On the other hand, I was driven by circumstances to come to an agreement with Meser in Dresden about the unfortunate copyright of my three earlier operas. The actor Kriete, one of my principal creditors, was making piteous demands for the return of his capital. Schmidt, a Dresden lawyer, offered to put the matter right, and after a long and heated correspondence it was arranged that a certain H. Muller, successor to Meser, who had died a short time before, should enter into possession of the copyright of these publications. On this occasion I heard of nothing but of the costs and expenditure to which my former agent had been put; but it was impossible to get any clear account of the receipts he had taken from my works beyond the fact that the lawyer admitted to me that the late Meser must have put aside some thousands of thalers, which, however, it would not be possible to lay hands on, as he had not left his heirs any funds at all.
In order to pacify the woeful Kriete, I was eventually obliged to agree to sell my rights in the works Meser had published for nine thousand marks, which represented the exact sum I owed to Kriete and another creditor who held a smaller share. With regard to the arrears of interest still owing on the money at compound rate, I remained Kriete's personal debtor; the joint sum amounted in the year 1864 to five thousand four hundred marks, which were duly claimed of me about this time with all the pressure of the law. In the interests of Pusinelli, my chief creditor, who could only be provided under this arrangement with inadequate payment, I reserved to myself the French copyright of these three operas, in the event of this music being produced in France through my efforts at finding a publisher to purchase it in that country.
According to the contents of a letter from the lawyer Schmidt, this reservation of mine had been accepted by the present publisher in Dresden. Pusinelli in a friendly spirit forbore to take advantage of the benefits accruing to him from this arrangement, in regard to the capital he had formerly lent me. He assured me he would never claim it. Thus one possibility remained open to me for the future: that if my operas could make their way into France, although there would be no question of any profit coming to me through those works of mine, I should be reimbursed for the capital I had spent on them and for that which I had been obliged to guarantee. When, later on, my Paris publisher Flaxland and I came to make out an agreement, Meser's successor in Dresden announced himself as absolute proprietor of my operas, and actually succeeded in putting so many obstacles in Flaxland's way in the conduct of his French business, that the latter was compelled to purchase peace at the price of six thousand francs. The natural result of this was that Flaxland was placed in the position of being able to deny that it was I who owned the French copyright of my work. Upon this I made repeated appeals to Adolph Schmidt, the lawyer, to give evidence in my favour, asking nothing more of him than that he should forward to me a copy of the correspondence referring to the rights I had reserved, which had become valid in the Lucerne transaction. To all the letters addressed to him on this subject, however, he obstinately refused an answer, and I learned later on from a Viennese lawyer that I must give up hoping to get this kind of evidence, as I had no legal means in my possession to force the advocate to give it, if he were not so inclined.
While, owing to this, I had little opportunity of improving my prospects for the future, I had at least the satisfaction of seeing the score of Tannhauser engraved at last. As the stock of my earlier autograph copies had come to an end, chiefly through the wasteful management of Meser, I had already persuaded Hartel when I was in Venice to have the score engraved. Meser's successor had acquired the complete rights of this work, and therefore regarded it as a point of honour not to give up the score to another publisher; consequently he took over the task of producing it at his own cost. Unluckily fate demanded that just a year later I had to revise and reconstruct the first two scenes completely. To this day it is a subject of regret to me not to have been able to introduce this fresh piece of work into the engraved score.
The Hartels, never faltering in their assumption that Tristan might provide good food for the theatre, set their men busily to work upon engraving the score of the second act, while I was at work on the third. The process of registering corrections, while I was in the throes of composing the third act-one long ecstasy- -wielded over me a strange, almost uncanny influence; for in the first scenes of this act it was made clear to me that in this opera (which had been most unwarrantably assumed to be an easy one to produce), I had embodied the most daring and most exotic conception in all my writings. While I was at work on the great scene of Tristan, found myself often asking whether I was not mad to want to give such work to a publisher to print for the theatre. And yet I could not have parted with a single accent in that tale of pain, although the whole thing tortured me to the last degree.
