Mardi Gras [February 12, 1861]. Fat Tuesday shall grant me a quiet morning at last, Lady-friend, to tell you just a little of myself. When I've a headful of nothing but the hundred details of my present task, there seems to me no sense in speaking of myself to you ; for this was ever the distinction of our intercourse, that instinctively a sublimation of the truer core of thought and action alone appeared to us worth heeding, and, so to say, we felt ourselves emancipated from material life forthwith, so soon as we but met. So, if I hunt all the lumber out of my head, to get it clean-swept for you, of course there's nothing but the marrow left there, and no more need to talk about my plague. In return, a gloaming melancholy then girdles-in the soul, and shews us all the things without in their true empty light ; for nothing really is of solid worth to him who feels how much he has to sacrifice if he would yield an import to the semblance of reality. — What comforts me amid the many plagues that Art imposes on me, is that it can appear to you in cheerful light. You have and dote on paintings, reading, studying, hearing ; and of it all you hold alone to what seems nobly worth to you, untouched by what you suitably may leave unheeded. All your accounts, even the latest of this winter, agree herein — that on you the blessing is bestowed of placid calm enjoyment. The deeper sense of that enjoyment will have been revealed to you by now ; haply for you it is the same as my activity, perchance my want, for me. — Yet I often entertain the thought that I myself were capable of such enjoyment, and nothing but my mission held me back. Of course, when I reflect on what I'm able to endure, I can but wonder at myself, and deem that oft so ardent wish for quiet and secluded rest entirely unjustified ; and yet a certain inner peace is my constant companion, — the peace of deepest and completest resignation. An altogether uninvidious, but all the surer incredulity has won possession of me : I hope for absolutely nothing more, and in particular — despite occasional airings of my sometimes most communicative temperament — the whole of my relations to such as come in contact with me are so extremely flimsily based that it would be impossible for any shock to damage them ; if an individual has approached me somewhat close to-day, and I lose sight of him for months — or quarters, or halfyears — that doesn't make a grain of difference in our mutual relations. I am never unsociable, but unspeakably indifferent ; habituation nowhere gets a hold of me. You ask about my female company? I have made a few acquaintances, but not so much as made myself at home with one. Mad. Ollivier list's eider daughter] is highly gifted, even dazzling of nature, ... I'm thinking, how it is that we so seldom see each other. ... It is much the same with all the rest of my acquaintances : the odds are so against my profiting by any better-cultivated intercourse, that I willingly resign on every hand, and just accept whatever whim or hazard brings into the house. Among others . . . there is a Frln von Meysenbug * who is staying here as governess to Russian children. . . . When brought to see me, she had this in her favour, that once in London, years ago ... I had treated her very badly in a fit of ill-humour ; the recollection touched me, and now . . . she finds herself more at her ease in my company . . . PARIS LETTERS 26^ As for the so-called higher world, a lady whom I knew quite superficially in earlier days [1853] has drawn greater attention from me this time, than before; it is Countess Kalergis, niece of the Russian chancellor Nesselrode. Surely I have told you of her once already, . . . She was in Paris some time last summer, hunted me up, and induced me to get Klindworth over from London to make music with her. Entirely among ourselves, except for Berlioz, I sang the second act of Tristan with Mme Garcia- Viardot ; we also did some music from the Nibelungen : it was the very first time since I left you. — What made me more attentive to this lady, was the observation of a singular weariness, a disdain and loathing of the world, that might have seemed indifferent, had I not quite plainly noticed with it all her profound longing for music and poesy, which appeared to me of moment in such circumstances ; and as her talent was considerable in that direction, at last she did not leave me without interest. Moreover, she was the first person I have met who surprised me — quite spontaneously — by a truly magnificent grasp of my situation . . . [cf. p. 234]. Frau v. Pourtales, wife of the Prussian ambassador, seems to be not without depth, and at least to have distinguished taste. — Quite a racy nature is that I have detected in the wife of the Saxon ambassador, Frau v. Seebach ... I was surprised by a certain gentle glow that gleams beneath the lava here : she could not understand how anyone could overlook the intense warmth of my conceptions, and thought it questionable to take her own young daughter with her to the Tannhäuser. Such curious acquaintances one makes, you see, but they're nothing more — than acquaintances ! . . . Ah ! child — let us drop all that ! And believe me, one drags along one's way just so, with toil, with toil, — scarcely caring to render account to oneself of how one does it. All wishing is in vain : toiling and moiling is the only method to forget one's misery. Your decision not to come to the Tannhäuser, my child, had much depressed me — as you surely will be able to conceive — simply because it robbed me of the pleasure of seeing you so soon again. I was bound to endorse all the reasons combining to influence you, as valid for your inner self, since I have always done wisest when I took the pains to understand you, and enriched, ay, often-times corrected, my own feeling by adopting yours. I was sad — and said nothing. — But Otto lately wrote me that, after all, you meant to come with him for the event. Look you ! that gave me such a grievous inner joy ; for I knew you had done yourself injustice, and that made me so [un]happy that I hardly dared to hope for a fulfilment of the promise. — And now Otto has just written me again, that — you would not accompany him. Once more it troubles me unspeakably, as you may well imagine! — Now listen to a quiet word from a friend who again has just battled through much :— This first Tannhäuser-time will hang a load about my neck ; I do not think it a propitious season for the silent need of our two souls. Much that is needless will not be avoidable,* whilst everything will take an outward and unedifying turn. Accordingly I needs must hold it better to accept your meaning, and await a more equable season to present you for the first time with an entire work of mine so carefully prepared in execution as here is the case with this Tannhäuser : then, and in calmer mood, the performance itself both must and will have much to offer you, and we shall taste it tranquilly. — Yet if I admit you all that, ought I to conceal from you that every point in it vanishes before the bare thought of seeing you again — were it only for an hour ? — No, my child, it shall not be concealed from you ; and were you still to come at risk of having little sight of me and my true self, I still — the egoist I ! — should count the hour thrice- blest in which I once again could gaze into your eyes ! — But, enough ! You know it all better than I ! — For the nonce I have a little rest, to wit, not those daily rehearsals ; but the last second of my working-time is always claimed by countless extras. The rehearsals go ahead with unexampled application, at times beyond my comprehension, and at any rate we are in for a performance quite out of the common. Niemann is right-down sublime ; he's an artist of the very rarest water. The succeeding of the other parts will be rather an outcome of artifice ; yet I hope that by extreme attention we shall succeed in covering up the strings. — And now, a thousand greetings from my heart ! Thank Otto most sincerely for his firm allegiance : whatever he may meet with here, I know he'll bear it, and surely carry back a strong impression with him. Adieu, Lady-friend ! The first performance still stands fixed for Friday 22 ; yet Otto should be prepared to wait for it till Monday 25. [The three notorious nights at the Grand Optra, when Tannhduser fell victim to the Jockey Club's deliberate plot, occurred between this letter and the next. As the first performance did not take place till March 13 {second 18, third 24), it is to be presumed that Otto arrived too early for anything but the dress rehearsals, and had to leave before the actual de"bdcle. —Tr.] 266 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONOC
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, No. 114