II
In 1900 a twenty-page pamphlet bearing the title Richard Wagner in Zurich was published in Leipsic. It was signed Hans Bélart, and gave for the first time to a much mystified world the story of Wagner's passion for Mathilde Wesendonk, thus shattering beyond hope of repair our cherished belief that Cosima von Bülow-Liszt had been the lode-stone of Wagner's desire, that to her influence was due the creation of Tristan and Isolde, its composer's high-water mark in poetic, dramatic music. Now, Bélart, not content with his iconoclastic pamphlet, has just sent forth a fat book which he calls Richard Wagner's Love-Tragedy with Mathilde Wesendonk.
We had thought that the last word in the matter had been said when Baireuth (Queen Cosima I) allowed the publication of Wagner's diaries and love-letters to Mathilde—though her complete correspondence is as yet unpublished. But Bélart is one of the busiest among the German critical coral builders. He has dug into musty newspapers and letters, and gives at the close of his work a long list of authorities. Yet nothing startlingly new comes out of his researches. We knew that Mathilde Wesendonk (or Wesendonck) was the first love of Wagner, a genuine and noble passion, not his usual self-seeking philandering. We also knew that Otto Wesendonk behaved like a patient husband and a gentleman—any other man would have put a bullet in the body of the thrice impertinent genius; knew, too, that Tristan and Isolde was born of this romance. But there is a mass of fresh details, petty backstairs gossip, all the tittle-tattle beloved of such writers, that in company with Julius Kapp's Wagner und die Frauen, makes Bélart's new book a valuable one for reference.
Kapp, who has written a life of Franz Liszt, goes Bélart one better in hinting that the infatuated couple transformed their idealism into realism. Bélart does not believe this; neither does Emil Ludwig, the latest critical commentator on Wagner. But neither critic gives the profoundest proof that the love of Richard and Mathilde was an exalted, platonic one, i. e., the proof psychologic. I firmly believe that if Mathilde Wesendonk had eloped with Wagner in 1858, as he begged her to do, Tristan and Isolde might not have been finished; at all events, the third act would not have been what it now is. A mighty longing is better for the birth of great art than facile happiness. For the first time in his selfish unhappy life Wagner realised Goethe's words of wisdom: "Renounce thou shalt; shalt renounce." It was a bitter sacrifice, but out of its bitter sweetness came the honey and moonlight of Tristan and Isolde. Wagner suffered, Mathilde suffered, Otto Wesendonk suffered, and last, but not least, Minna Wagner, the poor pawn in his married game, suffered to distraction. Let us begin with a quotation on the last page but three of Bélart's book: "Remarked Otto Wesendonk to a friend: 'I have hunted Wagner from my threshold....'"
This was in August, 1858. Wagner first met the Wesendonks about 1852, three years after he had fled to Zurich from Dresden because of his participation in the uprising of 1849. (Wagner as amateur revolutionist!) Thanks to the request of his wife Mathilde, Otto Wesendonk furnished a little house on the hill near his splendid villa for the Wagners. First christened "Fafner's Repose," Wagner changed the title to the "Asyl," and for a time it was truly an asylum for this perturbed spirit.
But he must needs fall deeply in love with his charming and beautiful neighbour, a woman of intellectual and poetic gifts, and to the chagrin of her husband and of Wagner's faithful wife. The gossip in the neighbourhood was considerable, for the complete frankness of the infatuated ones was not the least curious part of the affair. Liszt knew of it, so did the Princess Layn-Wittgenstein. An immense amount of "snooping" was indulged in by interested lady friends of Minna Wagner. She has her apologists, and, judging from the letters she wrote at the time and afterward—several printed for the first time by Kapp and Bélart—she took a lively hand in the general proceedings. Evidently she was tired of her good man's behaviour, and when he solemnly assured her that it was the master-passion of his life she didn't believe him. Naturally not. He had cried "wolf" too often; besides, Minna, like a practical person, viewed the possibility of a rupture with Otto Wesendonk as a distinct misfortune. Otto had not only advanced much money to Richard, but he paid twelve thousand francs for the scores of Rheingold and Walküre and for the complete performing rights. Afterward he sent both to King Ludwig II as a gift—but I doubt if he ever got a penny from his tenants for rent. He also defrayed the expenses of the Wagner concert at Zurich, a little item of nine thousand francs. Scandal and calumny invaded his home, the fair fame of his wife was threatened. No wonder the finale, long deferred, was stormy, even operatic.
The lady was much younger than her husband; she was born at the close of 1828, therefore Wagner's junior by fifteen years. She was a Luckemeyer, her mother a Stein; a cultured, sweet-natured woman, it is more than doubtful if she could have endured Wagner as a husband. She did a wise thing in resisting his prayers. Not only was her husband a bar to such a proceeding, but her children would have always prevented her thinking of a legal separation. All sorts of plans were in the air. When, in 1857, the American panic seriously threatened the prosperity of Otto Wesendonk, who had heavy business interests in New York, gossip averred that Frau Wesendonk would ask for a divorce; but the air cleared and matters resumed their old aspect. Minna Wagner's health, always poor, became worse. It was a case of exasperated nerves made worse by drugs. She daily made scenes at home and threatened to tell what she knew. That she knew much is evident from her correspondence with Frau Wilk. She said that Wagner had two hearts, but while he delighted in intellectual and emotional friendship with such a superior soul as Mathilde, he nevertheless would not forego the domestic comforts provided by Minna. Like many another genius, Wagner was bourgeois. Those intolerable dogs, the parrot, the coffee-drinking, the soft beds and solicitude about his underclothing, all were truly German; human-all-too-human.
In September, 1857, the newly married Von Bülows paid the Wagners a visit, and as the guest-chamber of the cottage was occupied they took up temporary quarters at an inn, "The Raven" (Wotan's ravens!) Cosima, young, impressionable, turned her face to the wall and wept when Wagner played and sang for his friends the first and second acts of Siegfried. Even then she felt the "pull" of his magnetism, of his genius, and doubtless regretted having married the fussy, irritable Von Bülow—who had gone down in the social scale in wedding a girl of dubious descent. (In Paris Liszt for many years was only a strolling gipsy piano-player to whom the Countess d'Agoult had "condescended.")
Mathilde Wesendonk entertained the Von Bülows, who went away pleased with their reception, above all deeply impressed by the exiled Wagner. They so reported to Liszt, and Von Bülow did more; as the scion of an old aristocratic family, he made many attempts to secure an amnesty for Wagner, as well as making propaganda for his music. Which favours Wagner, who was the very genius of ingratitude, repaid later.
In one point Herr Ludwig is absolutely correct: the composer was supported by his friends from 1849 to the year when King Ludwig intervened. The starvation talk was a part of the Wagner legend, even the Paris days were greatly exaggerated as to their black poverty. Wagner was always a spendthrift.