I tried to overcome my gastric troubles by using (among other things) Kissingen water in moderate doses. As I was fatigued and made incapable of work by the early walks I had to take during this treatment, it occurred to me to take a short ride instead. For this purpose the hotel manager lent me a horse, aged twenty- five, named Lise. On this animal I rode every morning as long as it would carry me. It never conveyed me very far, but turned back regularly at certain spots without taking the slightest notice of my directions.
Thus passed the months of April, May, and the greater part of June, without my completing even half of my composition for the third act, and all the while I was contending with a mood of the deepest melancholy. At last came the season for the visitors to arrive; the hotel with its annexes began to fill, and it was no longer possible to think of maintaining my exceptional privilege with regard to the use of such choice quarters. It was proposed to move me to the second storey of the main building, where only travellers who spent the night on their way to other places in Switzerland were put up, whereas in the annexes people were lodged who came to make a long stay, and who used their rooms day and night. As a matter of fact, this arrangement answered admirably. From this time forward I was completely undisturbed during the hours of my work in my little sitting-room with its adjoining bedchamber, as the rooms engaged for the night by strangers in this storey were perfectly empty in the daytime.
Really splendid summer weather set in eventually, lasting a good two months with a continuously cloudless sky. I enjoyed the curious charm of protecting myself against the extremes of the sun's heat by carefully keeping my room cool and dark, and going out on to my balcony only in the evening to surrender myself to the influence of the summer air. Two good horn-players gave me great pleasure by providing a performance of simple folk-songs almost regularly in a skiff on the lake. In my work, too, I had now luckily passed the critical point, and in spite of its sorrowful character, the more subdued mood of that part of my poem which I had still to master, threw me into a sincere spiritual ecstasy, during which I completed the composition of the whole work by the beginning of August, fragments only remaining to be orchestrated.
Lonely as was my life, the exciting events of the Italian war provided me plenty of interest. I followed this struggle, as unexpected as it was significant, through the thrilling course of its successes and reverses. Still I did not remain entirely without company. In July, Felix Drasecke, whom I had not known before, came to Lucerne for a lengthy visit. After hearing a performance of the prelude to Tristan und Isolde conducted by Liszt, he had almost immediately determined to make himself personally acquainted with me. I was completely terrified by his arrival, and was at a loss to know what to do with him. Moreover, as his talk was in a certain facetious vein, overflowing with stories of persons and circumstances for which I was gradually losing all appreciation, he soon began to bore me, a fact which astonished him, and which he recognised so clearly that he thought he had better leave after a few days. This made me in my turn embarrassed, and I now took special care to deprive him of the bad opinion he had formed of me. I soon learned to like him, and for a considerable time, until shortly before his departure from Lucerne, he was my daily companion, from whose i
ntercourse I derived much pleasure, as he was a highly gifted musician and by no means a prig. But Drasecke was not my only visitor.
Wilhelm Baumgartner, my old Zurich acquaintance, came to spend a few weeks in Lucerne out of kindness to me. And lastly Alexander Seroff from St. Petersburg came to stay some time in the neighbourhood. He was a remarkable man, of great intelligence, and openly prepossessed in favour of Liszt and myself. He had heard my Lohengrin in Dresden and wanted to know more of me-an ambition I was obliged to satisfy by playing Tristan to him in the rough-and-ready fashion which was peculiar to me. I went up Mount Pilatus with Drasecke, and again had to look after a companion who suffered from giddiness. To celebrate his departure I invited him to take an excursion to Brunnen and the Grutli. After this we took leave of each other for the time being, as his moderate resources did not permit him to remain any longer, and I too was seriously thinking of taking my departure.
