My Life. Volume 2

In the end it was a relief to escape from the anxieties of my position by starting on my concert tour. First I went to Prague, in the beginning of November, to try my luck again in the matter of big receipts. Unfortunately Heinrich Porges had not been able to take the arrangements in hand this time, and his deputies, who were very busy schoolmasters, were not at all his equals for the task. Expenses were increased, while receipts diminished, for they had not ventured to ask such high prices as before. I wished to repair this deficiency by a second concert a few days later, and insisted on the point, although my friends urgently dissuaded me, and, as the event proved, they were quite right. This time the receipts hardly covered the costs, and as I had been obliged to send away the proceeds of the first concert to redeem an old bill in Vienna, I had no other means of paying my hotel expenses and my fare home than by accepting the offer of a banker, who posed as a patron, to help me out of my embarrassment.

In the chastened mood induced by these occurrences I pursued my journey to Karlsruhe, via Nuremberg and Stuttgart, under wretched conditions of severe cold and constant delays. At Karlsruhe I was at once surrounded by various friends, who had come there on hearing of my project. Richard Pohl from Baden, who never failed me, Mathilde Maier, Frau Betty Schott, the wife of my publisher; even Raff from Wiesbaden and Emilie Genast were there, as well as Karl Eckert, who had recently been appointed conductor at Stuttgart. Trouble began at once with the vocalists for my first concert, fixed for 14th November, as the baritone, Hauser, who was to sing 'Wotan's Farewell' and Hans Sachs's 'Cobbler Song,' was ill and had to be replaced by a voiceless though well-drilled vaudeville singer. In Eduard Devrient's opinion this made no difference. My relations with him were strictly official, but he certainly carried out my instructions for the arrangement of the orchestra very correctly. From an orchestral point of view the concert went off so well that the Grand Duke, who received me very graciously in his box, desired a repetition in a week's time. To this proposal I raised serious objections, having learned by experience that the large attendances at such concerts, particularly at special prices, were mainly accounted for by the curiosity of the hearers, who often came from long distances; whereas the number of genuine students of art, whose interest was chiefly in the music, was but small. But the Grand Duke insisted, as he wished to give his mother-in-law, Queen Augusta, whose arrival was expected within a few days, the pleasure of hearing my production. I should have found it dreadfully wearisome to have to spend the intervening time in the solitude of my Karlsruhe hotel, but I received a kind invitation to Baden-Baden from Mme. Kalergis, who had just become Mme. Moukhanoff, and had gone to live there. She had, to my delight, been one of those who came over for the concert, and was now on the station to meet me when I arrived. I felt I ought to decline her proffered escort into the town, not considering myself sufficiently smart in my 'brigand-hat,' but with the assurance, 'We all wear these brigand-hats here,' she took my arm, and thus we reached Pauline Viardot's villa, where we were to dine, as my friend's own house was not yet quite ready. Seated by my old acquaintance, I was now introduced to the Russian poet Turgenieff. Mme. Moukhanoff presented me to her husband with some hesitation, wondering what I should think of her marriage. Supported by her companions, who were all society people, she exerted herself to maintain a fairly lively conversation during the time we were together. Well satisfied by the admirable intention of my friend and benefactress, I again left Baden to fill up my time by a little trip to Zurich, where I again tried to get a few days' rest in the house of the Wesendonck family. The idea of assisting me did not seem even to dawn on these friends of mine, although I frankly informed them of my position. I therefore returned to Karlsruhe, where, on the 22nd of November, as I had foreseen, I gave my second concert to a poorly filled house. But, in the opinion of the Grand Duke and his wife, Queen Augusta's appreciation should have dispelled any unpleasant impressions I might have received. I was again summoned to the royal box, where I found all the court gathered round the Queen, who wore a blue rose on her forehead as an ornament. The few complimentary observations she had to offer were listened to by the members of the court with breathless attention; but when the royal lady had made a few general remarks, and was about to enter into details, she left all further demonstration to her daughter, who, as she said, knew more about it. The next day I received my share of the takings, half the net profits, which amounted to two hundred marks, and with this I at once bought myself a fur coat. The sum asked for it was two hundred and twenty marks, but when I explained that my receipts had only been two hundred marks, I managed to get the extra twenty knocked off the price. There was still the Grand Duke's private gift, consisting of a gold snuff-box with fifteen louis d'or, for which I, of course, returned my thanks in writing. I next had to face the question whether, after the toilsome fatigue of the past weeks, I would add to my disappointments by attempting to give the proposed concert in Dresden. Many considerations, practically everything indeed that I had to weigh in connection with a visit to Dresden, moved me to have the courage to write and tell Hans von Bronsart at the last moment to cancel all arrangements and not expect me there, a decision which, although it must have caused him much inconvenience after all the preparations he had kindly made, he accepted with a very good grace.

