[205] Richard Wagner und die Frauen, p. 157.
[206] He seems to have taken it rather ill of his friends that they should have been prosperous and happy while he was poor and disappointed and up to his eyes in difficulties of all kinds. See his account of the visit in Mein Leben, pp. 787, 788.
[207] Mathilde's character, like that of Wagner, has probably been slightly idealised for us by time. She had probably been less agreeable to the bourgeoise Minna than to her genius of a husband.
[208] Mein Leben, p. 798.
[209] Owing to his having ceased to correspond with the Wesendoncks, his changes of address were unknown to them. The box contained a present that Mathilde had sent him the preceding Christmas; after many journeyings it had been returned to her through the post. Having learned his Biebrich address, she sent it to him there. See his letter to Minna of 12th June 1862.
[210] Mein Leben, p. 806. See, however, his letter to Pusinelli of 1st July 1862, in Bayreuther Blätter, 1902, p. 103.
[211] Richard Wagner und die Frauen, p. 182. In a letter to his sister Clara of 11th July 1862, Wagner denies that the idea of a divorce proceeded from him, "obvious as it is, and excusable as it might be for me to indulge the wish to utilise my remaining years for the benefit of my work, by the side of someone sympathetic to me" (Familienbriefe, pp. 247, 248), which last remark probably refers to Mathilde Maier. In this letter he makes it clear that a reunion with Minna is out of the question. His idea was that she should have a small establishment of her own in Dresden, where he can visit her occasionally. In a letter to Minna of two days earlier he makes out that being unusually distressed as to her health—which was steadily worsening—he had sent Pusinelli to report upon her, but the physician had broached the question of divorce of his own accord (Richard Wagner an Minna Wagner, ii. 290). "Your believing that you were to understand the opinion he gave you of his own account as if I too entertained the idea of a divorce from you has greatly distressed me. Never has that entered my head, and it never will." Whether or not it had entered his head at that time, it certainly entered it later. In less than two years he had to fly from his Vienna creditors to Mariafeld, near Zürich. He was at the very end of his resources, and was apparently a ruined man had not King Ludwig come to his rescue. Discussing his prospects with his hostess, Frau Wille, "we touched, among other things, on the necessity of obtaining a divorce from my wife, in order that I might contract a rich marriage. As everything seemed to me expedient, and nothing inexpedient, I actually wrote to my sister Luise Brockhaus, asking her whether she could not, in a sensible talk with Minna, induce her to be satisfied with her settled yearly allowance, and abandon her claim to my person" (Mein Leben, p. 866). This letter is not to be found in the Familienbriefe. It would be interesting to know whether it is one of the letters that Glasenapp speaks of as being "lost beyond recall," or has simply been suppressed.
Minna was of course a hopeless wreck by this time. She died in Dresden on the 25th January 1866. The last of Wagner's published letters to her is dated 8th November 1863.
[212] Kapp, op. cit., p. 187. See Wagner's own account in Mein Leben, p. 828.
[213] Mein Leben, p. 828. Later on he said that his relations with Friederike had involved her in serious trouble. Friederike had apparently already been the mistress of von Guiata, the manager of the Frankfort theatre.