Paris, Nov. n, 59. My precious Child, You give me great delight ! Yesterday I meant at last — I had been so obstructed ! — to write yourself with the letter to Wesendonck,* to tell you how much your last letter rejoiced me : interrupted once again, this morning came round and brought me, too, the Schiller dithyramb. Never had I understood that so well, as to-day : you are always teaching me to see new beauties. How gladly I judge from it all, that you have recovered your health ! — I also am slowly recovering, and that — I can tell it you now — from a serious illness. Ten years ago — in Paris too — I suffered from acute rheumatics ; the doctor particularly cautioned me to do all I could to drive them outward, lest the attacks should find their way to my heart. And so, in fact, just now each ailment of my body coalesced, and threatened one last exit through my heart. This time I really believed I was done for. However, it has all got to be thrust to the outside once more ; by some kind of fitly distracting activity I shall try to foil the swarming toward my heart. You will stand by me, both of you ; won't you, good souls? — My first good tidings reached me from myself. The proofs of the third act of Tristan turned suddenly up. How a glance into this last completed work revived, filled, strengthened, and inspired me — you will be able to feel with me. This joy, I should say, a father can scarcely experience at sight of his child! Through a river of tears — why mask the weakness ? — it cried to me : No ! Thou shalt not end yet ; thou still must achieve ! A man who has only just made such a thing, is full to overflowing still !— So be it then ! — To return : Your letter, also, rejoiced me so much ; and nothing in it more so, than when I see the child, now grown so mightily sagacious, yet straying every now and then into a small mistake about me. Then I say to myself: She will have the additional pleasure of getting quite clear upon this point as well ; for instance, that, when I dispute about Politics, I have my eye on something other than the seeming theme, etc. But how glad I am, to be in the wrong when I argue with you : I always learn some new thing by it. — For the next, a very melancholy work of love has fallen to me. I suddenly learn that my dear fatherly friend Fischer of Dresden is sick unto death (you will remember how often I've spoken to you of his singular attachment and fidelity) ; a complaint of the — heart at last had brought the greybeard to death's door. As my wife goes in to visit him, under the most terrible seizures he presses out the piteous moan : " O Richard ! Richard has forgotten me, and cast me off ! " I had expected him this summer at Lucerne, and not written him since ; so I wrote to him at once. Then I receive the tidings of his death ; he had been too weak to have my letter read him. So a few days since I penned a Homage to the dear departed : * as soon as I get back a print of it, I will send it on to you.— That also was a piece of work ! — And I still am not rid of the workmen : these Parisians seem to think one's house their own. Only now, is my little £tage in order at last : * were you to walk in, you would almost think I hadn't left the Asyl ; the same furniture, the old desk, the same green hangings, engravings, everything — just as you knew it. Merely the rooms are still smaller, and I have had to divide : my little salon holds the Erard, the green sofa and two fauteuils that used to stand in the tearoom ; on the walls the Kaulbach, Cornelius and the two Murillos [former presents from Otto]. Next to it a little cabinet with bookcase, work-table, and the well-known causeuse (of Lucerne memory). I have had my bedroom papered in plain pale violet, with a few green bands to frame it in ; the Madonna della Sedia forms its decoration : quite a tiny cabinet adjoining it is fitted as a bathroom. So this will have been my final planting of a household foot. You know I can abide by what I very seriously determine : so — : never, never will I " set up house " again ! God only knows what will put an end to this last settlement : but / know that an end will come to myself, before I die ; and I know that I shall trim myself no nest again then, but await entirely devoid of goods that spot where somebody shall seal my eyes at last. — Once more I was seized, after all, by a ridiculous eagerness to get my things arranged as speedily as possible, that I might find rest again. At such times I overdo it, not out of pleasure in the thing itself, but simply to arrive more quickly at a state where this and that requirement, satisfied to the last inch perhaps, shall no longer act disturbingly upon me. It must be so : for I cannot otherwise explain this ridiculous zeal wherewith I set about a thing like that, since I know on the other hand how little I cleave to it all, and how recklessly I can throw it all behind me. Yes, laugh at me, do ; I'll stand it again.— A few days back I was invited to a musical soiree, where sonatas, trios etc. from Beethoven's last period were played. Alike reading and rendering put me very much out, and they won't get hold of me so soon again, yet I had a few experiences. I took a seat next Berlioz, who presently introduced the composer Gounod to me — an amiable-looking, upright-endeavouring, but it seems not very highly-gifted artist — who was sitting on his other side. Hardly had it become known who I was, than people thronged round Berlioz from all sides, to be introduced by him to me ; remarkable to say, a bevy of enthusiasts who have studied my scores without knowing German : at times that makes me quite bewildered. I'm dreading a number of callers, in consequence, and must be a little on my guard ; the young Charnace" lady I have disgracefully neglected hitherto ; I don't quite see my way yet — as regards Paris. However, on the whole I've a mind to undertake something, purely to conduct— my "rheumatics" outward. I am reading Liszt's Music of the Gipsies.* Rather too turgid and phrasy : still, the forcible portrayal of the Gipsy nature (unmistakably the Tschandalas of India) took me vividly back to Prakriti (alias Sawitri). About that another time. And now, for to-day — a thousand thanks ! Ah, what does that not include ! I'll soon gossip again with the child. — R. W.
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, No. 96