My Life — Volume 1

by Richard Wagner

As his life of permanent concealment was very dull, I occasionally invited him to spend an evening with me. For supper my wife set before him finely cut slices of sausage and meat, which he at once devoured wholesale, instead of spreading them frugally on his bread in Saxon fashion. Noticing Minna’s alarm at this, I was guilty of the weakness of telling him how we were accustomed to consume such viands, whereupon he reassured me with a laugh, saying that it was quite enough, only he would like to eat what was set before him in his own way. I was similarly astonished at the manner in which he drank wine from our ordinary-sized small glasses. As a matter of fact he detested wine, which only satisfied his craving for alcoholic stimulants in such paltry, prolonged, and subdivided doses; whereas a stiff glass of brandy, swallowed at a gulp, at once produced the same result, which, after all, was only temporarily attained. Above all, he scorned the sentiment which seeks to prolong enjoyment by moderation, arguing that a true man should only strive to still the cravings of nature, and that the only real pleasure in life worthy of a man was love.

These and other similar little characteristics showed clearly that in this remarkable man the purest impulses of an ideal humanity conflicted strangely with a savagery entirely inimical to all civilisation, so that my feelings during my intercourse with him fluctuated between involuntary horror and irresistible attraction. I frequently called for him to share my lonely wanderings. This he gladly did, not only for the sake of necessary bodily exercise, but also because he could do so in this part of the world without fear of meeting his pursuers. My attempts during our conversations to instruct him more fully regarding my artistic aims remained quite unavailing as long as we were unable to quit the field of mere discussion. All these things seemed to him premature. He refused to admit that out of the very needs of the evil present all laws for the future would have to be evolved, and that these, moreover, must be moulded upon quite different ideas of social culture. Seeing that he continued to urge destruction, and again destruction, I had at last to inquire how my wonderful friend proposed to set this work of destruction in operation. It then soon became clear, as I had suspected it would, and as the event soon proved, that with this man of boundless activity everything rested upon the most impossible hypotheses. Doubtless I, with my hopes of a future artistic remodelling of human society, appeared to him to be floating in the barren air; yet it soon became obvious to me that his assumptions as to the unavoidable demolition of all the institutions of culture were at least equally visionary. My first idea was that Bakunin was the centre of an international conspiracy; but his practical plans seem originally to have been restricted to a project for revolutionising Prague, where he relied merely on a union formed among a handful of students. Believing that the time had now come to strike a blow, he prepared himself one evening to go there. This proceeding was not free from danger, and he set off under the protection of a passport made out for an English merchant. First of all, however, with the view of adapting himself to the most Philistine culture, he had to submit his huge beard and bushy hair to the tender mercies of the razor and shears. As no barber was available, Röckel had to undertake the task. A small group of friends watched the operation, which had to be executed with a dull razor, causing no little pain, under which none but the victim himself remained passive. We bade farewell to Bakunin with the firm conviction that we should never see him again alive. But in a week he was back once more, as he had realised immediately what a distorted account he had received as to the state of things in Prague, where all he found ready for him was a mere handful of childish students. These admissions made him the butt of Röckel’s good-humoured chaff, and after this he won the reputation among us of being a mere revolutionary, who was content with theoretical conspiracy. Very similar to his expectations from the Prague students were his presumptions with regard to the Russian people. These also afterwards proved to be entirely groundless, and based merely on gratuitous assumptions drawn from the supposed nature of things. I consequently found myself driven to explain the universal belief in the terrible dangerousness of this man by his theoretical views, as expressed here and elsewhere, and not as arising from any actual experience of his practical activity. But I was soon to become almost an eye-witness of the fact that his personal conduct was never for a moment swayed by prudence, such as one is accustomed to meet in those whose theories are not seriously meant. This was shortly to be proved in the momentous insurrection of May, 1849.

The winter of this year, up to the spring of 1849, passed in a many-sided development of my position and temper, as I have described them, that is to say, in a sort of dull agitation. My latest artistic occupation had been the five-act drama, Jesus of Nazareth, just mentioned. Henceforth I lingered on in a state of brooding instability, full of expectation, yet without any definite wish. I felt fully convinced that my activity in Dresden, as an artist, had come to an end, and I was only waiting for the pressure of circumstances to shake myself free. On the other hand, the whole political situation, both in Saxony and the rest of Germany, tended inevitably towards a catastrophe. Day by day this drew nearer, and I flattered myself into regarding my own personal fate as interwoven with this universal unrest. Now that the powers of reaction were everywhere more and more openly bracing themselves for conflict, the final decisive struggle seemed indeed close at hand. My feelings of partisanship were not sufficiently passionate to make me desire to take any active share in these conflicts. I was merely conscious of an impulse to give myself up recklessly to the stream of events, no matter whither it might lead.

