My Life — Volume 1

In the preface, Wagner explains the circumstances surrounding the creation of this autobiography. He notes that the contents were written down directly from his dictation over several years by his friend and wife, who expressed a desire to hear the story of his life. Both Wagner and his wife intended these biographical details to be accessible to their family and to sincere, trusted friends. To ensure preservation, they arranged for a limited number of copies to be printed at their own expense, protecting against the potential loss of the sole manuscript. Wagner emphasizes that the value of the autobiography lies in its "unadorned veracity," justifying its existence through factual accuracy rather than literary embellishment. He reserved the right to include specific names and dates, making publication inappropriate during his lifetime. The work was eventually shared with certain intimate friends who demonstrated genuine interest, with the expectation that they would respect the confidential nature of the contents.

The volume contains two significant frontispiece illustrations. Volume I features a portrait of Richard Wagner painted in 1842 by E. Kietz, presented as the frontispiece. Volume II includes a portrait of Wagner approximately 1872, painted by Lenbach, with the original in the possession of Frau Cosima Wagner. These portraits bookend Wagner's life, showing him at the beginning of his career and in his later years of maturity and fame. The inclusion of these illustrations serves both as historical documentation and as a visual complement to the autobiographical narrative, allowing readers to connect the text with the physical appearance of its author across different periods of his life.

The autobiography is organized into two major parts corresponding to distinct periods in Wagner's life. Part I spans 1813-1842, encompassing Wagner's childhood, schooldays, musical studies, travels in Germany (including his first marriage), and the pivotal years in Paris from 1839-1842. Part II covers 1842-1850 (Dresden), detailing his operatic works including "Rienzi," "The Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," and the creation of the "Lohengrin" libretto. The section also includes discussions of his relationships with musicians and artists such as Liszt, Spontini, Marschner, Franck, Schumann, and others, along with documentation of his official position, studies in historical literature, political engagement culminating in the May Insurrection, and his subsequent flight through various cities including Weimar, Zürich, Paris, Bordeaux, and Geneva.

Early memories include frequent conflicts with local boys who mocked his distinctive cap, as well as enjoyable adventures along the rocky banks of the Unstrut. His uncle's marriage and establishment of a new home significantly changed the family dynamic. Approximately a year later, the young narrator was taken to Leipzig and placed with his father's relatives—the Wagners, consisting of uncle Adolph and aunt Friederike Wagner—who would exert a lasting influence on his development.

The household shared with Jeannette Thome occupied a large house in the Leipzig market-place, where the Electoral family of Saxony had long maintained furnished quarters. The young visitor was given a stateroom from this royal allocation, decorated in heavy silk and rich rococo furnishings from the era of Augustus the Strong. While initially delighted by the spacious rooms overlooking the bustling marketplace, he developed intense fear of the portraits hanging there—particularly those of aristocratic women in hooped petticoats, which appeared ghostly in the dim light. Sleeping alone in the stateroom beneath these spectral images became a source of nightly terror. Jeannette Thome was a small, stout woman wearing a fair wig and seemingly clinging to memories of past beauty. His aunt, tall and lean with a pointed chin, served as Jeannette's faithful companion. Uncle Adolph Wagner had retreated to a dark courtyard study surrounded by books, wearing an unpretentious indoor costume topped with a distinctive pointed felt cap. Originally destined for the church, he abandoned that path for philological studies, later earning a meager living through literary work and his fine tenor voice. He had visited Schiller in Jena regarding the theatrical rights to Wallenstein, and later published the Parnasso Italiano, dedicating it to Goethe in verse.

Upon returning to Dresden, the family adjusted to circumstances under their bereaved mother's guidance. Brother Albert had begun a theatrical career in Breslau following Weber's advice regarding his tenor voice, while sister Louisa also entered acting. Sister Rosalie held an excellent position at the Dresden Court Theatre and became the family's primary support. Their modest home occasionally housed lodgers, including the composer Spohr. Despite limited resources supplemented by continued royal generosity and the mother's considerable energy, the family managed adequately, and the young narrator's education continued. The mother, from Weissenfels where her parents were bakers, had attended a prestigious Leipzig boarding-school with support from a family friend believed to be a Weimar prince. She married young and possessed keen humor and an amiable disposition, later marrying the portrait painter Ludwig Geyer after her first husband's death. Though not highly educated, she made lasting impressions on those who knew her. Her practical efficiency combined with intellectual animation, and she displayed intense religious devotion, gathering children for morning prayers and hymns. She harbored particular enthusiasm for poetry, music, and painting—while expressly forbidding any theatrical aspirations.

From earliest childhood, mysterious and uncanny things exerted enormous influence over the narrator. Even lifeless furniture seemed alive when he concentrated upon it, and nightly ghostly dreams produced frightful shrieks that disturbed the entire household. What attracted him most strongly to theatre was not entertainment but the prospect of entering a purely fantastic world—as attractive as an apparition—where he might escape dull daily routine. Scenery, costumes, and stage elements appeared to come from another realm entirely. His passion for theatrical performance manifested in puppet shows constructed from stepfather's effects, dramatic compositions attempted with playmates, and imitations of works like Der Freischütz. Costumes and props from family theatricals exercised a subtle but powerful fascination over his imagination.

The author describes being raised entirely among feminine surroundings, which he believes influenced the development of his sensitive nature. These "fantastic humours" were counteracted by serious influences at school from teachers and schoolfellows. His interest was particularly drawn to the weird and macabre. Regarding academic abilities, the author notes that he could easily grasp subjects he liked but exerted no effort in uncongenial areas, especially arithmetic and mathematics. He studied the Classics only as necessary to engage with them dramatically—Greek mythology particularly captured his imagination, and he tried to imagine Greek heroes speaking to him in their native tongue. He found grammar a tiresome obstacle rather than interesting in itself. His language study was never thorough, though later he developed appreciation for its physiological and philosophical aspects as revealed by Jakob Grimm's work.

The author's successes in philological work attracted the attention of Sillig, a young Master of Arts at the Kreuz Grammar School. Sillig allowed him to visit, show his work (metric translations and original poems), and recite for him, even having the twelve-year-old recite 'Hector's Farewell' from the Iliad and Hamlet's monologue. When a schoolfellow named Starke died suddenly, the headmaster ordered a commemorative poem for publication. The author's hastily prepared poem was initially rejected along with others, but Sillig intervened and carefully revised it, removing bombastic imagery the author had borrowed from Addison's Cato. The poem was eventually accepted, printed, and widely circulated. This success had an extraordinary effect—the author's mother folded her hands in thankfulness, and he felt his vocation as a poet was settled. Sillig suggested he compose a grand epic on "The Battle of Parnassus," but the author could not complete even the first canto. The author also attempted to construct a Greek-style tragedy on the death of Ulysses, influenced by August Apel's poems 'Polyidos' and 'Aitolier,' but abandoned this work as well. His fascination with Greek mythology, legends, and history came to dominate his interests, while duller studies ceased to interest him.

The author formed intense, almost passionate friendships with schoolmates, choosing associates based on shared imagination—sometimes for poetizing, theatrical enterprises, or longing for adventure. When his sister Rosalie obtained an engagement at the Prague theatre in 1820, the family moved there, leaving the thirteen-year-old author in Dresden to continue at the Kreuz Grammar School. He was sent to board with the Bohme family, whose sons he knew from school. In this rough, poor, and not particularly well-conducted household, his "years of dissipation began." He lost the quiet retirement necessary for work and his sisters' spiritual influence, instead being plunged into busy, restless life full of rough horseplay. Yet it was here that he first experienced the influence of the gentler sex, as the grown-up daughters and their friends filled the narrow rooms. He recalls his first boyish love—being struck dumb by a beautiful young girl named Amalie Hoffmann who visited one Sunday—and manipulating situations to be carried to bed by the girls. During this separation, his mother came to Dresden and took him to Prague for a week in midwinter. She preferred dangerous hackney carriages over quicker mail-coaches, so they spent three bitter-cold days on the road. Prague made a romantically exhilarating impression: the foreign nationality, broken German, peculiar headgear, native wines, harp-girls, Catholic chapels, and the antique splendor and beauty of the incomparable city. He was introduced to Count Pachta's family, including the famously beautiful Jenny and Auguste, and met Prague's beaux esprits such as W. Marsano, who discussed E.T.A. Hoffmann's tales. This first acquaintance with the romantic visionary stimulated him for years.

In spring 1827, the author and his friend Rudolf Bohme walked from Dresden to Prague. Their tour was full of adventure: they walked their feet sore getting within an hour of Teplitz the first night, had to get a lift in a wagon that only took them to Lowositz as their funds ran out, and wandered through unknown country under a scorching sun until an elegant traveling coach appeared. The author swallowed his pride to pretend he was a travelling journeyman begging for alms while Bohme hid in a roadside ditch. They took shelter at an inn, spending their alms on supper rather than a bed, planning to sleep under the open sky. A strange wayfarer entered—a strolling player with a black velvet skull-cap bearing a metal lyre and a harp on his back. Cheerful and sympatheric, he agreed to continue the journey together and lent the author two twenty-kreutzer pieces. He grew extravagantly merry, drank copiously, sang and played his harp, repeatedly saying his motto "non plus ultra," until he fell down on their shared straw bed. The author and Bohme set off without him the next morning, never sighting him on the road or during their Prague stay. Weeks later, he turned up at the author's mother's—not so much to collect his loan as to inquire after his young friend's welfare. The author's joy when Prague finally came into view from a hilltop beggared description. Approaching the suburbs, Ottilie's lovely friends in a splendid carriage recognized him despite his sunburnt face, blue linen blouse, and red cotton cap. Overwhelmed with shame, he hurried to restore his complexion with parsley poultices before seeking society. On the return journey, looking back at Prague from the same hilltop, he burst into tears, threw himself on the earth, and remained downcast all the way home to Dresden.

That same year, the author joined a company of grammar school boys from several classes for a summer walking tour to Leipzig. The party apes the student stereotype, behaving and dressing extravagantly in approved student fashion. After going by market-boat to Meissen, they walked off the main road through unfamiliar villages and spent the night in a vast barn. Their most notable adventure was seeing a large marionette show with almost life-sized figures performing Genovefa. The managers were anxious about the unexpected peasant audience, and the author's classmates' constant jests, interpolations, and jeering interruptions finally aroused the peasants' anger—they had come prepared to weep. The author was pained by these impertinences and, despite involuntary laughter at some jokes, defended both the play and its simple-minded audience. A popular catch-phrase from the piece remained stamped on his memory: the comic exchange where Golo instructs Kaspar to "tickle him behind, so that he should feel it in front," and Kaspar conveys this verbatim to the Count Palatine.

The party traveled from Grimma to Leipzig in open carriages, carefully removing all signs of undergraduate status to avoid conflict with local students. During this visit, the author discovered he had inherited a bookcase full of books from his father, from which he selected Latin works in the handsome Zweibruck edition along with poetry and belles-lettres to be sent to Dresden. The narrator observed significant changes in student life since his childhood visit. The old student associations that had affected the traditional German costume—long hair, black velvet skull-cap, and shirt collar turned back—had disappeared due to police prosecutions. In their place, national student clubs had emerged, adopting contemporary fashion with slight exaggeration but remaining distinguishable by their picturesqueness and display of club-colours. The 'Comment,' a compendium of pedantic rules maintaining defiant and exclusive esprit de corps against bourgeois classes, represented for the author the idea of emancipation from school and family. His longing to become a student coincided with his growing dislike of drier studies and increasing fondness for romantic poetry.

At his confirmation in Easter 1827, the author experienced considerable doubt and a serious decline in reverence for religious observances. The boy who had once gazed with agonized sympathy on the altarpiece in the Kreuz Kirche now found himself ready to make fun of the clergyman whose preparatory confirmation classes he attended, even joining comrades in withholding part of his class fees to spend on sweets. The spiritual crisis became vivid during Communion service, when the shudder with which he received the Bread and Wine was ineffaceably stamped on his memory, leading him to never again partake of the Communion. This was easier among Protestants, where participation was not compulsory. The author soon created an opportunity to force a breach with the Kreuz Grammar School, asking for immediate discharge on the pretext of a sudden summons to join his family in Leipzig. He had already left the Bohme household three months prior and now lived alone in a small garret, waited on by the widow of a court plate-washer, subsisting on thin Saxon coffee. In this attic, he wrote verses and began the first outlines of the tragedy that would later fill his family with consternation.

The author's longing for Leipzig, originally sparked by fantastic impressions and later stimulated by enthusiasm for student life, was further heightened by news of his sister Louisa. She had been at the Breslau theatre and recently arrived in Dresden en route to Leipzig, having accepted an engagement at the theatre there. When he reached Leipzig at Christmas 1827, he found his mother with Ottilie and Cecilia, and the meeting with Louisa—whose hearty joy and sprightly disposition won his heart—made him fancy himself in heaven. However, great changes had occurred. Louisa was betrothed to the respected and well-to-do bookseller Friedrich Brockhaus, and her desire to secure entrance into higher bourgeois social circles produced a marked change in her manner, eventually leading to estrangement between the siblings. The author also gave Louisa good cause to reprove his conduct, having quite given up studies and regular school work after arriving in Leipzig. At St. Nicholas's School, the council of teachers placed him in the upper third form despite his having been in the second form at Kreuz Grammar School in Dresden. His disgust at laying aside Homer—from which he had translated twelve songs—in favor of lighter Greek prose writers was indescribable. This treatment made him obstinate, and he never made a friend of any teacher. Meanwhile, student life inspired him with its rebellious spirit.