I still wanted to see what I could do with the firm of Schott, and travelled by night to Mayence, where Mathilde Maier's family insisted on my spending the day at their little house, where I was entertained in a simple and friendly fashion. During the day and night I spent here in the narrow Karthausergasse, I was waited upon with the greatest care, and from this outpost I assaulted the publishing house of Schott, though without securing much booty. This was because I refused my consent to a separate issue of the various selections from my new works which had been picked out and prepared for concert use.

As my only remaining source of profit now seemed to be the concert at Lowenberg, I turned my face thither; but, in order to avoid passing Dresden, I made a short detour by way of Berlin, where, after travelling all night, I arrived, very tired, early on the 28th of November. In compliance with my request the Bulows took me in, and at once began urging me to break my intended journey to Silesia by giving them a day in Berlin. Hans was particularly anxious for me to be present at a concert to be given that evening under his direction, a factwhich finally decided me to remain. In defiance of the cold, raw and gloomy weather, we discussed as cheerfully as we could my unfortunate position. By way of increasing my capital, it was resolved to hand over the Grand Duke of Baden's gold snuff-box to our good old friend Weitzmann for sale. The sum of two hundred and seventy marks realised by this was brought to me at the Hotel Brandenburg, where I was dining with the Bulows, and was an addition to my reserves that furnished us with many a jest. As Bulow had to complete the preparations for his concert, I drove out alone with Cosima on the promenade, as before, in a fine carriage. This time all our jocularity died away into silence. We gazed speechless into each other's eyes; an intense longing for an avowal of the truth mastered us and led to a confession—which needed no words—of the boundless unhappiness which oppressed us. The experience brought relief to us both, and the profound tranquillity which ensued enabled us to attend the concert in a cheerful, unembarrassed mood. I was actually able to fix my attention clearly on an exquisitely refined and elevated performance of Beethoven's smaller Concert Overture (in C major), and likewise on Hans's very clever arrangement of Gluck's overture to Paris and Helen. We noticed Alwine Frommann in the audience, and during the interval met her on the grand staircase of the concert-hall. After the second part had begun and the stairs were empty, we sat for some time on one of the steps chatting gaily with our old friend. After the concert we were due at my friend Weitzmann's for supper, the length and abundance of which reduced us, whose hearts yearned for profound peace, to almost frantic despair. But the day came to an end at last, and after a night spent under Bulow's roof, I continued my journey. Our farewell reminded me so vividly of that first exquisitely pathetic parting from Cosima at Zurich, that all the intervening years vanished like a dream of desolation separating two days of lifelong moment and decision. If on the first occasion our presentiment of something mysterious and inexplicable had compelled silence, it was now no less impossible to give words to that which we silently acknowledged.

I was met at one of the stations in Silesia by Conductor Seifriz, who accompanied me in one of the Prince's carriages to Lowenberg. The old Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen was already very well disposed towards me on account of his great friendship for Liszt, and had, moreover, been fully informed of my position by Heinrich Porges, who had been engaged by him for a short time. He had invited me to give a concert in his small castle to an audience composed exclusively of invited guests. I was very comfortably accommodated in apartments on the ground floor of his house, whither he frequently came on his wheeled chair from his own rooms directly opposite. Here I could not only feel at ease, but be to some extent hopeful. I at once began rehearsing the pieces I had chosen from my operas with the Prince's by no means ill-equipped private orchestra, during which my host was invariably present and seemed well satisfied. Meals were all taken very sociably in common; but on the day of the concert there was a kind of gala-dinner, at which I was astonished to meet Henriette von Bissing, the sister of Mme. Wille of Marienbad, with whom I had been intimate at Zurich. As she had an estate near Lowenberg, she had also been invited by the Prince, and now gave me proof of her faithful and enthusiastic devotion. Being both intelligent and witty, she at once became my favourite companion. After the concert had passed off with reasonable success, I had to fulfil another wish of the Prince's next day, by privately playing to him Beethoven's Symphony in C minor, when Frau von Bissing was also present. She had now been for some time a widow. She promised to come to Breslau, when I gave my concert there. Before my departure Conductor Seifriz brought me a fee of four thousand two hundred marks from the Prince, with an expression of regret that for the present it was impossible for him to be more liberal. After all my previous experiences I was truly astonished and contented, and it was with pleasure I returned the gallant Prince my heartfelt thanks with all the eloquence at my command.

