"Frau Wesendonck was very grateful and friendly to me, accompanied me hand-in-hand to the steps, and everything was settled in a friendly way. Afterwards, however, she thought differently of it: she told her husband that I had insulted her frightfully, but without telling him the real truth as to the relations. She cried out to Richard how deeply and horribly I had offended her,—in spite of the fact that I had been delicate enough not to show her the fatal letter, which I had in my pocket. But this is the way with common little natures. They can do nothing but tittle-tattle and stir up mischief."[186]
Minna's heart trouble had been greatly aggravated by these emotional storms. To do Wagner justice, he was always making allowance in his correspondence for her conduct on the score of her ill-health,[187] but, needless to say, it never occurred to him to help to restore her health by refraining from his pursuit of his "Muse" at the Green Hill, or by making any other "renunciation" of the things he liked.[188] "My good husband," writes Minna to Frau Herwegh on 14th June 1858 from Brestenberg, where she had been undergoing a "cure," "could be good and assuage my pains[189] if he would not let himself be dragged about by certain people: his heart is good but very weak! So it comes about that he often writes me really good, dear, comforting letters, but still more often throws the wickedest and vulgarest things at me in them, cracks other people up to the skies, and levels me to the earth. This, my dear Emma, eats away my heart. I can seldom weep over these vulgarities, and that is very bad for me: but the heart in my body chokes as if it were being twisted about. On Sunday, a week ago, I was at home, but only for twenty-three hours, so that I had no time to visit you. I wish I had not gone: the dear Richard vented his spleen on me till two in the morning"[190]—by way, presumably, of exercising himself in "renunciation" and "resignation."
She returns to the "Asyl," but every day the impossibility of an understanding between them becomes more evident. Their letters, read side by side, are pathetic. Wagner is convinced that the purity of his relations with Frau Wesendonck ought to absolve him in everyone's eyes, and reconcile Minna to a more accommodating attitude towards him and his ways. (According to his own account, he invariably reasons with her patiently and from the serene height of his superior wisdom. This is not always borne out by Minna's testimony.) Minna, on the other hand, was resolved not to tolerate a situation that seemed to her to be beyond all reason.
"It grieves me," she writes to a lady friend on 2nd August 1858,[191] "to hear you talk as if I alone were the cause of my separating from my husband. You know only too well, if you question yourself closely, how hard for me even a short separation has always been, especially now when it is uncertain whether and when I shall see him again. It is no small thing when a separation faces one after twenty-two years of marriage. I at any rate cannot take it lightly. If it rested with me, I assure you it would certainly not happen. As regards forbearance for men I am likewise enlightened, and have already overlooked a good many things, like other women. I have besides gone on being blind a good six years. It is simply impossible, for the sake of Richard's honour, to remain here, since her husband,—I don't know how—has also learned of the relation. When I returned I was violently assailed and threatened by my husband, with the object of getting me to associate again with that woman. I yielded, was willing to go this great length: that is really all that it is possible for a wife in my position to do: but the husband and in the end this woman herself will not: she is—so my husband himself shouted at me—raging, beside herself, at my being there, and out of jealousy will not suffer me to remain: only Richard shall live here, which, however, he cannot do. Richard has two natures; he is ensnared on the other side, and clings to me from habit, that is all. My resolve now is, since this woman will not endure it, to remain with my husband; and he is weak enough to fall in with her wishes that he should live by turns in Dresden, Berlin and Weimar, until either Richard or God calls me away. My health does not improve under these circumstances; all the waters in the world are no use when the mind is assailed by upsets of this kind."[192]
So on the 17th August 1858 Wagner leaves the "Asyl" and goes to Venice (viâ Geneva) with Karl Ritter, while Minna takes refuge with her friends in Dresden. Wagner continues to write to Mathilde, but his letters are returned to him unopened. Each of the lovers, however, makes a confidante of Frau Wille, and each of them keeps a diary. These diaries are exchanged in the autumn. That of Wagner is in the form of letters to Mathilde. These are full of the most ardent protestations of love. His declaration in Mein Leben that his relations with Frau Wesendonck were "merely friendly" reads rather curiously after such outbursts as these:
"When I have thought of you, never have parents or children or duties come into my mind; I only knew that you loved me, and that everything noble in this world must be unhappy." (7th Sept.)
"That you loved me I know well: you are, as always, good, profound and sensible.... Our love is superior to all impediments, and every check to it makes us richer, brighter, nobler, and ever more intent upon the substance and the essence of our love, ever more indifferent towards the inessential." (13th Sept.)
"It always remained clear to me that your love was my highest possession, and without it my existence must be a contradiction of itself." (18th Sept.)
"The course of my life till the time when I found you, and you at last became mine, lies plain before you." (12th Oct.)[193]
"Once more,—that you could plunge into every conceivable sorrow of the world, to say to me 'I love you,'—that has redeemed me, and was for me that holy hour of calm that has given my life another meaning." (12th October.)