The author's romantic tastes were demonstrated by his ardent attachment to his uncle Adolph Wagner, a learned man whose manner and conversation were attractive and whose knowledge spanned philology, philosophy, and general poetic literature. Though his uncle possessed the gift of writing only rarely, the author admired his literary extravagances, having more experience of his conversation than his writings. They took daily constitutional walks beyond the city gates, discussing subjects ranging over the entire realm of knowledge, and the author took enthusiastic interest in his uncle's copious library, tasting eagerly of almost all branches of literature without grounding himself in any single discipline. Uncle Adolph delighted in reciting classic tragedies, having made a translation of Oedipus that he read aloud despite the author sometimes falling asleep. He also showed contempt for modern pedantry in State, Church, and School. When the author came into conflict with teachers at St. Nicholas's School, his uncle listened to the explanation of the unjust punishment and exhorted patience, comforting him with the Spanish proverb "un rey no puede morir"—that the ruler of a school must always be in the right. This intellectual influence, combined with conversations about great poets and Shakespeare and Dante, made the author so familiar with sublime literary figures that he had secretly been working out the tragedy he had conceived in Dresden. Since his trouble at school, he had devoted energies that should have been directed to school duties to accomplishing this task, with only his sister Ottilie as confidante. She endured the misgivings and alarm his poetic enterprise aroused, suffering through his emotional recitations of portions of his work, even during a heavy thunderstorm.

The author's neglect of school reached a point that could not but lead to a rupture. While his mother had no presentiment of this, he awaited the catastrophe with longing rather than fear. To meet this crisis with dignity, he decided to surprise his family by disclosing the secret of his tragedy, now completed, through his uncle, relying on the deep harmony between them on questions of life, science, and art. He sent the voluminous manuscript with a long letter expressing his firm determination not to allow school pedantry to check his free development. The event turned out very differently than expected. His uncle, conscious of having been indiscreet, visited the author’s mother and brother-in-law to report the misfortune that had befallen the family, reproaching himself for having corrupted the youth by conversations unsuited to his years. To the author he wrote a serious letter of discouragement, failing to show humor in understanding the situation. The great tragedy, entitled *Leubald und Adelaïde*, had been written by a boy of fifteen.

The manuscript of this drama has unfortunately been lost, but I can still see it clearly in my mind's eye. The handwriting was most affected, and the backward-sloping tall letters with which I had aimed at giving it an air of distinction had already been compared by one of my teachers to Persian hieroglyphics. In this composition I had constructed a drama in which I had drawn largely upon Shakespeare's Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, and Goethe's Götz van Berlichingen. The plot was really based on a modification of Hamlet, the difference consisting in the fact that my hero is so completely carried away by the appearance of the ghost of his father, who has been murdered under similar circumstances, and demands vengeance, that he is driven to fearful deeds of violence; and, with a series of murders on his conscience, he eventually goes mad. Leubald, whose character is a mixture of Hamlet and Harry Hotspur, had promised his father's ghost to wipe from the face of the earth the whole race of Roderick, as the ruthless murderer of the best of fathers was named. After having slain Roderick himself in mortal combat, and subsequently all his sons and other relations who supported him, there was only one obstacle that prevented Leubald from fulfilling the dearest wish of his heart, which was to be united in death with the shade of his father: a child of Roderick's was still alive. During the storming of his castle the murderer's daughter had been carried away into safety by a faithful suitor, whom she, however, detested. I had an irresistible impulse to call this maiden 'Adelaïde.' As even at that early age I was a great enthusiast for everything really German, I can only account for the obviously un-German name of my heroine by my infatuation for Beethoven's Adelaïde, whose tender refrain seemed to me the symbol of all loving appeals. The course of my drama was now characterised by the strange delays which took place in the accomplishment of this last murder of vengeance, the chief obstacle to which lay in the sudden passionate love which arose between Leubald and Adelaïde. I succeeded in representing the birth and avowal of this love by means of extraordinary adventures. Adelaïde was once more stolen away by a robber-knight from the lover who had been sheltering her. After Leubald had thereupon sacrificed the lover and all his relations, he hastened to the robber's castle, driven thither less by a thirst for blood than by a longing for death. For this reason he regrets his inability to storm the robber's castle forthwith, because it is well defended, and, moreover, night is fast falling; he is therefore obliged to pitch his tent. After raving for a while he sinks down for the first time exhausted, but being urged, like his prototype Hamlet, by the spirit of his father to complete his vow of vengeance, he himself suddenly falls into the power of the enemy during a night assault. In the subterranean dungeon's of the castle he meets Roderick's daughter for the first time. She is a prisoner like himself, and is craftily devising flight. Under circumstances in which she produces on him the impression of a heavenly vision, she makes her appearance before him. They fall in love, and fly together into the wilderness, where they realise that they are deadly enemies. The incipient insanity which was already noticeable in Leubald breaks out more violently after this discovery, and everything that can be done to intensify it is contributed by the ghost of his father, which continually comes between the advances of the lovers. But this ghost is not the only disturber of the conciliating love of Leubald and Adelaïde. The ghost of Roderick also appears, and according to the method followed by Shakespeare in Richard III., he is joined by the ghosts of all the other members of Adelaïde's family whom Leubald has slain. From the incessant importunities of these ghosts Leubald seeks to free himself by means of sorcery, and calls to his aid a rascal named Flamming. One of Macbeth's witches is summoned to lay the ghosts; as she is unable to do this efficiently, the furious Leubald sends her also to the devil; but with her dying breath she despatches the whole crowd of spirits who serve her to join the ghosts of those already pursuing him. Leubald, tormented beyond endurance, and now at last raving mad, turns against his beloved, who is the apparent cause of all his misery. He stabs her in his fury; then finding himself suddenly at peace, he sinks his head into her lap, and accepts her last caresses as her life-blood streams over his own dying body.

I had not omitted the smallest detail that could give this plot its proper colouring, and had drawn on all my knowledge of the tales of the old knights, and my acquaintance with Lear and Macbeth, to furnish my drama with the most vivid situations. But one of the chief characteristics of its poetical form I took from the pathetic, humorous, and powerful language of Shakespeare. The boldness of my grandiloquent and bombastic expressions roused my uncle Adolph's alarm and astonishment. He was unable to understand how I could have selected and used with inconceivable exaggeration precisely the most extravagant forms of speech to be found in Lear and Götz von Berlichingen. Nevertheless, even after everybody had deafened me with their laments over my lost time and perverted talents, I was still conscious of a wonderful secret solace in the face of the calamity that had befallen me. I knew, a fact that no one else could know, namely, that my work could only be rightly judged when set to the music which I had resolved to write for it, and which I intended to start composing immediately.

I must now explain my position with respect to music hitherto. For this purpose I must go back to my earliest attempts in the art. In my family two of my sisters were musical; the elder one, Rosalie, played the piano, without, however, displaying any marked talent. Clara was more gifted; in addition to a great deal of musical feeling, and a fine rich touch on the piano, she possessed a particularly sympathetic voice, the development of which was so premature and remarkable that, under the tuition of Mieksch, her singing master, who was famous at that time, she was apparently ready for the role of a prima donna as early as her sixteenth year, and made her debut at Dresden in Italian opera as 'Cenerentola' in Rossini's opera of that name. Incidentally I may remark that this premature development proved injurious to Clara's voice, and was detrimental to her whole career. As I have said, music was represented in our family by these two sisters. It was chiefly owing to Clara's career that the musical conductor C. M. von Weber often came to our house. His visits were varied by those of the great male-soprano Sassaroli; and in addition to these two representatives of German and Italian music, we also had the company of Mieksch, her singing master. It was on these occasions that I as a child first heard German and Italian music discussed, and learnt that any one who wished to ingratiate himself with the Court must show a preference for Italian music, a fact which led to very practical results in our family council. Clara's talent, while her voice was still sound, was the object of competition between the representatives of Italian and German opera. I can remember quite distinctly that from the very beginning I declared myself in favour of German opera; my choice was determined by the tremendous impression made on me by the two figures of Sassaroli and Weber. The Italian male-soprano, a huge pot-bellied giant, horrified me with his high effeminate voice, his astonishing volubility, and his incessant screeching laughter. In spite of his boundless good-nature and amiability, particularly to my family, I took an uncanny dislike to him. On account of this dreadful person, the sound of Italian, either spoken or sung, seemed to my ears almost diabolical; and when, in consequence of my poor sister's misfortune, I heard them often talking about Italian intrigues and cabals, I conceived so strong a dislike for everything connected with this nation that even in much later years I used to feel myself carried away by an impulse of utter detestation and abhorrence. The less frequent visits of Weber, on the other hand, seemed to have produced upon me those first sympathetic impressions which I have never since lost. In contrast to Sassaroli's repulsive figure, Weber's really refined, delicate, and intellectual appearance excited my ecstatic admiration. His narrow face and finely-cut features, his vivacious though often half-closed eyes, captivated and thrilled me; whilst even the bad limp with which he walked, and which I often noticed from our windows when the master was making his way home past our house from the fatiguing rehearsals, stamped the great musician in my imagination as an exceptional and almost superhuman being. When, as a boy of nine, my mother introduced me to him, and he asked me what I was going to be, whether I wanted perhaps to be a musician, my mother told him that, though I was indeed quite mad on Freischutz, yet she had as yet seen nothing in me which indicated any musical talent.

This showed correct observation on my mother's part; nothing had made so great an impression on me as the music of Freischutz, and I tried in every possible way to procure a repetition of the impressions I had received from it, but, strange to say, least of all by the study of music itself. Instead of this, I contented myself with hearing bits from Freischutz played by my sisters. Yet my passion for it gradually grew so strong that I can remember taking a particular fancy for a young man called Spiess, chiefly because he could play the overture to Freischutz, which I used to ask him to do whenever I met him. It was chiefly the introduction to this overture which at last led me to attempt, without ever having received any instruction on the piano, to play this piece in my own peculiar way, for, oddly enough, I was the only child in our family who had not been given music lessons. This was probably due to my mother's anxiety to keep me away from any artistic interests of this kind in case they might arouse in me a longing for the theatre. When I was about twelve years old, however, my mother engaged a tutor for me named Humann, from whom I received regular music lessons, though only of a very mediocre description. As soon as I had acquired a very imperfect knowledge of fingering I begged to be allowed to play overtures in the form of duets, always keeping Weber as the goal of my ambition. When at length I had got so far as to be able to play the overture to Freischutz myself, though in a very faulty manner, I felt the object of my study had been attained, and I had no inclination to devote any further attention to perfecting my technique. Yet I had attained this much: I was no longer dependent for music on the playing of others; from this time forth I used to try and play, albeit very imperfectly, everything I wanted to know. I also tried Mozart's Don Juan, but was unable to get any pleasure out of it, mainly because the Italian text in the arrangement for the piano placed the music in a frivolous light in my eyes, and much in it seemed to me trivial and unmanly. On the other hand, my bent for music grew stronger and stronger, and I now tried to possess myself of my favourite pieces by making my own copies. I can remember the hesitation with which my mother for the first time gave me the money to buy the scored paper on which I copied out Weber's Lutzow's Jagd, which was the first piece of music I transcribed. Music was still a secondary occupation with me when the news of Weber's death and the longing to learn his music to Oberon fanned my enthusiasm into flame again. This received fresh impetus from the afternoon concerts in the Grosser Garten at Dresden, where I often heard my favourite music played by Zillmann's Town Band, as I thought, exceedingly well. The mysterious joy I felt in hearing an orchestra play quite close to me still remains one of my most pleasant memories. The mere tuning up of the instruments put me in a state of mystic excitement; even the striking of fifths on the violin seemed to me like a greeting from the spirit world. When I was still almost a baby, the sound of these fifths, which has always excited me, was closely associated in my mind with ghosts and spirits. I remember that even much later in life I could never pass the small palace of Prince Anthony, at the end of the Ostra Allee in Dresden, without a shudder; for it was there I had first heard the sound of a violin. When at last, as a young man, I used to listen to the Zillmann Orchestra in the Grosser Garten almost every afternoon, one may imagine the rapturous thrill with which I drew in all the chaotic variety of sound that I heard as the orchestra tuned up: the long drawn A of the oboe, which seemed like a call from the dead to rouse the other instruments, never failed to raise all my nerves to a feverish pitch of tension, and when the swelling C in the overture to Freischutz told me that I had stepped, as it were with both feet, right into the magic realm of awe. Another work also exercised a great fascination over me, namely, the overture to Fidelio in E major, the introduction to which affected me deeply. I asked my sisters about Beethoven, and learned that the news of his death had just arrived. Obsessed as I still was by the terrible grief caused by Weber's death, this fresh loss, due to the decease of this great master of melody, who had only just entered my life, filled me with strange anguish, a feeling nearly akin to my childish dread of the ghostly fifths on the violin. It was now Beethoven's music that I longed to know more thoroughly; I came to Leipzig, and found his music to Egmont on the piano at my sister Louisa's. After that I tried to get hold of his sonatas. At last, at a concert at the Gewandthaus, I heard one of the master's symphonies for the first time; it was the Symphony in A major. The effect on me was indescribable. To this must be added the impression produced on me by Beethoven's features, which I saw in the lithographs that were circulated everywhere at that time, and by the fact that he was deaf, and lived a quiet secluded life. I soon conceived an image of him in my mind as a sublime and unique supernatural being, with whom none could compare. This image was associated in my brain with that of Shakespeare; in ecstatic dreams I met both of them, saw and spoke to them, and on awakening found myself bathed in tears. It was at this time that I came across Mozart's Requiem, which formed the starting-point of my enthusiastic absorption in the works of that master. His second finale to Don Juan inspired me to include him in my spirit world.

I was now filled with a desire to compose, as I had before been to write verse. I had, however, in this case to master the technique of an entirely separate and complicated subject. This presented greater difficulties than I had met with in writing verse, which came to me fairly easily. It was these difficulties that drove me to adopt a career which bore some resemblance to that of a professional musician, whose future distinction would be to win the titles of Conductor and Writer of Opera.

During this period, the author sought to set his tragic drama *Leubald und Adelaïde* to music, drawing inspiration from Beethoven's incidental music to Goethe's *Egmont*. To develop composition techniques quickly, he studied Logier's *Methode des Generalbasses*, borrowing it from a lending library with a weekly payment plan. However, the weeks stretched into months as his compositional skills failed to develop as quickly as hoped. Financial difficulties, a recurring theme throughout his life, emerged at this time. Frederick Wieck, whose daughter would later marry Robert Schumann, repeatedly sent reminders about the unpaid debt. When the accumulated payments nearly matched the book's price, the author was forced to confess the situation to his family, revealing both his financial troubles and his secret venture into music—something his relatives viewed with great concern, anticipating nothing better than another repetition of his poetic ambitions.