Thence I travelled to Breslau, where the concert director, Damrosch, had arranged a concert for me. I had made his acquaintance on my last visit to Weimar, and had also heard of him through Liszt. Unfortunately the conditions here struck me as extraordinarily dismal and desperate. The whole affair had been planned on the meanest scale, as indeed I might have expected. A perfectly horrible concert-room, which usually served as a beer-restaurant, had been engaged. At the rear of this, and separated from it by a dreadfully vulgar curtain, was a small 'Tivoli' theatre, for which I was obliged to procure an elevated plank-floor for the orchestra, and the whole concern so disgusted me that my first impulse was to dismiss the seedy-looking musicians on the spot. My friend Damrosch, who was very much upset, had to promise me that at least he would have the horrible reek of tobacco in the place neutralised. As he could offer no guarantee as to the amount of the receipts, I was only induced in the end to go on with the enterprise by my desire not to compromise him too severely. To my amazement I found almost the entire room, at all events the front seats, filled with Jews, and in fact I owed such success as I obtained to the interest excited in this section of the population, as I learned the next day, when I attended a mid-day dinner arranged in my honour by Damrosch, at which again only Jews were present.

It was like a ray of light from a better world when, on leaving the concert-hall, I perceived Fraulein Marie von Buch, who had hurried hither with her grandmother from the Hatzfeld estate to be present at my concert, and was waiting in a boarded compartment dignified by the name of box, for me to come out after the audience had left; the young lady came up to me once more in travelling costume after Damrosch's dinner and attempted by kindly and sympathetic assurances somewhat to assuage my evident anxiety respecting the future. I thanked her once more by letter for her sympathy after my return to Vienna, to which she replied by a request for a contribution to her album. In memory of the emotions which had convulsed me on leaving Berlin, and also as an indication of my mental mood to one worthy of the confidence, I added Calderon's words, 'Things impossible to conceal, yet impossible of utterance.' By this I felt I had conveyed to a kindly disposed person, though with a happy vagueness, some idea of the secret knowledge which was my sole inspiration.

But the results of my meeting with Henriette von Bissing in Breslau were very different. She had followed me thither, and put up at the same hotel. Influenced, no doubt, by my sickly appearance, she seemed to give her sympathy for myself and my situation full play. I placed the latter before her without reserve, telling her how, ever since the upset following on my departure from Zurich in 1858, I had been unable to secure the regular income necessary for the steady pursuit of my calling; and also of my invariably vain attempts to bring my affairs into any settled and definite order. My friend did not shrink from attributing some blame to the relationship between Frau Wesendonck and my wife, and declared that she felt it her mission to conciliate them. She approved my settling down at Penzing, and only hoped that I might not spoil its beneficial effect upon me by distant enterprises. She would not listen to my plan of touring in Russia, in the coming winter, in order to earn money for my absolute necessities, and herself undertook to provide from her own very considerable fortune the not unimportant sum requisite to maintain me in independence for some time to come. But she explained to me that for a short while longer I was to try and get along through thick and thin, as she would have some difficulty—possibly a good deal—in placing the promised money at my disposal.

Greatly cheered by the impressions of this meeting I returned to Vienna on the 9th December. At Lowenberg I had been obliged to remit to Vienna the greater portion of the Prince's gift, part of it for Minna, and part for the payment of debts. Though I had but little cash I felt thoroughly sanguine; I could now greet my few friends with tolerable good-humour, and among them Peter Cornelius, who looked in on me every evening. As Heinrich Porges and Gustav Schonaich sometimes joined us, we founded an intimate little circle and met regularly. On Christmas Eve I invited them all to my house, where I had the Christmas tree lighted up, and gave each one an appropriate trifle. Some work also came my way again, for Tausig asked me to help him with a concert which he was to give in the great Redouten-Saal. In addition to a few selections from my new operas, I also conducted the Freischutz Overture, for my own particular satisfaction and entirely according to my own interpretation. Its effect, even upon the orchestra, was truly startling.

