Paris, Oct. 10, 59. In expectation of speedy good news of Karl's condition, t I'll chatter all I can, dear Child, for your distraction. To-day I've had a most astonishing adventure. I inquire at a custom-office after my goods that have come from Lucerne : the packages were on the books, but not my name. I produce my letter of advice, and tell my name ; then one of the officials rises : "Je connais bien Mr. Richard Wagner, puisque j'ai son m^daillon suspendu sur mon piano et je suis son plus ardent admirateur." " Quoi ? " " Ne soyez pas surpris de rencontrer a. la douane de Paris un homme capable de gouter les incomparables beaut^s de vos partitions, que j'ai dtudi^es toutes " etc.* It was all like a dream. An enthusiast at the Douane, just as I was expecting such great difficulties with the receipt of my furniture ! The good fellow leapt, and ran, and helped me : he himself had to inspect. He has a wife who plays the piano very well ; for himself, he has literary aspirations, and meanwhile earns a living by his present berth. He told me of a fairly wide circle which has formed itself exclusively through spread of an acquaintance with my works. As he doesn't understand German, I replied that I could not conceive his taking pleasure in music that depended so entirely on the poetry and expression of the verse. He : Just because it tallied so precisely with the diction, was he so easily able to argue out the poetry from the sound, so that through the music the foreign tongue became completely understandable. What next? I shall have to begin to believe in miracles ! — And that at the douane ! I begged my new friend, who much affected me (you may imagine how happy I made him), to come and call. — Do you know, my operas no longer really seem to me such a paradoxical impossibility in Paris ? Biilow gave me an introduction to an author-doctor of this place, a Dr. Gasperini, who — with one of his friends, likewise a thorough Frenchman — is in exactly the same case as my visitator at the douane. These people play Tannhäuser and Lohengrin to me, without my having a word to say to it ; their not knowing German doesn't gene them in the least. — And then the director of the Theatre lyrique [Carvalho] announced himself, to hear my Tannhäuser first-hand. They all assembled, and so I had to victimise myself once more, first with a minute French explanation of the text (what that cost me ! ), then with singing and playing. That made light dawn on them at last, however, and the impression seemed quite extraordinary. To me it all is so unheard-of with these Frenchmen ! On the contrary, I receive none but dismal, sullen news from Germany. Friend Devrient makes it his chief concern to maintain his " institute " in smoothest equilibrium, and keep all unhabitual, transient things aloof from it. A totally voiceless high soprano, for whom Isolde's music lies too low throughout, and who consequently can't even screw her mind up to it yet, is the only one offered me for my heroine, since she is said to be a good performer otherwise* And not one spark of warmth in anything : the only pro in all the enterprise, that I'm to be there myself; but even on that no definite reply as yet to all my recent queries, as the Grand Duke still is not get-at-able. So I feel strongly inclined to break off short : it really is not a genuine article, and I ought to be able to wait till the genuine trots to my hand ; it's so odious to me, to have to hunt it ! — Yes, children, had you Zurich people, out of thanks for all the honest sweat I shed there, but gone the length of building me a middling decent theatre, I should have had what I want for all time, and need go courting nobody again. Singers and orchestra, whenever required for the first pro- duction of a new work, I should always be able to procure as I wanted them ; foreign conductors and singers would have been bidden to these performances, to take a pattern by the rendering, — and that once called into being, I should have felt I had cared for all the rest, and might thenceforth lead a quiet life, without troubling for the further fate of my works. How fair, how fine, how quite befitting me, would that have been ! I should have needed then no prince, no amnesty, no good or evil word : free stood I there, bereft of all cares for my progeny. And nothing more than a decent, by no means luxurious stage-building : people ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves ! Don't you think so, too?! Dear Heaven, one's mite of freedom still is all, to make one's life endurable ! No otherwise can I hold out at all, and every concession would gnaw at my heart as a deadly worm. Genuine — or nothing ! — Thus too, despite my Parisian enthusiasts, I continue to live in great and total stillness : I'm alone indoors almost the whole day long, and positively every evening. This month I have yet to undergo my moving-in : there again I've slung much on my neck, and strictly in quest of nothing but peace for my work. My little house will be quite pretty, though ; L. is here, and I'll shew it him tomorrow, so that he may describe it to you.* The close air and altered mode of life do not agree with me as yet; I expect I shall have to take to riding again. Once more I've a terrible number of letters to write ; my best remain in my head, however : those to you. There I should find plenty to say, yet nothing but the same old song you've heard so often, and nothing of which will alter. With Plutarch's great men I feel pretty much as Schiller (not quite rightly, though) with Winkelried ; about these one might rather say, Thank God I don't belong to them. Ugly, small, violent natures, insatiable — because they have absolutely nothing inside them, and therefore must be ever gulping something from without : a fig for these Great men ! I swear by Schopenhauer's dictum : Not the world-conqueror, but the world-overcomer, is worthy admiration. Please God to keep these " powerful " natures, these Napoleons etc., off my neck ! — And what is Eddamiiller doing ? * Have you poor Heinrich ? Are you cross with me ? Or do you still retain a scrap of fondness for me ? Do tell me that ! And greet me the cousin, — and fare you well ! A thousand greetings from Your R. W. From the 15th inst I shall be living at 16 Rue Newton, Champs Elysees.
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, No. 92