Summer 1829 brought domestic changes that left the author alone in the Leipzig house, giving him freedom to pursue his intensifying passion for music. He secretly took harmony lessons from G. Müller, who later became organist at Altenburg and was an accomplished musician in the Leipzig orchestra. Despite these lessons creating future payment difficulties, the author's progress disappointed his teacher. The systematic study of harmony struck him as dry and mechanical, contradicting his belief that music was "a spirit, a noble and mystic monster" that should not be regulated. He found far more inspiring guidance in E.T.A. Hoffmann's *Phantasiestücke*, whose artistic world of ghosts and musical spirits profoundly influenced him. Hoffmann's tales of characters like Kreutzer and Krespel filled his imagination, creating an atmosphere where supernatural musical encounters seemed possible.

With Hoffmann's fantastical musicians occupying his thoughts, the author became convinced he had encountered a real-life embodiment of these characters in a man named Flachs. This tall, extremely thin figure with an unusually narrow head had drawn the author's attention at open-air concerts, where Flachs appeared among orchestra members, speaking rapidly to one and then another. The author interpreted Flachs's peculiar behavior—his convulsive head nods and puffed cheeks during performances—as signs of spiritual ecstasy, overlooking that the musicians were actually making fun of him. The fact that Flachs was known to all Dresden musicians only deepened the author's fascination. After successfully making his acquaintance, the author was delighted to discover numerous bundles of scores in Flachs's rooms, though he later learned these were worthless works by obscure composers that unscrupulous dealers had swindled from Flachs. Their close friendship saw the author, a lanky sixteen-year-old, accompanied everywhere by this "weird, shaky flaxpole." Flachs arranged one of the author's compositions for wind instruments, which was even performed at Kintschy's Swiss Chalet. However, the author eventually discovered that Flachs had fallen into a liaison with a woman of dubious character, causing him to see Flachs as even more mentally unstable. Ashamed of his former blindness, the author avoided the garden concerts for some time.

The author had by this time composed his first Sonata in D minor and begun a pastoral play, developing it through what he believed was an entirely unprecedented method. Using Goethe's *Laune der Verliebten* as his formal model, he scarcely drafted the libretto separately, instead working out both text and music simultaneously during orchestration. While writing one page of the score, he had often not yet conceived the words for the following page. Despite having no formal knowledge of instrumental writing, he managed to compose a passage for three female voices followed by a tenor air. His passion for orchestral writing led him to procure a score of *Don Juan* and attempt a detailed orchestration of a soprano air. He also composed a quartet in D major after teaching himself the alto clef for viola, a skill that had caused him difficulty while studying a Haydn quartet.

Armed with these compositions, the author embarked on his first journey as a musician, walking from Leipzig to Magdeburg where his sister Clara, married to the singer Wolfram, was performing at the theatre. The visit provided rich experiences of musical life and introduced him to Kuhnlein, a most extraordinary musical conductor whose influence he never forgot. Already elderly, delicate, and unfortunately addicted to drink, Kuhnlein nevertheless possessed a striking and vigorous presence. His defining characteristics were an enthusiastic worship of Mozart and a passionate contempt for Weber. He had read only Goethe's *Faust*, in which every page bore underlined passages with remarks either praising Mozart or disparaging Weber. When pressed for his opinion of the author's compositions, Kuhnlein delivered his verdict with calm certainty: "There is not a single good note in it!" Though Kuhnlein's eccentricities prevented him from offering coherent advice, his heated references to Mozart made a deep impression on the young composer.

The journey to Magdeburg also yielded a significant treasure: the score of Beethoven's great Quartet in E flat major, recently published, of which a copy was made for the author. Returning to Leipzig with this prize, he found his family had returned with his sister Rosalie, and his secret was out—a notice had been discovered indicating he had not attended school for six months. The school authorities had apparently abandoned their attempts to supervise him after a complaint to his uncle went unheeded. A family council determined that since he showed such strong inclination toward music, he should at least learn one instrument thoroughly. His brother-in-law Brockhaus suggested sending him to Hummel at Weimar for piano training, but the author insisted he meant "composing," not "playing an instrument." The compromise allowed him regular harmony lessons from Müller, the very teacher he had already consulted secretly. In return, he promised to return seriously to St. Nicholas's School, though he soon grew tired of both pursuits. Unable to accept control over his musical instruction, he continued composing fantasias, sonatas, and overtures independently. At school, his ambition led him to compose a chorus in Greek on the recent War of Liberation when other students wrote poems, an attempt rejected as impudence. After this, his school attendance became purely perfunctory, done only out of consideration for his family.

With formal instruction proving ineffective, the author pursued self-education by copying scores of his beloved masters, developing a neat handwriting that would later be admired. His copies of Beethoven's C minor Symphony and Ninth Symphony are preserved as souvenirs. The Ninth Symphony became the mystical goal of all his musical desires. He was initially drawn to it because musicians everywhere considered it the work of a half-mad Beethoven—the "non plus ultra" of the fantastic and incomprehensible. This mystery thrilled him. At first sight of the score, the long-sustained pure fifths with which the opening phrase begins captivated him immediately, for these chords had played a supernatural role in his childhood musical impressions and now seemed the spiritual keynote of his own life. Convinced this work contained "the secret of all secrets," he laboriously copied the entire score. On one occasion, the sudden appearance of dawn so unnerved his excited nerves that he leaped into bed with a scream, as though seeing a ghost. Since no piano arrangement existed—publishers had deemed the work too unfavorably received to risk such an edition—the author composed his own complete piano solo version. He sent this work to the publisher Schott at Mainz, who replied that they had not yet decided to issue the Ninth Symphony for piano but would gladly preserve his "laborious work," offering him the score of the great *Missa Solemnis* in D as remuneration.

Recognizing that practical knowledge of instruments was indispensable for orchestral composition, the author began violin studies under the instruction of Sipp, a member of the Leipzig orchestra. His mother purchased a violin for eight thalers, and for three months the author inflicted considerable discomfort upon his family by practising Mayseder's Variations in F sharp in his tiny room, though he never progressed beyond the second or third variations. This violin practice eventually ceased, as his family had good reasons not to encourage it. However, a new passion soon displaced these musical studies: his interest in the theatre revived with overwhelming intensity. A new theatre company had been formed in his birthplace under excellent auspices, with the Dresden Court Theatre Board taking over Leipzig theatre management for three years. His sister Rosalie had joined the company, granting him free access to performances. What had previously been merely childish curiosity now deepened into a conscious and powerful theatrical passion.

Wagner's artistic sensibilities were ignited by exposure to classical plays and contemporary opera. Performances of Shakespeare, Schiller, and Goethe's Faust stirred him deeply, while the opera house presented Marschner's vampire opera and the Italian company's masterful productions. However, it was a special performance by Wilhelmine Schroder-Devrient, then at the height of her powers as a young, beautiful, and passionate actress, that fundamentally altered Wagner's trajectory. Her portrayal in Fidelio produced the most profound impression he could recall in his entire life, and he describes her art as pouring an almost Satanic ardour into his veins. Immediately after the performance, he rushed to a friend's house and wrote a letter to the singer declaring that from that moment his life had acquired its true significance, and that she had made him what he swore it was his destiny to become. He would later renew contact with Schroder-Devrient in 1842 when he went to Dresden for Rienzi, and discovered she had kept his youthful letter.

The overwhelming effect of Schroder-Devrient's art threw Wagner into confusion regarding his studies and creative direction. Unable to produce anything worthy of her genius, he fell into reckless dissipation and careless associations. His friendships arose purely by chance, lacking genuine personal attraction or selectivity. He sought companions merely to accompany him on excursions and listen to his outpourings, without reciprocal connection or lasting bonds. His relationships, typified by his connection with Flachs, lacked depth and endurance. The rowdyism and frivolities of student life replaced genuine personal intercourse with a common circle of acquaintances. Yet Wagner reflects that these frivolities may have formed a protecting hedge around his inmost soul, allowing it time to grow to natural strength without premature exposure to the world's demands.

At Easter 1830, Wagner was forced to leave St. Nicholas's School due to irreconcilable disgrace with the masters, making promotion at the University impossible from that quarter. He was placed under private tutoring for six months before entering St. Thomas's School, where fresh surroundings and intensive work would prepare him for university studies. His uncle Adolph encouraged his scientific studies, and he took private lessons in Greek from a scholar, reading Sophocles with him. However, this pursuit proved ultimately disappointing—the wrong teacher and the foul odour from a nearby tanyard extending into the study room poisoned his enthusiasm for both Greek and the classical poet.

Wagner's brother-in-law Brockhaus employed him correcting proof-sheets of a new edition of Becker's Universal History, revised by Lobell. This work, which paid eightpence per sheet, provided both income and valuable general knowledge outside the uninspiring school curriculum. The proof-correcting brought him into intimate contact with the Middle Ages and the French Revolution, awakening a serious interest in history that contrasted sharply with his earlier schoolboy fascination with only the classical period of Greek history—Marathon, Salamis, and Thermopylae. Wagner recalls with horror his initial sympathetic revulsion against the cruelty of the French Revolution's heroes, though he notes it required a recent struggle to recognize the true political significance of that violence. The July Revolution of 1830 in Paris suddenly transformed abstract historical knowledge into personal experience. News from special editions of the Leipzig Gazette brought accounts of the French King's flight, Lafayette riding through cheering crowds, the slaughter of Swiss Guards, and a new King's proclamation. The seventeen-year-old Wagner found this consciousness of living in such transformative times staggering. He became a passionate partisan of the Revolution, which he viewed as a heroic popular struggle free from the excesses of the earlier French Revolution. As rebellion spread across Europe and into Saxony, where actual street fighting occurred in Dresden leading to a regency and constitutional promise, Wagner composed a political overture depicting the triumph of Friedrich und Freiheit.

The revolutionary fever that gripped Europe arrived in Leipzig as antagonism between students and police. When several undergraduates were arrested in a street altercation, their fellows assembled in solemn procession through the Market Place and Clubs, singing Gaudeamus igitur, forming columns, and marching to the University to liberate the captives. The Rector Krug met them with bared grey head, announcing the prisoners had already been released, and the matter apparently ended there. However, the accumulated tension demanded some outlet. A summons called students to mete out popular justice against a magistrate accused of protecting a house of ill-fame. When Wagner arrived at the scene, the house had already been broken into and violence was underway. He recalls with horror how the unreasoning fury intoxicated him so completely that without personal provocation he joined the frantic undergraduate onslaught, smashing furniture and crockery in a possessed frenzy. The fury demanded continual expression—the summons came to march to another similar establishment, and the same outrages repeated themselves. Wagner denies that alcoholic drink contributed to this intoxication, yet he awoke the next morning as if from a hideous nightmare, only convinced of his participation by a trophy he had brought home: a tattered red curtain symbolizing his role in these events.

The dangerous example set by undergraduates incited the lower classes and mob to similar excesses on following nights, now threatening property and employers. With no soldiers available and police thoroughly disorganized, the students were called upon to protect property against the populace. The undergraduates' hour of glory began—the student became the tutelar deity of Leipzig, summoned by authorities to arm and band together in defense of property. Town councillors and chief constables shouted the proscribed names of student clubs and unions to summon oddly equipped undergraduates who, in simple mediaeval array, scattered throughout Leipzig to occupy guard-rooms, provide sentinels for wealthy merchants' grounds, and protect threatened locations. Wagner, not yet a member of their body, won the favour of these student leaders through half-impudent, half-obsequious solicitation, particularly by virtue of his relationship to Brockhaus, whose grounds served as the main encampment. Brockhaus's printing works, especially his steam presses, had been the primary target of mob attacks and were saved only through great presence of mind. Detachments of students guarded his property day and night, enticed by the generous entertainment offered in his summer-house. As mediator of this hospitality, Wagner celebrated among the University's most famous students, experiencing the true saturnalia of his scholarly ambition.

For an extended period, the guarding of the gates was entrusted to the students, whose exceptional duties drew aspirants from distant universities including Halle, Jena, and Gottingen. Daily, large chartered vehicles discharged crowds of bold scholars at the Halle Gate. For weeks these students lived at the Council's expense, drawing vouchers from the police for food and drink, fearing only that a general quieting of men's minds might render their guardianship unnecessary. The narrator never missed a day or night on guard duty. Quieter, studious spirits soon resigned these duties, leaving only the most dedicated undergraduates. The narrator held out to the very last, making astonishing friends for his age. Many audacious students remained in Leipzig even without guard duties, including rowdy types repeatedly sent down from various universities for rowdyism or debt, who found refuge in Leipzig thanks to the exceptional circumstances.

The narrator felt surrounded by the results of an earthquake that had upset the usual order of things. His brother-in-law, Friedrich Brockhaus, who could rightly criticize the former authorities for their inability to maintain peace, was carried away by a formidable opposition movement. He made a daring speech at the Guildhall before the Town Council, which brought him popularity, and he was appointed second-in-command of the newly constituted Leipzig Municipal Guard. This body eventually ousted the beloved students from the guard-rooms at the town gates, and they no longer had the right to stop travelers and inspect their passes. The narrator regarded his new position as equivalent to that of the French National Guard, and his brother-in-law as a Saxon Lafayette, which provided a healthy stimulant for his excitement. He began reading papers and cultivating politics, yet he remained faithful to his beloved academic associates.

The narrator's chief ambition was to become a university student as soon as possible, which could only be accomplished by re-entering a grammar school. St. Thomas's, whose headmaster was a feeble old man, was the place where his wishes could be most speedily attained. He joined the school in autumn 1830 with the intention of qualifying for the Leaving Examination through merely nominal attendance. Most importantly, he and like-minded friends succeeded in establishing a sham students' association called the Freshman's Club. It was formed with all possible pedantry, introducing the institution of the 'Comment,' holding fencing-practice and sword-bouts. An inaugural meeting, to which several prominent students were invited and at which the narrator presided as 'Vice' in white buckskin trousers and great jack-boots, gave him a foretaste of the delights awaiting him as a full-blown student.

