[116] Mein Leben, p. 117.
[117] See Mein Leben, p. 117 ff.
[118] This letter is not included in the published volume of Wagner's correspondence with Minna, which commences with 1842. I quote it from Julius Kapp's Richard Wagner und die Frauen: eine erotische Biographie (1912), p. 34. Kapp has had access to a large number of still unpublished Wagner letters.
[119] Mein Leben, p. 138.
[120] The bitterness of the later years seems to have affected Wagner's memory of the earlier ones. In Mein Leben his thesis is that Minna was kind enough to him, but without love, and perhaps without the capacity for loving. That was not his opinion at the time, however. "Minna was here," he writes to Apel on 6th June 1835 from Leipzig, "and stayed three days for my sake, in the most dreadful weather, and without knowing a single other person, and without going anywhere, simply to be with me.... It is remarkable what influence I have acquired over the girl. You should read her letters; they burn with fire, and we both know that fire is not native to her" (Richard Wagner an Theodor Apel, p. 48).
[121] Richard Wagner an Theodor Apel, p. 62.
[122] Mein Leben, p. 146.
[123] Mein Leben, pp. 154, 155. At this point he digresses to give us the story of Minna's early life. From the age of ten she had had to help to maintain the family, her father having sustained misfortunes in business. She was a most charming girl, "and at an early age attracted the attention of men." At sixteen she was seduced; her child, Natalie, was always supposed during her life-time to be her younger sister. Minna went on the stage. She had no particular talent for acting, and saw in the theatre only a means of livelihood. According to Wagner she was "devoid of levity or coquetry," but used her powers of charm to make friends and obtain security of tenure in the theatre.
[124] Mein Leben, p. 157.
[125] He had soon accustomed himself, he says, not to talk of his ideal cravings before her. Uncertain of them himself as he was, he passed over this side of his life with a laugh and a joke. With the better part of him thus sealed up from her, it is no wonder they ultimately drifted apart.