Just at this moment, however, an entirely new influence forced itself in a most strange fashion into my fortunes, and was at first greeted by me with a smile of scepticism. Liszt wrote announcing an early production in Weimar of my Tannhäuser under his own conductorship—the first that had taken place outside Dresden—and he added with great modesty that this was merely a fulfilment of his own personal desire. In order to ensure success he had sent a special invitation to Tichatschek to be his guest for the two first performances. When the latter returned he said that the production had, on the whole, been a success, which surprised me very much. I received a gold snuff-box from the Grand Duke as a keepsake, which I continued to use until the year 1864. All this was new and strange to me, and I was still inclined to regard this otherwise agreeable occurrence as a fleeting episode, due to the friendly feeling of a great artist. ‘What does this mean for me?’ I asked myself. ‘Has it come too early or too late?’ But a very cordial letter from Liszt induced me to visit Weimar for a few days later on, for a third performance of Tannhausar, which was to be carried out entirely by native talent, with a view to the permanent addition of this opera to the repertoire. For this purpose I obtained leave of absence from my management for the second week in May.

Only a few days elapsed before the execution of this little plan; but they were destined to be momentous ones. On the 1st of May the Chambers were dissolved by the new Beust ministry, which the King had charged with carrying out his proposed reactionary policy. This event imposed upon me the friendly task of caring for Röckel and his family. Hitherto his position as a deputy had shielded him from the danger of criminal prosecution; but as soon as the Chambers were dissolved this protection was withdrawn, and he had to escape by flight from being arrested again. As I could do little to help him in this matter, I promised at least to provide for the continued publication of his popular Volksblatt, mainly because the proceeds from this would support his family. Scarcely was Röckel safely across the Bohemian frontier, while I was still toiling at great inconvenience to myself in the printer’s office, in order to provide material for an issue of his paper, when the long-expected storm burst over Dresden. Emergency deputations, nightly mob demonstrations, stormy meetings of the various unions, and all the other signs that precede a swift decision in the streets, manifested themselves. On the 3rd May the demeanour of the crowds moving in our thoroughfares plainly showed that this consummation would soon be reached, as was undoubtedly desired. Each local deputation which petitioned for the recognition of the German constitution, which was the universal cry, was refused an audience by the government, and this with a peremptoriness which at last became startling. I was present one afternoon at a committee meeting of the Vaterlands-Verein, although merely as a representative of Röckel’s Volksblatt, for whose continuance, both from economic as well as humane motives, I felt pledged. Here I was at once absorbed in watching the conduct and demeanour of the men whom popular favour had raised to the leadership of such unions. It was quite evident that events had passed beyond the control of these persons; more particularly were they utterly at a loss as to how to deal with that peculiar terrorism exerted by the lower classes which is always so ready to react upon the representatives of democratic theories. On every side I heard a medley of wild proposals and hesitating responses. One of the chief subjects under debate was the necessity of preparing for defence. Arms, and how to procure them, were eagerly discussed, but all in the midst of great disorder; and when at last they discovered that it was time to break up, the only impression I received was one of the wildest confusion. I loft the hall with a young painter named Kaufmann, from whose hand I had previously seen a series of cartoons in the Dresden Art Exhibition, illustrating ‘The History of the Mind.’ One day I had seen the King of Saxony standing before one of these, representing the torture of a heretic under the Spanish Inquisition, and observed him turn away with a disapproving shake of the head from so abstruse a subject. I was on my way home, deep in conversation with this man, whose pale face and troubled look betrayed that he foresaw the disaster that was imminent, when, just as we reached the Postplatz, near the fountain erected from Semper’s design, the clang of bells from the neighbouring tower of St. Ann’s Church suddenly sounded the tocsin of revolt. With a terrified cry, ‘Good God, it has begun!’ my companion vanished from my side. He wrote to me—afterwards to say that he was living as a fugitive in Berne, but I never saw his face again.