The masters of St. Thomas's were not ready to fall in with the narrator's aspirations to studentship. At the end of the half-year, they were of the opinion that he had not given a thought to their institution, and they could not be persuaded that he had earned a title to academic citizenship through any acquisition of knowledge. Some sort of decision was necessary, so the narrator informed his family that he had decided not to study for a profession at the University, but to become a musician. He matriculated as 'Studiosus Musicae' and, without troubling himself about the pedantries of the St. Thomas's authorities, he defiantly quitted that seat of learning and presented himself to the university rector to be enrolled as a student of music.

The narrator was in a great hurry to enroll, for in a week the Easter vacation would begin, and the students would leave Leipzig. Without the right to wear the coveted colours during those weeks, it seemed unendurable torture. Straight from the rector's presence, he ran to the fencing school to present himself for admission to the Saxon Club, showing his card of matriculation. He attained his object, could wear the colours of the Saxonia, which was in fashion at that time and in great request because it numbered so many delightful members in its ranks.

During the Easter vacation, the narrator was really the only remaining representative of the Saxon Club in Leipzig. Originally, this club consisted chiefly of men of good family from well-to-do families in Saxony and particularly from Dresden, who spent their vacation at their respective homes. Only the wandering students, who had no homes and for whom it was always or never holiday time, remained in Leipzig during vacations. Among these arose a separate club of daring, desperate young reprobates who had found a last refuge in Leipzig. The narrator had already made the personal acquaintance of these swashbucklers, who pleased his fancy greatly when they were guarding the Brockhaus grounds. Although the regular duration of a university course did not exceed three years, most of these men had never left their universities for six or seven years.

The narrator was particularly fascinated by Gebhardt, who was endowed with extraordinary physical beauty and strength, whose slim heroic figure towered head and shoulders above all his companions. He could lift his friends high in the air with an easy movement, and could seize a spoke of a moving cab's wheel and force it to stop. His redoubtable strength, combined with a temperate disposition, lent him a majestic dignity. He had come from Mecklenburg with Degelow, who was equally powerful and adroit though not of such gigantic proportions. Degelow's chief attraction lay in his great vivacity and animated features, and he had led a wild and dissipated life involving play, drink, passionate love affairs, and constant duelling. Ceremonious politeness, ironic and pedantic coldness, combined with a very hot temper, formed his chief characteristics. These two extraordinary men were joined by others including Stelzer, nicknamed Lope, a regular Berserker who was in his twentieth term.

The narrator made the acquaintance of Schroter, who particularly attracted him by his cordial disposition, pleasant Hanoverian accent, and refined wit. He was not one of the regular young dare-devils, towards whom he adopted a calm, observant attitude, while they were all fond of him. The narrator made a real friend of this Schroter, although he was much older. Through him, the narrator became acquainted with the works and poems of Heinrich Heine, and acquired a certain neat and saucy wit. It was Schroter's company that the narrator sought every day, generally meeting him in the Rosenthal or Kintschy's Chalet, though always in the presence of those wonderful Goths who excited at once his alarm and admiration.

The men the narrator associated with belonged to university clubs which were on hostile terms with his own. The mere sight of hostile colours sufficed to infuriate these men, provided they had taken the slightest drop too much. When sober, the old stagers would look with good-natured complacency at the narrator in hostile colours. The narrator wore the colours in his own peculiar fashion, having bought a splendid 'Saxon' cap, richly embroidered with silver, from Muller. Thanks to his friend Schroter, he was welcome in the den of this band of rowdies. Only when the grog began to work did he notice curious glances and overhear doubtful speeches.

One day Degelow came up to Schroter and the narrator in a wine-bar they often frequented and confessed his liking for a young actress whose talent Schroter disputed. Degelow asserted she was the most respectable woman in the theatre. The narrator immediately asked if Degelow considered his sister's reputation was not as good. According to students' notions, Degelow could only say that he certainly did not think the narrator's sister had an inferior reputation. Hereupon followed the usual challenge, opening with the words, 'You're an ass,' which sounded almost ridiculous to the narrator's own ears when directed at this seasoned swashbuckler. Degelow controlled himself, proceeded with the usual formalities, and chose broadswords (krumme Sabel) as the weapons.

The encounter with Degelow made a great stir among their companions, and the narrator continued his usual intercourse with them. He became stricter about the behaviour of the swashbucklers, and for several days no evening passed without producing a challenge between him and some formidable bully, until at last Count Solms, the only member of his club who had returned to Leipzig, visited him and inquired into what had occurred. Count Solms applauded his conduct but advised him not to wear his colours until the return of their comrades from the vacation and to keep away from the bad company. Fortunately, the narrator did not have long to wait; university life soon began again, and the fencing ground was filled.

The narrator's position among the student world earned him a glorious reputation among the freshmen and juniors and even among the older champions of the Saxonia. In student phrase, he was suspended with a half-dozen of the most terrible swordsmen. His seconds were arranged, the dates for various duels settled, and by the care of his seniors, the necessary time was secured for him to acquire some skill in fencing. The light heart with which he awaited the fate threatening him in at least one of the impending encounters was something he himself could not understand at the time. The way that fate preserved him from the consequences of his rashness seems truly miraculous to this day.

The preparations for duels included obtaining experience by being present at several of them. The freshmen attained this through 'carrying duty,' whereby they were entrusted with the rapiers of the corps and had to take them first to the grinder and then to the scene of encounter, a proceeding attended with some danger as it had to be done surreptitiously since duelling was forbidden by law. In return, they acquired the right to assist as spectators. When the narrator had earned this honour, the meeting-place chosen was the billiard-room of an inn in the Burgstrasse, where the table had been moved aside for the authorised spectators. Among them, the narrator stood with a beating heart to watch the dangerous encounters. He heard the story of a friend named Levy (known as Lippert), who had given so much ground before his antagonist that he fell back through the door down the steps into the street. When several bouts had been finished, two men came on: Tempel, the president of the Markomanen, and Wohlfart, an old stager in his fourteenth half-year of study, with whom the narrator was also booked for an encounter. Wohlfart was asked whether he wanted the narrator removed, and he replied with calm contempt, 'Let them leave the little freshman there, in God's name!' Thus the narrator became an eye-witness of Wohlfart's disablement, despite his opponent being so experienced and skilful. Wohlfart's gigantic opponent cut the artery of his right arm, which at once ended the fight. The surgeon declared that Wohlfart would not be able to hold a sword again for years, under which circumstances the narrator's proposed meeting with him was cancelled, and the narrator did not deny that this incident cheered his soul.

The author's first general club reunion at the Green Tap brings both resolution and tragedy. He learns that two former duel opponents, including the fearsome Stelzer, have fled to escape debts—one joining the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. On the way home, Degelow proposes a formal "truce" that permits the future combatants to converse, and the author departs with warm embraces and mutual expressions of respect. Degelow mentions he must first fight a duel at Jena; one week later, news arrives that he has been mortally wounded there. The author subsequently receives notification for his encounter with Tischer. When he arrives at the chief's house, he learns the duel is cancelled—Tischer got dangerously drunk the previous night and suffered severe injuries from residents of a brothel, resulting in his rustication and expulsion from the academic association. This event marks the end of the author's involvement in student dueling.

Following the president's solemn address at the freshmen's gathering, the author resolves to be among the last to return from the outing and stays away for three days and three nights. In a dawn gathering at the Jolly Peasant, a gambling club forms among six club members who play continuously for days without rest. The author's initial motivation is to win enough to cover his modest debt of two thalers, but the hope of settling all his debts through gambling soon takes hold. For approximately three months, the gambling mania consumes him completely— he abandons the fencing salle, the beer-houses, and all former companions, entirely indifferent to their opinions. His desire for money to gamble becomes an all-consuming obsession that dominates his every waking thought.

The gambling passion grows into a desperate mania as the author's losses mount. He descends to the lowest gambling dens in Leipzig, frequented only by the most disreputable students. He becomes completely insensitive to self-respect, enduring his sister Rosalie's contempt while appearing at home only at rare intervals, pale and exhausted. In his growing desperation, he resorts to foolhardy risks, deciding to play with high stakes using his mother's pension money, of which he is trustee. He loses everything except one thaler, which he stakes in desperation, seeing himself as a future prodigal son fleeing through forests at dawn. The experience of risking his last coin produces sensations entirely foreign to his young life.

When the final thaler wins, the author immediately places all the money on a fresh stake and repeats this pattern until winning a considerable sum. From that moment his luck grows continuously, gaining such confidence that he risks the most hazardous stakes. The bank eventually closes against him, but he has won back all his losses and enough to pay off every debt. He experiences the episode as sacred, feeling as if God and His angels stood beside him. He returns home at dawn, climbing over the gate, and sleeps peacefully, awakening strengthened and reborn. He confesses everything to his mother, including the theft of her pension, sparing no detail. She folds her hands and thanks God, regarding him as saved. From that moment, gambling loses all fascination for him—he finds himself face to face with an entirely new world.

The author devotes himself heart and soul to serious musical study, entering a new phase of his life. Even during the gambling period, his musical development had not entirely stopped, and it had become increasingly clear that music was the only direction toward which his mental tendencies had a marked bent. He can barely recall completing a substantial Overture in C major and a Sonata in B flat major arranged as a duet, which pleased his sister Ottilie so much that he orchestrated it. However, another work from this period—an Overture in B flat major—left an indelible impression on his memory due to the incident connected with it. This overture resulted from his study of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the same degree that his earlier drama Leubald und Adelaïde had resulted from his study of Shakespeare.

The author conceived a distinctive scoring for his B-flat major Overture, dividing the orchestra into three distinctly different and opposite elements. He planned to use green ink for the wind instruments, black ink for the brass, and red for the strings, hoping this striking display of color would immediately communicate the characteristic nature of these elements to the score reader. He gave this extraordinary manuscript to Heinrich Dorn, then musical director of the Leipzig theatre, a young but clever musician and witty man of the world. Despite the author's own doubts about whether Dorn intended to make a joke at his expense, Dorn agreed to perform the overture, even suggesting it might be well-received if presented as a previously unknown work by Beethoven, claiming he found it genuinely interesting.

At the Christmas Eve rehearsal, the author's misgivings intensify as the orchestra struggles with the mysterious score. The principal Allegro theme contains four-bar phrases, but after every fourth bar a fifth bar interrupts with a loud kettle-drum beat from the "black" world. The drummer, repeatedly thinking he was making a mistake, produces incorrect accents, though the author finds this accidental rendering preferable. Dorn, however, insists on the prescribed sharpness, dismissing the author's concerns about how the effect will land. The premiere at the charity concert proves catastrophic: the audience immediately begins laughing at the repeatedly brutal drum-beat, and listeners calculate its return with growing amusement. The author suffers "ten thousand torments," becoming almost unconscious as his work is received with mocking merriment rather than the respectful bewilderment he might have anticipated. The piece ends abruptly with an unanticipated conclusion. The audience's reaction is not hissing or disapproval but intense, horrified astonishment—everyone seeming to regard the strange occurrence as a horrible nightmare. The author experiences particular agony walking through the pit crowd, especially encountering the door man whose strange look haunts him for years. He avoids the Leipzig theatre pit for a considerable time afterward. He finds his sister, who has endured the experience with infinite compassion, and they drive in silence to a brilliant family Christmas celebration, whose festive warmth stands in grim irony to the author's bewilderment and despair.

Despite the rejection from Leipzig theatre directors, the young composer attempted to find solace in an overture to *Braut von Messina*. He sketched compositions to Goethe's *Faust*, but his wild student life soon overwhelmed any serious musical pursuits. Believing that being a student meant attending university lectures, he briefly studied philosophy with Traugott Krug but abandoned it after a single lesson. He did attend two or three lectures on aesthetics given by Professor Weiss, whose interest immediately captivated him. At his uncle Adolph's house, he met Weiss, who had recently translated Aristotle's metaphysics and dedicated them controversially to Hegel. The conversation between these two men made a tremendous impression on the young composer. Weiss was described as absent-minded with a hasty, abrupt manner of speaking, yet possessing an interesting and pensive expression. When criticized for lacking clarity in his writing, Weiss justified himself with the maxim that deep problems of the human mind could not be solved by the mob—a principle the narrator immediately adopted for all his future writing. The narrator's eldest brother Albert, disgusted by a letter written in this style, thought his brother must be going mad. Despite hoping Weiss's lectures would be beneficial, the narrator could not continue attending them due to other desires. His mother's anxiety prompted him to return to music studies.

Since the previous teacher, Muller, had not inspired permanent love of study, the mother sought another instructor. Theodor Weinlich, choirmaster and musical director at St. Thomas's Church, held the important position once occupied by Sebastian Bach. Educated in the old Italian school, he had studied in Bologna under Pater Martini and made his name with vocal compositions praised for their fine treatment of parts. When the narrator's mother introduced her son, Weinlich, in poor health, initially refused to take him as a pupil. However, after resistance, he pitied the boy's faulty musical education and agreed to teach him on two conditions: the narrator must give up composing for six months and follow instructions implicitly. The narrator kept the first promise due to his dissipations as a student. Soon, however, both the student and the composer were thoroughly disgusted by the four-part harmony exercises in rigorous style. Weinlich decided to give him up. This came during a personal crisis involving a gambling den catastrophe, and the blow of Weinlich's rejection was even greater. Deeply humiliated, the narrator besought forgiveness and promised to work with unflagging energy. One morning, Weinlich devoted his entire morning to teaching the fugue sketch, following it bar by bar. When the narrator finished the work at home, Weinlich handed him his own treatment of the same theme for comparison. This common fugue task established tender ties between them, and both enjoyed the lessons thereafter. In eight weeks, the narrator went through the most intricate fugues and difficult counterpoint evolutions, and when he brought an elaborate double fugue, Weinlich declared there was nothing left to teach him. Weinlich explained that while the narrator might never write fugues or canons, he had mastered independence—he could now stand alone with fine technique at his fingertips. Weinlich's principal influence was a growing love of clearness and fluency. The narrator had already written a fugue for ordinary voices, awakening his feeling for the melodious and vocal. Weinlich gave him a sonata to write on strictly harmonic and thematic lines, using Pleyel's childlike sonata as a model. Weinlich induced Breitkopf and Hartel to publish this work. From then on, Weinlich gave the narrator free hand. He composed a Fantasia for piano in F sharp minor, treating the melody in recitative form, which won Weinlich's praise. He then wrote three overtures that met with Weinlich's full approval.