But there did not seem the slightest prospect of any official recognition of my abilities; I was, and continued to be, ignored by the great. Frau von Biasing's communications revealed by degrees the difficulties which she had encountered in the fulfilment of her promise; but as they were still hopeful in tone, I was able to spend New Year's Eve at the Standhartner's in good spirits, and to enjoy a poem specially written by Cornelius for the occasion, which was as humorous as it was solemnly appropriate.

The new year 1864 assumed for me an aspect of gravity which soon became intensified. I fell ill with a painful and increasing malady due to a chill, which often made demands on Standhartner's care. But I was yet more seriously threatened by the turn of Frau von Bissing's communications. It seemed she could only raise the promised money with the help of her family, the Slomans, who were shipowners in Hamburg, and from them she was meeting with violent opposition, mingled, as it seemed, with slanderous charges against me. These circumstances upset me so much that I wished I could renounce all help from this friend, and I began once more to turn my serious attention to Russia. Fraulein von Rhaden, to whom I again applied, felt she must vigorously dissuade me from any attempt to visit St. Petersburg, in the first place because, owing to the military disturbances in the Polish provinces, I should find the route blocked, and secondly because, roughly speaking, I should attract no notice in the Russian capital. On the other hand, a visit to Kieff, with a chance of five thousand roubles profit, was represented as undoubtedly feasible. Keeping my thoughts fixed on this, I arranged with Cornelius, who was to accompany me, a plan for crossing the Black Sea to Odessa, and going from there to Kieff, with a view to which we both resolved to procure the indispensable fur coats at once. Meanwhile, the only course open to me was to see about raising money by fresh bills at short dates, wherewith to pay all my other bills, which were also short-dated. Thus I became launched upon a business system which, leading, as it did, to obvious and inevitable ruin, could only be finally resolved by the acceptance of prompt and effectual help. In these straits I was at last compelled to request a clear declaration from my friend, not as to whether she COULD help me at once, but whether she really WISHED to help me at all, as I could no longer stave off ruin. She must have been in the highest degree wounded by some notion or other, of which I was ignorant, before bringing herself to reply in the following tone: 'You wish to know finally whether I WILL or not? Well, then, in God's name, NO!' Not long after this I received from her sister, Mme. Wille, a very surprising explanation of her conduct, which seemed at the time perfectly inexplicable, and only to be accounted for by the weakness of her not very reliable character.

Amid all these vacillations the month of February had run to an end, and while Cornelius and I were busy on our Russian plans, I received news from Kieff and Odessa that it would be unwise to attempt any artistic enterprises there during the present year. By this time it had become clear that, under the conditions thus developed, I could no longer reckon on maintaining my position in Vienna, or my establishment at Penzing. Not only did there seem no prospect of even a temporary nature of earning money, but my debts had mounted up, in the usual style of such usury, to so great a sum, and assumed so threatening an aspect, that, failing some extraordinary relief, my very person was in danger. In this perplexity I addressed myself with perfect frankness—at first only for advice—to the judge of the Imperial Provincial Court, Eduard Liszt, the youthful uncle of my old friend Franz. During my first stay in Vienna this man had shown himself a warmly devoted friend, always ready to help me. For the discharge of my bill-debts he could naturally suggest no other method than the intervention of some wealthy patron, who should settle with my creditors. For some time he believed that a certain Mme. Scholler, the wife of a rich merchant and one of my admirers, not only possessed the means, but was willing to use them on my behalf. Standhartner also, with whom I made no pretence of secrecy, thought he could do something for me in this way. Thus my position was for some weeks again most uncertain, until at last it became clear that all my friends could procure me was the means for flight to Switzerland—which was now deemed absolutely necessary—where, having saved my skin so far, I should have to raise money for my bills. To the lawyer, Eduard Liszt, this way of escape seemed specially desirable, because he would then be in a position to punish the outrageous usury practised against me.

During the anxious time of the last few months, through which, nevertheless, there had run an undercurrent of indefinite hope, I had kept up a lively intercourse with my few friends. Cornelius turned up regularly every evening, and was joined by O. Bach, little Count Laurencin, and, on one occasion, by Rudolph Liechtenstein. With Cornelius alone I began reading the Iliad. When we reached the catalogue of ships I wished to skip it; but Peter protested, and offered to read it out himself; but whether we ever came to the end of it I forget. My reading by myself consisted of Chateaubriand's La Vie de Rance, which Tausig had brought me. Meanwhile, he himself vanished without leaving any trace, until after some time he reappeared engaged to a Hungarian pianist. During the whole of this time I was very ill and suffered exceedingly from a violent catarrh. The thought of death took such hold on me that I at last lost all desire to shake it off, and even set about bequeathing my books and manuscripts, of which a portion fell to the lot of Cornelius.