The question now arose as to where I was to go. I had addressed letters, first through Eduard Devrient, and finally direct to the Grand Duke of Baden, asking the latter for a guarantee that I might settle, if not in Karlsruhe itself, at least in some small place in the neighbourhood. This would suffice to set at rest a craving, which could no longer be suppressed, for intercourse now and then with an orchestra and a company of singers, if only to hear them play. I learned later that the Grand Duke had really bestirred himself in the matter by writing to the King of Saxony. But the view still prevailed in that quarter that I could not be granted an amnesty, but could only hope to receive an act of grace; it being assumed, of course, that I would first have to report myself to a magistrate for examination. Thus the fulfilment of my wish remained impossible, and I shrank in dismay before the problem of how to secure a performance of my Tristan which I could superintend in person, as I had determined to do. I was assured that the Grand Duke would know what measures to resort to in order to meet the situation. But the question was, where was I to turn for a place in which to settle with some prospect of being able to remain there. I longed for a permanent home again. After due consideration I decided that Paris was the only place where I could make sure of now and then hearing a good orchestra and a first-class quartette. Without these stimulating influences Zurich at last became unbearable, and in no other city but Paris, where I could stay undisturbed, could I safely reckon on being able to obtain artistic recreation of a sufficiently high standard.
At last I had to bestir myself to come to a decision about my wife. We had now been apart from each other for a whole year. After the hard lessons she had received from me, and which, according to her letters, had left a deep impression upon her, I was justified in assuming that the renewal of our life in common might be made tolerable; especially as it would remove the grave difficulty of her maintenance. I therefore agreed with her that she should join me late in the autumn in Paris. In the meantime I was willing to look for a possible abode there, and undertook to arrange for the removal of our furniture and household goods to the French capital. In order to carry out this plan financial assistance was imperative, as the means at my disposal were quite inadequate. I then made to Wesendonck the same offer in regard to my Nibelungen that I had made to the Grand Duke of Weimar, that is to say, I proposed that he should buy the copyright for publishing the work. Wesendonck acceded to my wishes without demur, and was ready to buy out each of the completed portions of my work in turn for about the same sum as it was reasonable to suppose a publisher would pay for it later on. I was not able to fix my departure, which took place on the 7th of September, when I went for a three days' visit to my friends in Zurich. I spent these days at the Wesendonck's, where I was well looked after and saw my former acquaintances, Herwegh, Semper, and Gottfried Keller. One of the evenings I spent with them was marked by an animated dispute with Semper over the political events of the time. Semper professed to recognise, in the recent defeat of Austria, the defeat of the German nationality; in the Romance element represented by Louis Napoleon, he recognised a sort of Assyrian despotism which he hated both in art and politics. He expressed himself with such emphasis that Keller, who was generally so silent, was provoked into a lively debate. Semper in his turn was so aggravated at this, that at last in a fit of desperation he blamed me for luring him into the enemy's camp, by being the cause of his invitation to the Wesendonck's. We made it up before we parted that night, and met again on several occasions after this, when we took care never again to let our discussions become so passionate. From Zurich I went to Winterthur to visit Sulzer. I did not see my friend himself, but only his wife and the boy she had borne to him since my last visit; the mother and child made a very touching and friendly impression on me, particularly when I realised that I must now regard my old friend in the light of a happy father.