In winter 1831-1832, the first overture, in D minor, was performed at a Gewandhaus concert. At that time, the institution had a simple, homely character; instrumental works were played by the orchestra leader without a conductor, and when singing began, Pohlenz, a fat and pleasant musical director, took his place at the desk with a blue baton. One strange event was the yearly performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. After the first three movements were played like a Haydn symphony, Pohlenz conducted the complicated instrumental work. The narrator never forgot the anxiously played 3/4 time and the wild trumpet shrieks resulting in extraordinary confusion. Pohlenz, in a bath of perspiration, could not manage the double bass recitative until Temmler prevailed upon him to put down the baton. The narrator concluded that this extraordinary work was beyond his comprehension, and he turned toward clearer, calmer musical forms. His counterpoint studies taught him to appreciate Mozart's light, flowing treatment of technical problems, particularly the last movement of his C major Symphony. His D minor Overture, showing Beethoven's Coriolanus Overture influence, was favorably received. He began a second overture in C major that ended with a fugato that did credit to his new model. This overture was performed at Mlle. Palazzesi's recital and was also introduced at the private musical society "Euterpe," where he conducted it himself. His mother, upon hearing this counterpoint-style work, praised the Egmont Overture played at the same concert, claiming it was more fascinating than "stupid fugue." The third opus was an overture to Raupach's drama *Konig Enzio*, with even stronger Beethoven influence. His sister Rosalie arranged for it to be performed at the theatre before the play, though it was not initially announced on the program. Dorn conducted it, and when successful, it was played several times with the narrator's full name on the program.

The composer then attempted a large Symphony in C major, demonstrating what he had learned from Beethoven and Mozart toward creating a pleasant, intelligible work with a fugue at the end and themes constructed to be played consecutively. The influence of the *Sinfonia Eroica* was discernible, especially in the first movement, while the slow movement contained reminiscences of earlier musical mysticism—a repeated interrogative exclamation of the minor third merging into the fifth that connected to his earliest boyish sentimentality. When he visited Friedrich Rochlitz, president of the Gewandhaus, Rochlitz was astonished to find such a young man had written such mature music. Before the symphony's performance, the narrator's short, stormy student career had drowned all longing for development and interest in intellectual pursuits. His revived interest in politics first disgusted him with his senseless student life. The Polish War of Independence against Russian supremacy filled him with growing enthusiasm. The Polish victories in May 1831 seemed like a miracle, while the battle of Ostrolenka seemed like the end of the world. Yet his boon companions scoffed at his comments, and the terrible lack of fellow-feeling among students struck him forcibly. Enthusiasm was smothered or turned into pedantic bravado; getting drunk cold-bloodedly and dueling were considered brave feats. These impressions helped him give up his low associates. During his studies with Weinlich, his only dissipation was visiting Kintschy's confectioner to read newspapers, where he found kindred spirits and listened to political discussions. Literary journals began to interest him, and he appreciated intelligence and wit. His interest in the Polish war remained paramount. He felt the siege and capture of Warsaw as a personal calamity. When the Polish army passed through Leipzig on their way to France, his excitement was indescribable. At the Green Shield public-house, he saw the first batch of unfortunate soldiers quartered. Then, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus where Beethoven's C minor Symphony was being played, a group of heroic Polish revolution leaders excited his admiration—particularly Count Vincenz Tyszkiewicz, a man of powerful physique and noble bearing who impressed him with dignified self-reliance. The narrator realized the foolishness of having worshipped the students' little heroes. He met Count Tyszkiewicz again at his brother-in-law Friedrich Brockhaus's house.

The narrator's brother-in-law served as president of a committee dedicated to supporting Polish rebels, having made significant personal sacrifices for their cause. The Brockhaus establishment became a center of attraction for the narrator, who encountered Count Vincenz Tyszkiewitcz, described as the central figure of the small Polish exile community. Among the notable exiles present were cavalry captain Bansemer, known for his kindness and magnificent four-horse team driven at reckless speeds, and General Bem, whose artillery had made a valiant stand at Ostrolenka. The exiles displayed varying characteristics—some with melancholy, warlike bearing, others with refined behavior—but Count Tyszkiewitcz remained the narrator's ideal of a true man, earning profound admiration.

The count revealed his deep anxieties to the narrator, having received no news of his wife and young son since their separation at Volhynien. He also confided to the narrator's sister Louise a terrible calamity from his past: he had been married before, and one night in his lonely castle, he had seen a ghostly apparition at his bedroom window. When he heard his name being called, he took up a revolver for protection and accidentally shot his wife, who had been playfully pretending to be a ghost. The narrator later shared in the count's joy when his wife and their beautiful son Janusz safely joined him in Leipzig. However, the narrator felt antipathy toward the countess, possibly due to her obvious and conspicuous use of makeup to hide how her beauty had suffered from recent trials. She soon returned to Galicia to salvage their property and obtain an Austrian Government pass that would allow her husband to follow her.

Eighteen Poles still in Leipzig gathered for a festive dinner at a hotel outside town to celebrate the first anniversary of the Third of May Constitution, an event sacred to Polish memory. Only the chiefs of the Leipzig Polish Committee received invitations, though the narrator was granted a special favor to attend. The dinner transformed into an intense celebration featuring a brass band playing Polish folksongs, which the company sang led by a Lithuanian named Zan, alternating between triumphant and mournful tones. The beautiful "Third of May" song provoked uproarious enthusiasm, with tears and shouts of joy creating a tumultuous atmosphere. The excited men grouped on the grass, swearing eternal friendship under the theme of "Oiczisna" (Fatherland), until nightfall ended the wild revelry. This evening later inspired the narrator's orchestral overture composition called Polonia.

Count Tyszkiewitcz's passport arrived, and despite his friends considering it rash, he decided to return to Galicia via Brunn. The narrator, eager to see the world and having long wished to visit Vienna, convinced his mother to allow him to accompany the count, who offered to take him in his luxurious travelling-coach as far as the capital of Moravia. The narrator brought scores of his three already-performed overtures and his unproduced great symphony. At Dresden, exiles of all classes gave Count Tyszkiewitcz a farewell dinner in Pirna where champagne flowed freely and guests drank to the health of the future "Dictator of Poland."

The narrator was separated from Count Tyszkiewitcz at Brunn, continuing his journey to Vienna alone by coach. During the afternoon and night he was forced to spend in Brunn, he experienced terrible agonies upon unexpectedly learning that cholera had broken out in the city. Alone in a strange place with his faithful friend departed, the narrator felt trapped by a malicious demon. He hid fully clothed in bed and relived childhood horror stories. The cholera took on living form before him—he could see and touch it, feeling it embrace him while his limbs turned to ice. Whether awake or asleep became indistinguishable, and he expressed astonishment upon awakening to find himself thoroughly well and healthy.

The narrator arrived in Vienna in midsummer 1832, escaping the epidemic that had spread to that city. With the introductions he carried, he found himself very much at home during a pleasant six-week stay, though his mother viewed the expense as unnecessary extravagance. He visited theatres, heard Strauss, made excursions, and generally enjoyed himself, though he admits to contracting some debts later paid off when he became conductor of the Dresden orchestra. He retained pleasant impressions of musical and theatrical life, with Vienna representing the acme of that extraordinarily productive spirit peculiar to its people. Most of all, he enjoyed performances at the Theater an der Wien, particularly a grotesque fairy play called Die Abenteuer Fortunat's zu Wasser und zu Land, featuring a carriage appearing on the shores of the Black Sea, which made a tremendous impression on him. Regarding music, he was more doubtful. When a friend took him to a performance of Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris featuring an excellent cast including Wild, Staudigl and Binder, the narrator confessed to being bored, though he dared not say so at the time, having built up enormous expectations from reading Hoffmann's Phantasies.

The narrator began to understand Viennese taste when observing how the opera Zampa became a public favorite at both the Karnthner Thor and Josephstadt theatres, with both venues competing vigorously in its production. Despite the apparent enthusiasm for Iphigenia, nothing matched the public's passion for Zampa. After leaving the Josephstadt Theatre in ecstasies over Zampa, audiences proceeded to a public-house called the Strausslein, where they were immediately greeted by selections from Zampa that drove them to feverish excitement. The narrator never forgot the extraordinary playing of Johann Strauss, who put equal enthusiasm into everything he played and often drove audiences to almost frantic delight. At the beginning of each new waltz, Strauss shook like a Pythian priestess on a tripod, while groans of ecstasy raised the audience's worship for this magic violinist to bewildering heights of frenzy. The hot summer air of Vienna was absolutely impregnated with Zampa and Strauss. A poor student rehearsal at the Conservatoire, performing a Mass by Cherubini, seemed like begrudging token acknowledgment of classical music. One professor attempted to have students play the narrator's Overture in D minor but the attempt was abandoned.

The narrator withdrew from his first educational visit to this great European art centre, embarking on a cheap but long and monotonous return journey to Bohemia by stage-coach. His next destination was the house of Count Pachta, whom he had known pleasantly since boyhood days. The count's estate at Pravonin lay about eight miles from Prague. The narrator was received with great kindness by the old gentleman and his beautiful daughters, enjoying delightful hospitality until late autumn. As a nineteen-year-old youth with a fast-growing beard—his sisters having prepared the young ladies for this by letter—the continual and close intimacy with such kind and pretty girls made a strong impression on his imagination.

Jenny, the elder daughter, was slim with black hair, blue eyes, and wonderfully noble features, while the younger Auguste was smaller and stouter, with a magnificent complexion, fair hair, and brown eyes. The natural and sisterly manner in which both girls conversed with him did not hide the fact that he was expected to fall in love with one or the other. They amused themselves by teasing him about the difficulty of choosing between them. The narrator did not act judiciously regarding his host's daughters: despite their homely education, belonging to a very aristocratic house, they hesitated between hoping to marry men of eminent position in their own sphere and the necessity of choosing husbands from the higher middle classes who could keep them in comfort. The narrator despised the almost mediaeval education of the Austrian so-called cavaliers, and the girls themselves had suffered from the same lack of proper training. He noticed with disgust how little they knew about artistic matters and how much value they attached to superficial things. His attempts to interest them in higher pursuits proved futile—they were incapable of appreciating them. He advocated changing from their bad library novels, their only reading, from the Italian operatic arias sung by Auguste, and from the horsy, insipid cavaliers who paid court to both girls in coarse and offensive manners. This zeal soon gave rise to great unpleasantness, with the narrator becoming hard and insulting, haranguuing them about the French Revolution, and begging them with fatherly admonitions to be content with well-educated middle-class men. He often had to ward off their indignation with harsh retorts, never apologizing but trying through real or feigned jealousy to restore their friendship. Thus undecided, half in love and half angry, he said goodbye to these pretty children on a cold November day, soon meeting the whole family again at Prague where he made a long sojourn without staying at the Count's residence.

The narrator's stay at Prague proved musically important. He knew Dionys Weber, the director of the Conservatoire, who promised to bring the narrator's symphony before the public. He also spent much time with an actor named Moritz, who had been recommended as an old family friend, and through whom he met the young musician Kittl. Moritz noticed that the narrator visited the feared chief of the Conservatoire almost daily on pressing musical business and despatched him with a parody on Schiller's Burgschaft, depicting the narrator creeping to Director Dionys with his score, being arrested by students, and being warned by the angry tyrant that critics would make him suffer for trying to free the town from bad taste. Dionys Weber proved a difficult man to approach: he did not acknowledge Beethoven's genius beyond his Second Symphony and considered the Eroica the acme of bad taste, praising Mozart alone and tolerating only Lindpaintner. The narrator learned to dissimulate, pretending to be struck by the novelty of Dionys's ideas, never contradicting him, and pointing to the end fugue in his Overture and Symphony (both in C major), which he had only made successful through studying Mozart. His reward soon followed when Dionys began studying the narrator's orchestral creations with almost youthful energy. The Conservatoire students were compelled to practice the narrator's new symphony under his dry and terribly noisy baton, and in the presence of friends including Count Pachta as President of the Conservatoire Committee, a first performance was actually held of the greatest work the narrator had written up to that date.

During these musical successes, the narrator continued his romantic pursuits at Count Pachta's house under curious circumstances. A confectioner named Hascha became his rival—a tall, lanky young man who, like most Bohemians, had taken up music as a hobby, playing accompaniments to Auguste's songs, and naturally falling in love with her. Like the narrator, Hascha hated the frequent visits of the cavaliers, but while the narrator's displeasure expressed itself through humor, Hascha's showed itself in gloomy melancholy. This mood led to boorish behavior: one evening when the chandelier was to be lighted for one of these gentlemen, Hascha deliberately ran his head against it and broke it. The festive illumination became impossible, the Countess was furious, and Hascha was forced to leave the house forever. The narrator recalls that the first time he consciously felt love, it manifested as pangs of jealousy unrelated to real love—when he called at the house and the Countess kept him in an ante-room while the beautifully dressed, gay girls flirted in the reception-room with those hateful young noblemen. Everything the narrator had read in Hoffmann's Tales about demoniacal intrigues now became tangible facts, and he left Prague with an exaggerated opinion of those people and things through whom he had been suddenly dragged into an unknown world of elementary passions.

At Pravonin, the author wrote both poetry and musical compositions. The musical work was a setting of Glockentone, a poem by Theodor Apel. The author had already composed an aria for soprano performed the previous winter at a theatre concert, but the new work represented the first vocal piece written with genuine inspiration. The composition bore the influence of Beethoven's Liederkreis, characterized by delicate sentimentality brought into relief by the dreamy accompaniment. The poetical efforts focused on completing a tragi-operatic sketch titled Die Hochzeit ('The Wedding'), which was finished in Prague under difficult circumstances, requiring secret writing sessions at Moritz's house since the hotel room was too cold.

Years earlier, the author had encountered a tragic story in Busching's book on chivalry about a noble lady who was assaulted by a man who secretly loved her. In defending her honor, she was granted superhuman strength that enabled her to throw him into the courtyard below, where he died. The mystery of his death remained unexplained until his funeral, when the lady herself attended, knelt in solemn prayer, suddenly fell forward and expired. Fascinated by similar phenomena in E.T.A. Hoffmann's Tales, the author sketched a novel in which musical mysticism played an important part. The novel featured a young couple preparing to marry on a wealthy patron's estate, attended by a mysterious melancholy young man and a strange old organist. The story involved gradual revelations of mystic relations and a sequence of mysterious deaths, with the organist ultimately found dead on his bench after playing an extended requiem. The author never finished this novel.

