussot had become disillusioned concerning him is plain from his own further account. One day Karl Ritter receives a letter from her which he hesitates to show to Wagner. The latter tears it out of his hand, and finds that "she had written to say she felt obliged to let my friend know that she had become sufficiently enlightened about me to make it necessary for her to drop my acquaintance." Her mother and her husband had taken steps to break off all correspondence between her and Wagner; he gracefully refers to them now as "the two conspirators," and charges them with "calumniating" him. "Mrs. Taylor had written to my wife complaining of 'my intention to commit adultery,' expressing her sympathy with her, and offering her support; poor Minna, who now suddenly thought she had found a hitherto unsuspected reason for my resolve to live apart from her, in turn complained to Mrs. Taylor." There has been, in fact, "a curious misunderstanding" of a joking remark of his. He is very indignant over it all, but chiefly at the way Minna had been treated! While he was himself indifferent as to what the others might think of him, he accepted Karl Ritter's offer to go to Zürich and set Minna's mind at rest with a proper explanation.[104]
This looks plausible enough, but I am afraid there is a touch of fiction in it. Let us look at a letter from Wagner to Minna of nine years later:
"Neither can I blame you for giving me that dear Bordeaux to smell at in return, especially as you have kept a secret from me, the hearing of which really astounds me. So someone wrote you at the time, that I went that second time to Bordeaux to abduct a young wife from her husband?? Now let me assure you on my honour and most sacred conscience that such a shameless lie and calumny was never yet invented against any man. If it would conduce to your honour and peace of mind, I should be quite ready to give you the exact details of the whole of the episode, and you would then find that I doubtless acted very stupidly at that time, but certainly not evilly to any one."[105]
I do not see what meaning we can attach to this except that for nine years Wagner had been unaware that Minna knew as much as she actually did of the Bordeaux affair. The revelation evidently comes as a complete surprise to him. We can take it as certain that, as he says in Mein Leben, Mrs. Taylor had really written to Minna, telling her what had happened. But the letter of 1859 makes it appear as if Minna had kept the secret to herself all these years. The only conclusion we can come to, then, is either that Wagner was in error in saying he had deputed Karl Ritter to explain matters to Minna, or that he had told Karl rather less than the full truth. This may seem a bold conclusion to draw, but I do not see what other is possible from the evidence. The remark in the letter—"so someone wrote to you at the time," &c.—squares with the account given in Mein Leben. But the rest of the letter seems to indicate that till that moment he had no idea of there having been such a letter. We seem forced to conclude either that Wagner's memory was playing him false, or that his desire to make the world see the facts as he would have preferred them to have been had militated somewhat against strict accuracy—as it did in the Hornstein and other cases.
And now we have, I think, the explanation, or partial explanation, of a good deal of Minna's jealous suspicion in the 'fifties and 'sixties, especially as regards Frau Wesendonck. Knowing of Wagner's relations with Madame Laussot, knowing also that he had kept these relations a secret from her both when he was writing to her at the time and in the years that followed, knowing at first-hand, too, as well as we know now through Mein Leben and the letters, her husband's ineradicable tendency to prendre son bien où il le trouvait, we can understand her frequent uneasiness of mind. If we are to be fair to her we must get away from the historical standpoint, from which all that is seen is the great musician blundering through life and sacrificing everybody and everything in order to consummate his art; we must look at it also from the standpoint of Minna and the moment, putting the genius out of the question and taking it purely as a case of any husband and any wife. And when this is done, though we may still regret the tragedy of their union and admit that Minna was not the best wife possible for such a man as he—that she had, indeed, almost as many faults as a wife as Wagner had as a husband—we shall at all events refuse to join in the venomous outcry of the extreme Wagner partisans against her.[106]
MINNA WAGNER.