On the 15th of September I reached Paris. I had intended to fix my abode somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Champs Elysees, and with this object in view at once looked out for temporary lodgings in that district, which I found eventually in the Avenue de Matignon. My main object was to discover my desired peaceful place of refuge in some small house remote from the thoroughfares. I at once bestirred myself to find this, and thought it my duty to make use of every acquaintance I could call to mind. The Olliviers were not in Paris at the time; Countess d'Agoult was ill, and was also busy arranging her departure for Italy, and unable to receive me. She referred me to her daughter the Countess Charnace, upon whom I called, but without being able to explain to her the purpose I had in view. I also looked up the Herold family, who had received me in such a friendly way on my last visit to Paris; but I found Mme. Herold in a strange and morbidly excitable state of mind, the result of ill-health, so that instead of discussing my views with her, my only thought was to keep her calm and avoid upsetting her by even the slightest appeal for help. In my passionate longing to find a home I decided to get no further information, but set about the matter myself. At last I discovered in the Rue Newton near the Barriere de l'Etoile, a side street off the Champs Elysees, not yet completed in accordance with a former plan of Paris, a nice little villa with a small garden. I took this on a three-years' agreement at a rent of four thousand francs a year. Here, at all events, I might look for complete quiet and total isolation from the noise of the streets. This fact alone prepossessed me very much in taking the little house, the late occupier of which had been the well-known author Octave Feuillet, who was at that time under the patronage of the imperial court. But I was puzzled that the building, in spite of my being unable to detect anything old in its structure, had been so neglected inside. The proprietor could in no way be induced to do anything to restore the place and make it habitable, even if I had consented to pay a higher rent. The reason of this I discovered some time afterwards: the estate itself was doomed in consequence of the plans for the rebuilding of Paris; but the time had not yet come to make the official announcement of the government's intentions to the proprietors, because, had this been done, their claims to compensation would have become valid at once. I consequently laboured under the pleasant delusion that whatever I was obliged to spend on interior decoration and on restoring the property would, in the course of years, prove to be money well invested. I therefore proceeded to give the necessary instructions for the work without hesitating, and ordered my furniture to be sent from Zurich, thinking that as fate had driven me to my choice, I could regard myself as a resident of Paris for the rest of my life.
While the house was being prepared, I tried to get my bearings as to what could be extracted for my future existence out of the popularity of my artistic works. The first thing I did was to look up M. de Charnal and to get information from him about the translation of the libretto of my Rienzi with which he had been entrusted. It turned out that M. Carvalho, the director of the Theatre Lyrique, would hear of absolutely nothing but Tannhauser. I prevailed upon Carvalho to visit me to talk the matter over. He declared that he was most certainly inclined to produce one of my operas, only it must be Tannhauser, becau
se, as he explained, this opera was identified with me among the Parisians, who would think it ridiculous to produce any other work under the name of 'Wagner.' As to my choice of a translator for the poem of this opera he seemed to entertain grave doubts: he asked whether I had not made a mistake, whereupon I tried to get more definite information about the capabilities of M. de Charnal, and discovered to my horror that this charming young man, who boasted that he had collaborated in a melodrama called Schinderhannes, which he thought was a German romantic subject, had not had the slightest conception of the character of the work he was handling.
As his enthusiasm moved me, I tried to shape some verses with him and make them practicable for musical purposes; but I failed utterly, and all my trouble was in vain. Bulow had once drawn my attention to Auguste de Gasperini, a young doctor who had ceased to practise, and whose acquaintance he had made in Baden-Baden, where he discovered that he was extraordinarily fond of my music. I called upon him without loss of time, and as he was not in Paris, I wrote to him. This man sent his friend Leroy to me with a letter of recommendation. He was a well-educated Parisian music-master, who won my esteem by his attractive personality. My confidence in him was aroused, because he at once dissuaded me from associating myself with an obscure journalist on a theatrical newspaper (in which character M. de Charnal finally disclosed himself), and advised me to go to Roger, a highly gifted and experienced operatic singer, who had been a favourite with the Parisian public and was master of the German language. This lifted a load from my heart: I accepted the invitation which Leroy arranged for me through another friend, who took me down to Roger's country place one day to meet him. I have forgotten the name of this large estate which was occupied by the Paris tenor, whose fame had been so celebrated up to that time; the chateau had once belonged to a marquis, and was built in a very sumptuous style and surrounded by extensive hunting-grounds. It was the desire to handle a gun and make use of these grounds (which he loved) that, only a short time before, had landed this charming singer in a terrible disaster which had shattered his right arm.
My Life, Volume II Page 20