The libretto took the original tragic narrative and transformed it into a dramatic operatic plot. Two great houses that had lived in enmity decided to end their family feud by inviting the son of their former enemy to witness his daughter's wedding to a faithful partisan. During the wedding feast, the young leader falls violently in love with the bride, leading to a confrontation in her bridal chamber where she throws him over the balcony to his death. The bride subsequently descends into madness, and during the funeral ceremony, hostile forces attack. When avengers demand the murderer reveal himself, the horrified lord points toward his daughter, who turns from her bridegroom and falls lifeless by the victim's coffin. Weinlich praised the introduction composed for the first act—an Adagio for vocal septette expressing family reconciliation, the wedded couple's emotions, and the secret lover's passion. The author wrote this nocturnal drama in a dark vein with a polished, noble style, avoiding light-effects and operatic embellishments while incorporating tender passages throughout.

Rosalie disapproved of the Die Hochzeit poem, missing elements the author had purposely avoided and demanding ornamentation, development of simple situations, and more brightness. The author immediately took the manuscript and destroyed it without ill-temper, motivated by a sincere desire to demonstrate how little he thought of his own work and how much he valued her opinion. Rosalie was held in great esteem by the family as their principal breadwinner through her actress salary, enjoying special comforts at home. Her charming gravity, refined speech, and thoughtful, gentle nature placed her above the younger children. Despite the author's past anxieties caused to the family, tender and almost sentimental relations developed between them. Rosalie possessed no great acting talent, which had often been considered stagey, yet she was appreciated for her appearance, imagination, and love of high and noble things. She had inspired the author's early admiration for subjects that later became dear to him.

Upon returning from a long journey, the author was introduced to Heinrich Laube, whom Rosalie had added to her intimate circle. Laube was among the most conspicuous younger intellectuals in Germany during the after-effects of the July Revolution. Coming from Silesia to Leipzig, his goal was to establish connections in this publishing center for a future move to Paris. His critical writing for the Leipzig Tageblatt, known for its terse and lively style, led to his appointment as editor of Die elegante Welt. In the author's house, Laube was regarded as a genius whose curt manner and sense of justice inspired respect. The author's symphony premiered in early 1833 at the Leipzig Schneider-Herberge, where the society Euterpe held concerts. The venue was dirty, narrow, and poorly lighted, and the orchestra's interpretation was disgraceful, making the evening feel like a gruesome nightmare. Despite this poor performance, Laube wrote an important positive notice about it. A subsequent performance at the Gewandhaus concert was brilliantly received and well spoken of in all papers, with Laube confiding that he intended to offer the author a libretto for an opera originally written for Meyerbeer.

Laube proposed arranging Kosziusko into a grand opera libretto, which the author immediately recognized as a mistaken understanding of dramatic subject matter. When the author inquired about the plot's real action, Laube expressed astonishment at expecting more than the story of the Polish hero's incident-filled life, believing sufficient action existed to describe an entire nation's unhappy fate. The plot included a Polish girl with a love affair with a Russian, providing sentimental situations. The author immediately assured Rosalie he would not set this story to music, and she agreed, advising only to postpone the answer to Laube. A journey to Wurzburg facilitated the decision, as it was easier to write the refusal than to announce it personally. Laube accepted the rebuff with good grace but never forgave the author for writing his own words.

The author borrowed the plot from Gozzi's dramatic fairy tale La Donna Serpente and titled his opera Die Feen ('The Fairies'). He named his heroes from various Ossian and similar poems, with his prince called Arindal, who was loved by a fairy named Ada. The fairy kept Arindal under her spell in fairyland, away from his realm, until his faithful friends found him and induced him to return to save his country, which had fallen into enemy hands. The oracle decreed that Ada must lay upon her lover the severest of tasks; only by performing this task triumphantly could she leave the immortal world of fairies to become his wife on earth. In a moment of deepest despair about his country's state, the fairy queen appears to Arindal and destroys his faith in her through cruel and inexplicable deeds. Driven mad by a thousand fears, Arindal begins to imagine he has been dealing with a wicked sorceress and tries to escape by pronouncing a curse upon Ada. The unhappy fairy then reveals their mutual fate: as punishment for disobeying the decree of Fate, she is doomed to be turned into stone. Immediately afterward, it appears that all the catastrophes the fairy had prophesied were but deceptions; victory and prosperity follow in quick succession, but Ada is taken away by the Fates, and Arindal remains behind as a raving madman. The Fates then appear before the repentant man and invite him to follow them to the nether world to free Ada from the spell. Through the treacherous promises of wicked fairies, Arindal's madness grows into sublime exaltation. One of his household magicians equips him with magic weapons and charms. He overcomes the monsters of the infernal regions, and when they arrive at the vault containing the stone in human shape, he must break the charm binding Ada or share her fate forever. Arindal uses an instrument—a lyre—which he had brought with him but whose meaning he had not yet understood. To the sounds of this lyre, he expresses his plaintive moans, his remorse, and his overpowering longing for his enchanted queen. The stone is moved by the magic of his love, and Ada is released. Fairyland opens its portals, and although Ada has lost the right to become his wife on earth due to his former inconstancy, Arindal has earned the right to live forever by her side in fairyland through his great and magic power. In contrast to his earlier opera Die Hochzeit, written in the darkest vein without operatic embellishments, the author painted this subject with the utmost color and variety. He depicted a more ordinary couple alongside the lovers from fairyland and introduced a third pair belonging to the coarser, comical servant world. He purposely did not labor over the poetic diction and verse, for his intention was not to encourage his former hopes of making a name as a poet. Now truly a "musician" and "composer," he wished to write a decent opera libretto simply because he was sure that nobody else could write one for him, reasoning that such a book is something quite unique and cannot be written either by a poet or by a mere man of letters.

With the intention of setting this libretto to music, the author left Leipzig in January 1833 to stay in Würzburg with his eldest brother Albert, who held an appointment at the theatre there. It seemed necessary for him to begin applying his musical knowledge to a practical purpose, and his brother had promised to help him obtain some kind of post at the small Würzburg theatre. He traveled by post to Bamberg via Hof, and in Bamberg he stayed a few days in the company of a young man called Schunke, who had progressed from being a horn player to becoming an actor. With the greatest interest, the author learned the story of Caspar Hauser, who was very well known at that time and was, if he was not mistaken, pointed out to him. In addition to this, he admired the peculiar costumes of the market-women, thought with much interest of Hoffmann's stay at this place and how it had led to the writing of his Tales, and resumed his journey to Würzburg with a man called Hauderer, suffering miserably from the cold all the way.

Upon arriving in Würzburg, the author's brother Albert, who was almost a new acquaintance to him, did his best to make him feel at home in his not over-luxurious establishment. Albert was pleased to find him less mad than he had expected from a certain letter that had previously frightened him, and he managed to procure the author an exceptional occupation as choir-master at the theatre, for which he received the monthly fee of ten guilders. The remainder of the winter was devoted to the serious study of the duties required of a musical director. In a very short time, the author had to tackle two new grand operas: Marschner's Vampir and Meyerbeer's Robert der Teufel, in both of which the chorus played a considerable part. At first, he felt absolutely like a beginner and had to start on Camilla von Paer, the score of which was utterly unknown to him. He still remembers feeling that he was doing a thing which he had no right to undertake and felt quite an amateur at the work. Soon, however, Marschner's score interested him sufficiently to make the labor seem worth his while. The score of Robert was a great disappointment: from the newspapers, he had expected plenty of originality and novelty but could find no trace of either in this transparent work, and an opera with a finale like that of the second act could not be named in the same breath with any of his favorite works. The only thing that impressed him was the unearthly keyed trumpet which, in the last act, represented the voice of the mother's ghost. It was remarkable to observe the aesthetic demoralization into which the author now fell through having daily to deal with such a work. He gradually lost his dislike for this shallow and exceedingly uninteresting composition (a dislike he shared with many German musicians) in the growing interest which he was compelled to take in its interpretation. Thus it happened that the insipidness and affectation of the commonplace melodies ceased to concern him save from the standpoint of their capability of eliciting applause or the reverse. His brother, who was very anxious on his behalf, looked favorably on this lack of classical obstinacy, and thus the ground was gradually prepared for that decline in his classical taste which was destined to last some considerable time. Nevertheless, this did not occur before the author had given some proof of his great inexperience in the lighter style of writing. His brother wanted to introduce a "Cavatine" from Bellini's Piraten into the same composer's opera Straniera. The score was not to be had, so he entrusted the author with the instrumentation of this work. From the piano score alone, he could not possibly detect the heavy and noisy instrumentation of the ritornelles and intermezzi, which musically were so very thin. The composer of a great C major Symphony with an end fugue could only help himself out of the difficulty by the use of a few flutes and clarinets playing in thirds. At the rehearsal, the "Cavatine" sounded so frightfully thin and shallow that his brother made him serious reproaches about the waste of copying expenses. However, the author had his revenge: to the tenor aria of "Aubry" in Marschner's Vampir, he added an Allegro for which he also wrote the words. His work succeeded splendidly and earned the praise of both the public and his brother. In a similar German style, he wrote the music to his Feen in the course of the year 1833.

After Easter, the author's brother Albert and his wife left Würzburg to take advantage of several invitations at friends' houses. He stayed behind with the children—three little girls of tender years—which placed him in the extraordinary position of a responsible guardian, a post for which he was not in the least suited at that time of his life. His time was divided between work and pleasure, and in consequence, he neglected his charges. Among the friends he made there, Alexander Muller had much influence over him; he was a good musician and pianist, and the author used to listen for hours to his improvisations on given themes—an accomplishment in which he so greatly excelled that the author could not fail to be impressed. With Muller and some other friends, among whom was also Valentin Hamm, he often made excursions in the neighborhood, on which occasions the Bavarian beer and the Frankish wine were wont to flow. Valentin Hamm was a grotesque individual who entertained them often with his excellent violin playing; he had an enormous stretch on the piano, for he could reach an interval of a twelfth. Der Letzte Hieb, a public beer-garden situated on a pleasant height, was a daily witness to the author's fits of wild and often enthusiastic boisterousness. Never once during those mild summer nights did he return to his charges without having waxed enthusiastic over art and the world in general. The author also remembers a wicked trick that has always remained a blot in his memory. Among his friends was a fair and very enthusiastic Swabian called Frohlich, with whom he had exchanged his score of the C minor Symphony for Frohlich's copy. This very gentle but rather irritable young man had taken such a violent dislike to one Andre, whose malicious face the author also detested, that he declared that Andre spoiled his evenings merely by being in the same room with him. The unfortunate object of his hatred tried all the same to meet them whenever he could: friction ensued, but Andre would insist upon aggravating them. One evening, Frohlich lost patience. After some insulting retort, he tried to chase Andre from their table by striking him with a stick, resulting in a fight in which Frohlich's friends felt they must take part, though they all seemed to do so with some reluctance. A mad longing to join the fray also took possession of the author, and with the others, he helped in knocking their poor victim about. He even heard the sound of one terrible blow he struck Andre on the head while Andre fixed his eyes on him in bewilderment. The author relates this incident to atone for a sin that has weighed very heavily on his conscience ever since. He can compare this sad experience only with one out of his earliest boyhood days, namely, the drowning of some puppies in a shallow pool behind his uncle's house in Eisleben. Even to this day, he cannot think of the slow death of these poor little creatures without horror. He has never quite forgotten some of his thoughtless and reckless actions, for the sorrows of others, and in particular those of animals, have always affected him deeply to the extent of filling him with a disgust of life.

The author's first love affair stands out in strong contrast against these darker recollections. It was only natural that one of the young chorus ladies with whom he had to practise daily should know how to attract his attentions. Therese Ringelmann, the daughter of a grave-digger, thanks to her beautiful soprano voice, led him to believe that he could make a great singer of her. After he told her of this ambitious scheme, she paid much attention to her appearance and dressed elegantly for the rehearsals, and a row of white pearls which she wound through her hair specially fascinated him. During the summer holidays, he gave Therese regular lessons in singing according to a method that has always remained a mystery to him. He also called on her very often at her house, where, fortunately, he never met her unpleasant father, but always her mother and sisters. They also met in the public gardens, but false vanity always kept him from telling his friends of their relations. He does not know whether the fault lay with her lowly birth, her lack of education, or his own doubt about the sincerity of his affections, but when, in addition to his reasons for being jealous, they also tried to urge him to a formal engagement, this love affair came quietly to an end. An infinitely more genuine affair was his love for Friederike Galvani, the daughter of a mechanic who was undoubtedly of Italian origin. She was very musical and had a lovely voice; his brother had patronized her and helped her to a debut at his theatre, which test she stood brilliantly. She was rather small but had large dark eyes and a sweet disposition. The first oboist of the orchestra, a good fellow as well as a clever musician, was thoroughly devoted to her. He was looked upon as her fiancé, but, owing to some incident in his past, he was not allowed to visit at her parents' house, and the marriage was not to take place for a long time yet. When the autumn of his year in Würzburg drew near, the author received an invitation from friends to be present at a country wedding at a little distance from Würzburg; the oboist and his fiancée had also been invited. It was a jolly, though primitive affair; they drank and danced, and he even tried his hand at violin playing, but he must have forgotten it badly, for even with the second violin he could not manage to satisfy the other musicians. But his success with Friederike was all the greater; they danced like mad through the many couples of peasants until at one moment they got so excited that, losing all self-control, they embraced each other while her real lover was playing the dance music. For the first time in his life, the author began to feel a flattering sensation of self-respect when Friederike's fiancé, on seeing how they two flirted, accepted the situation with good grace, if not without some sadness. He had never had the chance of thinking that he could make a favorable impression on any young girl. He never imagined himself good-looking, neither had he ever thought it possible that he could attract the attention of pretty girls. On the other hand, he had gradually acquired a certain self-reliance in mixing with men of his own age. Through the exceptional vivacity and innate susceptibility of his nature—qualities which were brought home to him in his relations with members of his circle—he gradually became conscious of a certain power of transporting or bewildering his more indolent companions. From his poor oboist's silent self-control on becoming aware of the ardent advances of his betrothed towards him, the author acquired, as he has said, the first suggestion of the fact that he might count for something, not only among men but also among women. The Frankish wine helped to bring about a state of ever greater confusion, and under the cover of its influence, he at length declared himself, quite openly, to be Friederike's lover. Ever so far into the night, when day was already breaking, they set off home together to Würzburg in an open wagon. This was the crowning triumph of his delightful adventure, for while all the others, including, in the end, the jealous oboist, slept off their debauch in the face of the dawning day, he, with his cheek against Friederike's and listening to the warbling of the larks, watched the coming of the rising sun.