I had taken the precaution some time before of commending into Standhartner's keeping my remaining—and now, alas! exceedingly doubtful—assets which were in the house at Penzing. As my friends were most positive in recommending preparation for immediate flight, I had written to Otto Wesendonck requesting to be taken into his house, as Switzerland was to be my destination. He refused point-blank, and I could not resist sending him a reply to prove the injustice of this. The next thing was to make my absence from home a short one and to count upon a speedy return. Standhartner made me go and dine at his house in his great anxiety to cover up my departure, and my servant Franz Mrazek brought my trunk there too. My farewell to Standhartner, his wife Anna, and the good dog Pohl was very depressing. Standhartner's stepson Karl Schonaich and Cornelius accompanied me to the station, the one in grief and tears, the other inclining to a frivolous mood. It was on the afternoon of 23rd March that I left for Munich, my first stopping-place, where I hoped to rest for two days after the terrible disturbances I had gone through, without attracting any notice. I stayed at the 'Bayerischer Hof' and took a few walks through the city at my leisure. It was Good Friday and the weather was bitterly cold. The mood proper to the day seemed to possess the whole population, whom I saw going from one church to another dressed in deepest mourning. King Maximilian II.—of whom the Bavarians had become so fond—had died a few days before, leaving as heir to the throne a son aged eighteen and a half, whose extreme youth was no bar to his accession. I saw a portrait of the young king, Ludwig II. in a shop window, and experienced the peculiar emotion which is aroused by the sight of youth and beauty placed in a position presumed to be unusually trying. After writing a humorous epitaph for myself, I crossed Lake Constance unmolested and reached Zurich—once more a refugee in need of an asylum—where I at once betook myself to Dr. Wille's estate at Mariafeld.

I had already written to my friend's wife to ask her to put me up for a few days, which she very kindly agreed to do. I had got to know her very well during my last stay at Zurich, while my friendship with him had somewhat cooled. I wanted to have time to find what seemed suitable quarters in one of the places bordering on Lake Zurich. Dr. Wille himself was not there, as he had gone to Constantinople on a pleasure trip. I had no difficulty in making my friend understand my situation, which I found her most willing to relieve. First of all she cleared one or two living rooms in Frau von Bissing's old house next door, from which, however, the fairly comfortable furniture had been removed. I wanted to cater for myself, but had to yield to her request to take over that responsibility. Only furniture was lacking, and for this she ventured to apply to Frau Wesendonck, who immediately sent all she could spare of her household goods, as well as a cottage piano. The good woman was also anxious that I should visit my old friends at Zurich to avoid any appearance of unpleasantness, but I was prevented from doing so by serious indisposition, which was increased by the badly heated rooms, and finally Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck came over to us at Mariafeld. The very uncertain and strained attitude apparent in these two was not entirely incomprehensible to me, but I behaved as if I did not notice it. My cold, which rendered me incapable of looking about for a house in the neighbouring districts, was continually aggravated by the bad weather and my own deep depression. I spent these dreadful days sitting huddled in my Karlsruhe fur coat from morning till night, and addled my brain with reading one after another of the volumes which Mme. Wille sent me in my seclusion. I read Jean Paul's Siebenkas, Frederick the Great's Tagebuch, Tauser, George Sand's novels and Walter Scott's, and finally Felicitas, a work from my sympathetic hostess's own pen. Nothing reached me from the outside world except a passionate lament from Mathilde Maier, and a most pleasant surprise in the shape of royalties (seventy-five francs), which Truinet sent from Paris. This led to a conversation with Mme. Wille, half in anger and half with condemned-cell cynicism, as to what I could do to obtain complete release from my wretched situation. Among other things we touched upon the necessity of obtaining a divorce from my wife in order to contract a rich marriage. As everything seemed right and nothing inexpedient in my eyes, I actually wrote and asked my sister Luise Brockhaus whether she could not, by talking sensibly to Minna, persuade her to depend on her settled yearly allowance without making any claims on my person in future. In reply I received a deeply pathetic letter advising me first to think of establishing my reputation and to create for myself an unassailable position by some new work. In this way I might very probably reap some benefit without taking any foolish step; and in any case I should do well to apply for the post of conductor which was now vacant in Darmstadt.