Your faithful
F. LISZT.
WEYMAR, January 14th, 1856.
210.
ZURICH, January 18th, 1856.
My letter, dear Franz, you will have received at Vienna through Gloggl. I once more put the question contained therein, and ask you: Can you GIVE me the thousand francs, which would be still better, and can you settle the same sum on me annually for two years more? If you CAN, I know that you will willingly join with those who keep me alive by their pecuniary assistance. My own income is insufficient for the very expensive style of living here, and every new year I am troubled by a deficit, so that I am really no better off now than I was before. If it were not for my wife you would see something curious, and I should be proud to go about the world as a beggar; but the continual uncertainty, and the miserly condition in which we live, affects my poor wife more and more, and I can keep her mind at rest only by a certain economical security. More of this when I see you. That I ask you this question at the present moment when I am sick of life, and would see the end of it today rather than tomorrow, you will probably understand, when you realise that from the deepest mental grief I am incessantly aroused to nothing but the mean troubles of existence, this being my only change. I have no doubt of your WILL, and believe even that it would give you pleasure to belong to those from whom I receive a regular pension. It remains to be asked only: Can you? I know that some time ago you were not able, although even at that time you occasionally made real sacrifices to assist me. Perhaps a change has taken place since then, and on the chance of this "perhaps" I venture to trouble you with my question.
One other matter I have to place before you. You remember that I wrote to you some time ago that I had at last discovered here an excellent and intelligent copyist for my musical manuscripts. To him I gave, in the first instance, Klindworth's pianoforte score of the "Valkyrie," and he brought me the first act beautifully written; but his charge for the time employed, moderate enough though I found it, appeared to me so high, that I could not possibly afford the expense from my yearly income. I considered what might be done, and found that, if I really went on with my composition, I should have exactly three years' occupation for a copyist This would include the copying of the full scores, the pianoforte scores, and all the vocal and orchestral parts. If the enterprise of the performance should in any way be accomplished, three years' salary for a copyist might well be added to the estimate of the costs, and the question would be whether one could find, at this moment, a small number of shareholders who would advance the necessary funds. I should have to engage my amanuensis for exactly three years, and pay him an annual salary of eight hundred francs. The only awkward part would be that I should have to bind myself to furnish the compositions in this given time. I might, however, as soon as I found myself unable to continue, give notice to both shareholders and copyist. For one year I have more than sufficient work for the copyist, and whatever he had written might, in such a case, be handed over to the shareholders as a security. I think that would be fair enough. Kindly see, dearest Franz, whether you can manage this for me. In the meantime I let him go on with the pianoforte arrangement, but as soon as you are bound to give me a negative answer I shall stop him, for, as I said before, I cannot bear this expense from my housekeeping money.
It was an evil, evil fate that we did not see each other last year. You must come soon, if POSSIBLE this SPRING. I feel that on our meeting this time everything, everything depends. I am continually at war with my health, and fear a relapse at every moment. But let us leave this for today. We shall soon meet.
Many thanks for your letter from Berlin, received today. Alwine Frommann writes to me every day, always in a great state of anxiety about the positive and permanent success of "Tannhauser." It appears that in over-witty and wholly unproductive Berlin everything has to be born anew. "Kladderadatsch" was quite right in taunting me with the fact that I had surrendered "Tannhauser" to Berlin, solely for the sake of the royalties. That is so. It is my fault, and I have to suffer for it as vulgarly as possible. Very well, I suffer, but unfortunately I do not even get anything by it.
Could I only bring back the state of things of four years ago!
Enough. It is my own fault, and it serves me right.