Following the incident with Friederike, the narrator and his circle maintained a distance marked by unspoken shame, yet he continued as a daily welcome guest in Friederike's family. Their relationship transitioned naturally, like a change of seasons, without addressing the previous betrothal. This first youthful romance concluded with a tearful departure from Würzburg. Two years later, during a journey, he revisited Friederike, finding she had remained with her oboist lover and had become a mother, though she approached him with evident shame.

Despite these romantic entanglements, the narrator devoted himself to opera composition, sustained by his sister Rosalie's loving sympathy. When his conducting earnings ceased with summer's arrival, Rosalie provided pocket-money so he could专心完成作品 without financial worry. A later letter revealed the tender, almost adoring love he felt for this noble sister during those days.

Upon the winter theatre reopening, the narrator secured a prominent position with the Musical Society's concerts, where he premiered his C major overture, symphony, and portions of his new opera. An amateur singer, Mademoiselle Friedel, performed the great aria from Ada, and a trio moved his brother to such emotion that he lost his cue.

By Christmas, the opera score was complete and neatly written. The narrator returned to Leipzig via Nuremberg, visiting his sister Clara and her husband—relatives who had once opposed his musical career. Now established as a real musician with a grand opera completed, he experienced joyful satisfaction. Back in Leipzig, he presented his three-volume score to his delighted mother and sister, joined now by his brother Julius returning from his wanderings as a goldsmith in Paris. Rosalie championed the opera before director Ringelhardt and secured consent for performance. The management proposed oriental costumes, but the narrator vigorously opposed this, insisting on medieval knightly attire consistent with his northern setting intentions based on Gozzi's original.

Discussions with conductor Stegmayer proved frustrating—the jovial, short, fat man with fair curly hair could reach agreement over wine but raised incomprehensible objections at the piano. The delays prompted the narrator to consult stage manager Hauser, celebrated for his Barber and Englishman in Fra Diavolo. Yet Hauser revealed himself as a fanatical adherent of old-fashioned music, treating even Mozart with barely veiled contempt and regretting the absence of operas by Sebastian Bach. He subjected the narrator to exhaustive criticism of every number, causing grave depression as the performance was postponed to August 1834.

This despair transformed when old Bierey, an experienced conductor from Breslau and family friend, examined the score. Appearing one day among the family, he declared with genuine enthusiasm that he could not understand how so young a man could have composed such work. His remarks about the recognized greatness and his regret at no longer heading a theatre—he would have considered himself lucky to secure such a composer—filled the family with joy, especially since Bierey was no romancer but a practical, seasoned musician.

The narrator now enjoyed Laube's company, then at his fame's zenith with the first portion of Young Europe. The epistolary novel stimulated him alongside his youthful hopefulness. Literary criticism aimed at "semi-classical" figures like Tieck influenced his feelings about German composers. Schröders-Devrient's visit, particularly her rendition of Romeo in Bellini's Romeo and Juliet, proved transformative—the contrast between her daring, romantic performance and the shallow Italian music prompted meditation on German music's dramatic shortcomings. This experience enabled him to write a frivolous criticism of Weber's Euryanthe for the Elegante Zeitung, dismissing an opera he had once admired. Just as he had sown wild oats as a student, now he boldly rushed into artistic taste experimentation.

In May's beautiful spring weather, the narrator journeyed with Theodor Apel to Bohemia, the land of his youthful romance. As son of the poet August Apel, Theodor commanded the narrator's admiration for family distinction. His friendship opened easy access to upper-class circles, much to his mother's satisfaction. Theodor wished to become a poet, enjoying the freedom his fortune provided, though his mother opposed this, preferring he pursue law. The narrator supported his friend's poetic aspirations, strengthening their bond through shared artistic sensibilities.

The narrator describes an attempt to shelter the persecuted Laube at a friend's estate near Leipzig, which was only hours away from the city's literary scene. Apel's initial willingness to help quickly turned to hesitation after consulting his family, fearing unpleasant consequences. Laube departed with a memorable smile, and shortly afterward news arrived of his arrest related to proceedings against former Burschenschaft members, resulting in his imprisonment in Berlin's municipal jail. These experiences weighed heavily on the narrator, prompting him to pack his belongings, bid farewell to his mother and sister, and embark with determination on his career as a conductor.

To secure living quarters beneath Minna Planer's lodging, the narrator felt compelled to work with Bethmann's theatrical enterprise. The director suggested Don Juan as an appropriate debut opera for a young artist of good family, despite the narrator having never previously conducted opera. The rehearsal and performance proceeded adequately, with only minor recitative discrepancies in Donna Anna's part, which caused no hostile response. Following this initial success, the narrator confidently conducted Lumpaci Vagabundus after thorough practice, earning the company's full confidence in their new musical acquisition.

Minna Planer stood apart from the other opera singers, appearing almost fairy-like amid the frivolity and vulgarity of theatrical life. Unlike the typical stage caricatures surrounding her, she displayed unaffected sobriety, dainty modesty, and an absence of theatrical pretension. The narrator developed an increasingly cherished habit of engaging with his kind housemate, while she responded to his impetuous advances with tolerant astonishment, free from coquetry. A memorable window scene occurred when the narrator climbed through his window to bid her goodnight, she leaning out to shake his hand. During an illness with erysipelas, she repeatedly visited, nursed him, and assured him his distorted features mattered not. Her friendly, composed, almost motherly manner made intimate interaction possible without frivolity or heartlessness.

The company departed Lauchstadt for Rudolstadt, though the narrator faced exceptional difficulties collecting his salary from Bethmann, requiring appeals to his family for financial support. Traveling through Leipzig to replenish his funds and on to Rudolstadt, he passed through Weimar where he visited Goethe's house without strong emotion. In Rudolstadt, he remained occupied with rehearsals while the royal orchestra conductor led performances, leaving no time for exploring the region. During six weeks there, two passions consumed him: completing the Liebesverbot libretto and his growing attachment to Minna. He also composed a symphony in E major inspired by Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, completing only the first movement. The narrator began experiencing lover's jealousy when Minna's manner changed, seemingly troubled by information about her relationship with a young nobleman of high standing but no means, bound to a marriage of convenience. Amid these passionate agitations, he completed much of his operatic poem, taking greater care with words and versification than with his earlier work Die Feen.

Before returning to Magdeburg for the winter season, the narrator endured a difficult interval in Bernburg where Bethmann had promised theatrical performances. With only a fraction of the company, he arranged several operas for presentation, though local royal conductors led them. Beyond these professional labours, the narrator endured a meager, ill-provided, and farcical existence that nearly disgusted him with the theatrical conducting profession. However, he survived this difficult period, knowing Magdeburg would lead him toward the true glory of his adopted profession.

Returning to Magdeburg and sitting at the conductor's desk once occupied by the great Kuhnlein held special significance for the narrator. He quickly gained confidence and became persona grata with the orchestra musicians. His spirited overtures, taken at unprecedented speeds especially toward finales, earned enthusiastic public applause. His fiery zeal won recognition from singers and rapturous appreciation from audiences. Within three months, he felt assured he had become one of opera's important figures. Stage manager Schmale proposed a New Year's Day gala performance, and the narrator rapidly composed a rousing overture, melodramas, and choruses. The works were greeted with enthusiasm, producing such ample applause that the performance was successfully repeated despite such repetitions being contrary to established custom.

In January 1835, following a period of estrangement with Minna Planer since their rupture at Rudolstadt, the narrator encountered her again in Magdeburg. Although their friendship resumed, it remained cool and deliberately indifferent. Minna's beauty had attracted considerable attention from young noblemen, and despite her impeccable reputation, the narrator's objections to her receiving such attentions intensified, possibly influenced by painful memories from Prague. For three months, they experienced growing estrangement, during which the narrator acted with blatant levity and sought undesirable company, leaving Minna deeply anxious about him. The turning point came on New Year's Eve when the narrator invited the elite of the opera company, including Minna, to his bachelor apartments for oysters and punch. The festivities broke down conventional restraints, and Minna distinguished herself by her queenly dignity and self-respect, never permitting liberties while responding candidly to his attentions. This gathering revealed their bond as something beyond an ordinary liaison. From that time forward, they remained on good terms permanently. The narrator believed Minna felt no passionate love for him but rather heartfelt goodwill, sincere desire for his success, and genuine delight in his talents. She knew how to humor his eccentric nature through gentleness, exercising a power that flattered her vanity without ever meeting his impetuous advances with coldness.

In Magdeburg, the narrator encountered Mme. Haas, an older actress who had been friends with Laube since youth. Despite her cleverness, she was unhappy, lived in meager circumstances with her child, and was unhappily married. As Mme. Haas and Minna quickly became close friends, the three often spent pleasant evenings together. However, jealousy eventually developed between the elder and younger woman, disturbing their confidential relations. One evening, the narrator deliberately prolonged a boring whist party by drinking heavily in hopes that Mme. Haas would leave before his arrival at Minna's for tea. He arrived in a fuddled state, and when Mme. Haas made joking remarks about his behavior, he responded so coarsely that she departed indignantly. Minna's astonished laughter at his conduct gave way to calm resolution when she realized his condition required care. She attended to his needs and surrendered her own bed to him. When the narrator awoke at grey dawn, he experienced a profound conviction that this sunrise marked the beginning of an infinitely momentous period in his life. Breakfast was quiet and decorous, after which he and Minna took a long walk beyond the city gates, parting as an acknowledged pair of lovers who could freely gratify their desires.

The narrator's musical activities received continued impetus from both successes and setbacks. His overture to *Die Feen* earned considerable applause at a Logengesellschaft concert, while news from Leipzig confirmed the theatre directors' shabby treatment regarding promised performance of the opera. However, he had begun music for *Das Liebesverbot*, which so absorbed his thoughts that he lost interest in the earlier work. The success of the overture alone amply repaid his efforts. During the brief Magdeburg season, he completed a large portion of his new opera and introduced two duets at a theatre concert, receiving encouragement to proceed. His friend Apel arrived with a drama called *Columbus*, describing the navigator's struggles before his first voyage, ending with the ships' departure from Palos. The narrator recommended it to management, and Apel volunteered to paint a new scene depicting the Alhambra at his own expense. Although the play contained good elements, a love romance struck the narrator as unnecessary, and a conceited comedian named Ludwig Meyer ruined the title role despite acquiring splendid costumes at Apel's expense. The narrator composed an overture for Apel's play, sketched at Minna's house in one evening. Its fundamental idea represented the ocean and ship, with a yearning theme amid enveloping sound, followed by a Fata Morgana represented by a delicate pianissimo passage scored for three pairs of trumpets in different keys. The climax featured the six trumpets combining in one key for glorious jubilation representing the newly discovered continent. The overture astonished audiences and was tumultuously applauded, repeatedly performed at concerts by special request. The season's chief event was Mme. Schröder-Devrient's visit from Leipzig, during which the narrator conducted operas in which she performed as Desdemona and Romeo. In the latter role, she surpassed herself and kindled fresh flame in his breast. She agreed to return for his benefit concert, which was vital given his illusory salary, frequent entertainment expenses, and mounting debts. He consoled creditors with promises of fabulous receipts from the concert.

Failed Magdeburg Concert and Audience Panic** The narrator invested heavily in a grand concert featuring the celebrated Mme. Schroder-Devrient, engaging a large orchestra and arranging extensive rehearsals. Despite high expectations, audiences disbelieved the famous singer's return and took offense at premium ticket prices, resulting in a sparse turnout. Schroder-Devrient performed with good humor before the small audience, including Beethoven's Adelaïde with the narrator accompanying on piano. A critical mishap occurred due to excessive reverberation in the hotel saloon, compounded by the selection of the Columbus Overture with six trumpets, which terrified the audience. The concert's finale, Beethoven's Schlacht bei Vittoria with elaborate cannons and musketry effects, proved catastrophic—the orchestra overwhelmed the few attendees, and even Schroder-Devrient fled in panic, triggering a general stampede. Wellington's victory was ultimately celebrated only between the narrator and the orchestra.

Post-Concert Debt Settlement** The morning after the disaster, the narrator found his hotel corridor blocked by creditors who had been specially invited for settlement. Beginning with the second trumpeter who had managed cash and music, he learned that further funds from his own pocket were needed to cover promised orchestra fees. He then arranged with Mme. Gottschalk, a trustworthy Jewish woman, to manage the creditors with reassuring promises. She recognized the crisis required extraordinary measures but believed the narrator could obtain help from wealthy connections in Leipzig. Together they eventually succeeded in clearing the corridor, though not without difficulty.

End of Magdeburg Season and Return to Leipzig** With the theatrical season concluded and the company dissolving, the narrator was free from his appointment. The theatre director faced acute bankruptcy, paying with paper box-ticket sheets for guaranteed future performances. Minna, living frugally, managed to extract some profit from these treasury bonds while remaining with the dramatic company that continued operating. The narrator departed for Leipzig, leaving a brown poodle with his family as his only visible property. Despite the burdens of debt from his failed independent venture, his mother and Rosalie founded hopes for his future upon his orchestral conducting abilities.