The clang of this bell, so close at hand, made a profound impression upon me also. It was a very sunny afternoon, and I at once noticed the same phenomenon which Goethe describes in his attempt to depict his own sensations during the bombardment of Valmy. The whole square looked as though it were illuminated by a dark yellow, almost brown, light, such as I had once before seen in Magdeburg during an eclipse of the sun. My most pronounced sensation beyond this was one of great, almost extravagant, satisfaction. I felt a sudden strange longing to play with something hitherto regarded as dangerous and important. My first idea, suggested probably by the vicinity of the square, was to inquire at Tichatschek’s house for the gun which, as an enthusiastic Sunday sportsman, he was accustomed to use. I only found his wife at home, as he was away on a holiday tour. Her evident terror as to what was going to happen provoked me to uncontrollable laughter. I advised her to lodge her husband’s gun in a place of safety, by handing it to the committee of the Vaterlands-Verein in return for a receipt, as it might otherwise soon be requisitioned by the mob. I have since learned that my eccentric behaviour on this occasion, was afterwards reckoned against me as a serious crime. I then returned to the streets, to see whether anything beyond a ringing of bells and a yellowish eclipse of the sun might be going on in the town, I first made my way to the Old Market-place, where I noticed a group of men gathered round a vociferous orator. It was also an agreeable surprise to me to see Schroder-Devrient descending at the door of a hotel. She had just arrived from Merlin, and was keenly excited by the news which had reached her, that the populace had already been fired upon. As she had only recently seen an abortive insurrection crushed by arms in Berlin, she was indignant to find the same things happening in her ‘peaceful Dresden’ as she termed it.

When she turned to me from the stolid crowd, which had complacently been listening to her passionate outpourings, she seemed relieved at finding some one to whom she could appeal to oppose these horrible proceedings with all his might. I met her on another occasion at the house of my old friend Heine, where she had taken refuge. When she noticed my indifference she again adjured me to use every possible effort to prevent the senseless, suicidal conflict. I heard afterwards that a charge of high treason on account of sedition had been brought against Schroder-Devrient by reason of her conduct in regard to this matter. She had to prove her innocence in a court of law, so as to establish beyond dispute her claim to the pension which she had been promised by contract for her many years’ service in Dresden as an opera-singer.

On the 3rd of May I betook myself direct to that quarter of the town where I heard unpleasant rumours of a sanguinary conflict having taken place. I afterwards learned that the actual cause of the dispute between the civil and military power had arisen when the watch had been changed in front of the Arsenal. At that moment the mob, under a bold leader, had seized the opportunity to take forcible possession of the armoury. A display of military force was made, and the crowd was fired upon by a few cannon loaded with grape-shot. As I approached the scene of operations through the Rampische Gasse, I met a company of the Dresden Communal Guards, who, although they were quite innocent, had apparently been exposed to this fire. I noticed that one of the citizen guards, leaning heavily on the arm of a comrade, was trying to hurry along, in spite of the fact that his right leg seemed to be dragging helplessly behind him. Some of the crowd, seeing the blood on the pavement behind him, shouted ‘He is bleeding.’ In the midst of this excitement I suddenly became conscious of the cry raised on all sides: ‘To the barricades! to the barricades!’ Driven by a mechanical impulse I followed the stream of people, which moved once more in the direction of the Town Hall in the Old Market-place. Amid the terrific tumult I particularly noticed a significant group stretching right across the street, and striding along the Rosmaringasse. It reminded me, though the simile was rather exaggerated, of the crowd that had once stood at the doors of the theatre and demanded free entrance to Rienzi; among them was a hunchback, who at once suggested Goethe’s Vansen in Egmont, and as the revolutionary cry rose about his ears, I saw him rub his hands together in great glee over the long-desired ecstasy of revolt which he had realised at last.

I recollect quite clearly that from that moment I was attracted by surprise and interest in the drama, without feeling any desire to join the ranks of the combatants. However, the agitation caused by my sympathy as a mere spectator increased with every step I felt impelled to take. I was able to press right into the rooms of the town council, escaping notice in the tumultuous crowd, and it seemed to me as if the officials were guilty of collusion with the mob. I made my way unobserved into the council-chamber; what I saw there was utter disorder and confusion. When night fell I wandered slowly through the hastily made barricades, consisting chiefly of market stalls, back to my house in the distant Friedrichstrasse, and next morning I again watched these amazing proceedings with sympathetic interest.

On Thursday, 4th May, I could see that the Town Hall was gradually becoming the undoubted centre of the revolution. That section of the people who had hoped for a peaceful understanding with the monarch was thrown into the utmost consternation by the news that the King and his whole court, acting on the advice of his minister Beust, had left the palace, and had gone by ship down the Elbe to the fortress of Konigstein. In those circumstances the town council saw they were no longer able to face the situation, and thereupon took part in summoning those members of the Saxon Chamber who were still in Dresden. These latter now assembled in the Town Hall to decide what steps should be taken for the protection of the state. A deputation was sent to the ministry, but returned with the report that they were nowhere to be found. At the same moment news arrived from all sides that, in accordance with a previous compact, the King of Prussia’s troops would advance to occupy Dresden. A general outcry immediately arose for measures to be adopted to prevent this incursion of foreign troops.