Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 2

by Richard Wagner; Franz Liszt

Have you NOTHING AT ALL to say to me? What is to become of me, if
EVERY ONE ignores me?

Your

R.

VENICE.

282.

MY DEAR FRANZ,

On reading my letter again, you will probably have discovered what was the meaning of my jocular complaint—"You answer me much too pathetically and seriously." You must have seen by the exact terms of my letter, somewhat loosely worded though it was, that by your answer I meant the manner in which you speak of my conduct towards D. with regard to "Rienzi." As this part of my letter has remained obscure to you, I add the following words of explanation. My letter about the withdrawal of "Rienzi" was written with a view to being shown, because I had referred D. to you. I thought, however, you would see that I was annoyed by the difficulties he made about the honorarium, and by the remote date for which payment was promised. I was in hopes that my letter discussing the withdrawal of the opera would help me quickly to the honorarium, and perhaps increase the amount a little. I had unfortunately reckoned upon this income before the new year, and relied upon it all the more because I had on a former occasion explained my difficult position to your sympathetic heart. When I forwarded D.'s last letter to you my intention was to complain of his pedantic statement: "The honorarium will be paid to you after the first performance,"—a statement to which I am no longer accustomed at any other theatre. I further hoped to induce you— as indeed I clearly indicated—to effect at least the immediate payment of the honorarium. As my letter about the withdrawal of "Rienzi" was written with a view to being shown, it may very likely have puzzled you; but I know that it was intended only to frighten D., and to supply you with a weapon for forcing him into a decent and business-like attitude. In consequence, I hoped that the success of this little manoeuvre would secure me the receipt of the wretched twenty-five louis d'or before the new year. Upon this sum I looked as my only certainty, because you were there to get it for me, while the moneys which I expected from other quarters represented only so many hopes which might be delusive. At last New Year's Eve came. My money was all gone; my watch, the snuff-box of the Grand Duke, and the bonbonniere of the Princess, the only valuables I possess, had been pawned; and of the money I had got for them only one and a half napoleons remained. When, on New Year's Eve, on entering my lonely room, I found your letter, I confess I was weak enough to hope that it would announce to me the imminent arrival of the twenty-five louis d'or, in consequence of the successful demonstration against D. which I thought I had made. Instead of this, I found, in reference to this matter, a serious explanation of your relations with D., which, as I see from this letter, have already become matter of bitter and troublesome experience to you. I had foreseen this, and made you silent reproaches when D. was called to Weimar through your means. I quite understood that, owing to prolonged irritation, you were, on receipt of my last letter, in a mood which misled you as to the character of my threat to withdraw "Rienzi." You recognized in me also the sympathetic annoyance at all the unworthy things we meet with, and you overlooked the fact that a poor devil like me cannot afford to be serious. Therefore you entered seriously and bitterly into my withdrawal of "Rienzi," which, after the insults you had received, was welcome to you, and I, for my part, had to witness on that wretched New Year's Eve the destruction of my last secret, but none the less certain, hope of receiving money. The great disappointment of that moment would, at any other time, have probably made me reticent and silent, but the long-expected and ardently-longed- for boon of your sympathy for "Tristan" evoked in me a kind of convulsive excitement. Once more, your joy at my first act had brought you so near to my innermost heart that I thought I might, at such a moment, make the most outrageous demand on you. That feeling I expressed, if I remember rightly, in the words, "For my paroxysm of joyous excitement your delight at 'Tristan' is responsible." Dearest friend, at that moment I could not even think of the possibility of a misunderstanding. Everything being so certain and infallible between us, I went to the opposite extreme of reproaching you because you had left me in the lurch with regard to money matters, and because you had taken my diplomatic demonstration against D. in a much too earnest and pathetic sense, my only interest in him being comprised in a little money. I further indicated that the various considerations, which to you, being on the spot, and holding an official position, might appear serious and of great moment, did not exist for me at all, the only connection between myself and the theatres, and their public art, being solely that of money.

THAT OF MONEY! Yes, so it is; and with that you reproach me. You should rather pity me. Do you not think that I should prefer your position in regard to the performance of your own works because money is no object to you? My first letter of this year will have shown you that I also am capable of considering the matter in a serious and literally pathetic, i.e., suffering mood.

Enough of this. Your letter, received today, has affected me deeply, as you will easily understand. Yet I am calm and full of hope. Your curious misunderstanding in applying my reproach, that you answer me in "too earnest and pathetic a style," to your delight at "Tristan", must by this time have become clear to yourself. I feel quite confident that any unprejudiced friend, to whom you may show our last letters, will persuade you, in spite of your prejudice, that my humorous and playfully extravagant reproach referred only to your idea of my intended withdrawal of "Rienzi," and, generally speaking, to the expectation I had of D. and the whole slough of our German operatic theatres. You now know the position which excited me to this kind of desperate humour, and I hope it will be a long time before I again have to change my last napoleon at the telegraph office.

It is you, dear friend, who are suffering and needing comfort; for the extraordinary letter which you found it possible to send me can only have sprung from a terrible mental irritation. I hope in the meantime that this lengthy explanation and disclosure of the misunderstanding into which you had succeeded in falling will be some comfort to you. I have none other to offer. If your irritation concerned me alone, this letter should dispel it altogether. Let me further assure you that you have hurt me in no way, for your arrows did not hit me; their barbs stuck in your own heart. This letter, I hope, will free you of them.