Leipzig Stay, Relationship with Minna, and Rejection of Local Classical Taste** The narrator found returning to family life discomfiting, especially as his relationship with Minna drove him to resume his career urgently. When Minna visited briefly on her way to Dresden, her presence made clear that his days of parental dependence had ended. He introduced her to his family, and Rosalie immediately perceived his romantic attachment, teasing him about being in love—though she did not consider the situation dangerous. The narrator viewed it quite differently, seeing this love as consistent with his independent spirit and ambition to establish himself in the art world. His distaste for Leipzig intensified due to a musical shift: while he had been pandering to frivolous popular taste in Magdeburg, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was now conducting the Gewandhaus concerts and inaugurating a new epoch. The public's taste had changed, and even the narrator's triumphantly received Columbus Overture could not sway it. This experience deepened his hostility toward classical music, aligning him with the sighing Pohlenz, who mourned the passing of simpler times.

Dessau Festival Trip and Deepening Feelings for Minna** The narrator welcomed an opportunity to escape Leipzig by attending a musical festival in Dessau under Friedrich Schneider's direction. He obtained an eight-day passport that would later prove important throughout his life, as it became the only identity document he possessed due to his evasion of Saxon military service. He derived little artistic benefit from the festival; rather, it intensified his hatred of classical music. A Beethoven symphony conducted by a man with a physiognomy resembling a drunken satyr filled him with disgust—despite elaborate double-bass arrangements, the performance was expressionless and inane. He turned away in disgust, abandoning attempts to bridge the impassable gulf between his vivid imaginative conception of the work and its living presentations. Cheering spirits came only from hearing Schneider's oratorio Absalom rendered as an absolute burlesque. In Dessau, where Minna had made her stage debut, the narrator heard young men speaking of her in the trivializing tone common in theatrical circles. His eagerness to contradict this chatter revealed to him the strength of his passion.

Impromptu Dresden and Saxon Alps Excursion with Minna** The narrator returned to Leipzig without visiting relatives and obtained funds for an immediate journey to Dresden. En route, he encountered Minna and one of her sisters already traveling back to Magdeburg. The narrator promptly purchased a return ticket to Leipzig and actually set off with Minna, eventually persuading her to turn back to Dresden with him. By then the mail-coach had departed, requiring a special post-chaise. This lively journey astonished the two women and heightened their spirits. With funds procured from a Dresden acquaintance, the narrator took both ladies through the Saxon Alps, spending several joyful days of innocent youthful gaiety. One passing jealousy incident, without cause but fed by nervous apprehension about the future and past experience with women, briefly disturbed their happiness. Yet this excursion remains in his memory as the sweetest and almost sole recollection of unalloyed happiness in his entire youth. One summer evening at Schandau, they sat together almost all night. He later viewed his subsequent long, anxious connection with Minna—interwoven with painful vicissitudes—as a prolonged expiation for those brief, harmless days of joy.

Renewal of Magdeburg Engagement and Planned Singer Recruitment** After accompanying Minna to Leipzig, where she continued to Magdeburg, the narrator braced himself to restore his fortunes and return to her. He negotiated a renewed engagement with Director Bethmann for the coming winter season. Unable to await contract conclusion in Leipzig, he visited Laube at the baths in Kosen, near Naumburg. Laube had recently been released from Berlin municipal gaol after nearly a year of tormenting investigation, permitted to retire to Kosen on his word not to leave until verdict. The sight of Laube's woebegone, hopelessly resigned appearance remained one of the narrator's saddest memories. Laube coldly received the narrator's verses for Liebesverbot but showed slight appreciation for the work, encouraging him slightly. The narrator impatiently awaited letters from Magdeburg regarding the engagement, which he had no doubt would be renewed, but nothing moved fast enough to bring him nearer to Minna. Upon receiving news, he hurried to arrange the upcoming operatic season. The Prussian King's fresh subsidy to a committee of substantial citizens for Bethmann's theatre created promising artistic conditions. The narrator immediately offered to undertake recruitment journeys for operatic singers at his own risk, requesting only proceeds from a future benefit performance as guarantee. This offer was accepted with pompous powers and parting blessing. After living once more intimately with Minna—now accompanied by her mother—he took fresh leave for his venturesome enterprise.

Bohemian Recruitment Attempt and Journey to Bayreuth** Despite the royal protection invoked for the theatrical undertaking, the narrator found it difficult to procure travel funds from his brother-in-law Brockhaus in Leipzig, requiring great pains and humiliation to finally set out. Drawn first to his old wonderland of Bohemia, he merely touched at Prague without visiting lady friends and hurried to sample the opera company playing at Karlsbad for the season. Attending La Dame Blanche with high expectations, he selected a bass named Graf who was singing Gaveston, later realizing only too well how wretched the quality of all these singers was. When Graf debuted at Magdeburg, his poor performance provoked well-founded dissatisfaction and mockery upon the narrator's recruitment efforts. However, this professional failure was counterbalanced by the pleasantness of the journey itself—the trip through Eger, over the Fichtel mountains, and the gloriously sunlit entry into Bayreuth remained happy memories.

The narrator's next destination was Nuremberg, where his sister Clara and her husband Wolfram were performing, and from whom he hoped to obtain information relevant to his search. He anticipated reviving his exhausted travel funds by selling a snuff-box he believed to be made of platinum and by pawning a gold signet-ring given to him by his friend Apel. Unfortunately, the snuff-box proved to have no real value, but he hoped pawning these two remaining possessions would provide the bare necessities for continuing his journey to Frankfort and the Rhine district. Before departing, he persuaded his sister and brother-in-law to accept engagements in Magdeburg, though he still lacked a first tenor and a soprano.

The narrator's stay in Nuremberg was pleasantly prolonged by a renewed meeting with Schroder-Devrient, who was fulfilling a short engagement there. Reconnecting with her was like seeing clouds disperse that had darkened his artistic horizon. The Nuremberg opera company possessed a very limited repertoire, offering only *Fidelio* and *Die Schweizerfamilie*. The great singer lamented performing *Die Schweizerfamilie*, one of her first roles from early youth that no longer suited her and that she had played repeatedly to exhaustion. Despite the narrator's apprehension that this modest opera and its sentimental character of Emmeline might weaken the profound impression the artist had made, he was deeply moved and astonished during the performance to discover the truly transcendental genius of this extraordinary woman in this very role. The narrator considered it a sublime sacrifice of dramatic art that such a masterful interpretation could not be preserved for posterity.

The brother-in-law Wolfram was a beloved figure in Nuremberg theatrical circles due to his wit and sociability. During one evening at an inn, they pointed out a master carpenter named Lauermann, a comical little thick-set man whose rough dialect and self-delusion as an excellent singer made him a target for local mockery. Despite constant jesting, Lauermann never failed to appear each evening among his persecutors. The narrator's arrival as an unknown stranger was exploited for a prank: Wolfram introduced him as the great Italian singer Lablache. Though Lauermann viewed the narrator with incredulous distrust, noting his juvenile appearance and tenor voice, Wolfram convinced the carpenter that the narrator wished to withdraw from public view through dissimulation and that the only real interest in a meeting would be to hear Lauermann, who supposedly had nothing to learn from Lablache. After a couple of hours of strange antics, Lauermann finally performed a trivial street-ballad in a ridiculous manner, accompanied by exaggerated gestures, only to be greeted with wild laughter and sent into furious rage. The narrator followed him to offer apologies, and the company conspired to induce him to sing again, eventually subduing him with liquor. They carried him home in a wheelbarrow through the narrow alleys, where his wife Frau Lauermann emerged to curse him and scold those present for encouraging his delusion. Upon leaving, the group encountered workmen outside a closed inn, leading to a shouting match that threatened to become a riot until one guest knocked out the noisiest shouter with a boxing trick, scattering the crowd. The narrator's brother-in-law casually informed him that this was his ordinary evening routine.

After passing briefly through Wurzburg for a melancholy visit to Friederike Galvani, the narrator arrived in Frankfort and sought shelter in a decent hotel while awaiting subsidies from the Magdeburg theatre directorate. He arranged to attend a rehearsal of *Robert der Teufel* in Wiesbaden, where he interviewed and recruited the distinguished tenor Freimuller for Magdeburg. Returning to the Weidenbusch Hotel in Frankfort, he endured an anxious week waiting in vain for travel expenses from Magdeburg. To occupy his time, he consulted a large red pocket-book containing detailed notes for his future biography. The neglect of the Magdeburg managers rendered his situation desperate until an opportunity arose: he attended a production of *Die Zauberflote* under the renowned conductor Guhr and observed the youthful Fraulein Limbach singing the first boy's part with desirable talent. She eagerly accepted his engagement offer, intending to escape her Frankfort contract surreptitiously and assuming he had ample credit from his official business journey. However, the narrator had already pledged his own travel gear and could not advance the necessary funds, leaving the young lady behind while fabricating an excuse. Ashamed of this adventure, he traveled through rain and storm via Leipzig, collecting his brown poodle along the way, before returning to resume his duties as musical director in Magdeburg on September 1st.

Wagner intended his opera Das Liebesverbot as a benefit performance to improve his reputation and financial position. He finished the score around New Year 1836 and depended on its success for his future plans. The production was to mark a change in his circumstances, with Wagner agreeing that the directors would take proceeds from the first presentation while he would claim only the second. Before detailing the opera's further history, Wagner paused to describe its character and poetical elements, noting that Shakespeare's play remained the foundation throughout his adaptation.

The collapse of Wagner's directorship in Magdeburg marked the end of an endeavor that had begun with considerable promise and sacrifice. With creditors losing faith in his talents and instituting legal proceedings, Wagner found himself unable to return to his dwelling on Breiter Weg without facing summons nailed to his door. His brown poodle's mysterious disappearance struck him as an omen of complete downfall. In this desperate moment, Minna proved to be his tower of strength, having already secured a favorable contract as an actress with the theatre in Königsberg, Prussia. The director there indicated willingness to offer Wagner a position once a vacancy arose, contingent on Minna's acceptance. This arrangement prompted Minna to journey ahead while Wagner remained behind to settle his affairs.

Wagner's departure from Magdeburg was preceded by a visit to Leipzig where he negotiated with theatre directors regarding his new opera, but realized he could not remain in proximity to his family. During his farewell from his sister Rosalie, she expressed a presentiment that they would never meet again—she died suddenly less than two years later. Wagner spent his final weeks in seclusion with Minna, taking walks around Magdeburg's outskirts while laden with anxious forebodings. The atmosphere grew oppressively dark; one May day brought a man leaping from a bridge into the Elbe, who drowned despite their desperate attempts to save him. On the morning Wagner accompanied Minna to her stage-coach, the town witnessed a public execution by breaking wheel, a grim final impression of the city where Wagner had first pursued his artistic ambitions. These traumatic experiences would recur to him whenever he departed from places where prosperity had eluded him.

Wagner arrived in Berlin on May 18, 1836, seeking opportunities while his position remained uncertain. He lodged at the Crown Prince in Königstrasse and reunited with Laube, who advised him to pursue production of his opera *Liebesverbot* at the Konigstadt theatre, directed by the eccentric Cerf. Cerf expressed immediate satisfaction with Wagner and promised both to stage the opera and appoint him conductor, but soon revealed himself to be unreliable. He wished to use Wagner as a tenor to support his new operatic company and undermine his existing conductor, but withdrew all promises through intermediaries when pressed, leaving Wagner without compensation. Meanwhile, Minna's reports from Königsberg offered little encouragement—the theatre director seemed unable to resolve conflicts with his conductor, rendering Wagner's prospects uncertain. During this period, Wagner learned troubling information about Minna's prior relationship with a Jewish tradesman named Schwabe, which awakened suspicion and anxiety. Despite these personal torments, Wagner experienced an artistic revelation when Spontini conducted *Ferdinand Cortez*, revealing the extraordinary precision and fire possible in grand theatrical productions—an impression that would deeply influence his later work on *Rienzi*. Laube helped arrange Wagner's departure, warning him to cultivate his mind beyond theatrical shallowness.

On July 7, 1836, Wagner began the arduous journey to Königsberg, feeling as though he were leaving the world behind as he traveled through desolate marches. His arrival in Königsberg brought a humbling impression of the city, where in the poor suburb of Tragheim near the theatre, he found Minna's lodging in a lane resembling a village street. Despite the unattractive surroundings, Minna's friendly and quietly kind manner soon made him feel at home. She had established herself as a popular and respected actress at the theatre, a circumstance that boded well for her betrothed, as Wagner now openly assumed the role of her future husband.

The narrator arrives in Königsberg with no immediate prospect of obtaining his appointment, though both he and Abraham Möller remain optimistic that the matter will eventually be resolved. Möller, an eccentric and wealthy citizen devoted to the theatre, takes a friendly interest in both the narrator and Minna. A man of considerable means in his earlier years, Möller had befriended many great actors and actresses of his day, though his liberality eventually reduced him to financial difficulties. He now supports the theatre through various business transactions and undertakes to secure the narrator's appointment.

Möller belongs to a type of theatre lover now extinct in Germany, frequently recounting tales of theatrical glory from former times. Despite being held in a certain amount of awe by theatre director Anton Hubsch, he volunteers to procure the narrator's appointment. The only obstacle initially is the presence of Louis Schubert, who has come to Königsberg from Riga and fills the position of musical conductor. Since the reopening of the Riga theatre has been postponed indefinitely, Schubert is reluctant to leave. The director agrees to give the narrator a small retaining fee as a reserve and substitute until Schubert departs.

Schubert becomes furious at the narrator's arrival, viewing him as a deadly enemy. His desire to remain in Königsberg is intensified by his passion for the prima donna there, making him even more unwilling to return to his wife. Schubert uses every means at his disposal to make the narrator's stay a "veritable hell," opposing him at every turn. While the narrator had enjoyed friendly relations with musicians and singers in Magdeburg, he now faces mortifying ill-will from all sides, contributing to his sense of having gone into exile.

In August, the company travels to Memel for the summer season, with the narrator following Minna a few days later. They cross the Kurische Haff in bad weather, and the narrator notices the castle of Runsitten, which E.T.A. Hoffmann used as the setting for his gruesome tale "Das Majorat." The desolate surroundings and the return to these fantastic impressions from his youth have a depressing effect on him. The Memel sojourn proves unhappy, with the narrator's role being "lamentable." Abraham Möller follows them from Königsberg, attempting to create discord between the director and conductor. When Schubert declares himself unwell to avoid conducting a rehearsal of Euryanthe, the narrator is summoned to take his place but proves so capable that Schubert recovers to conduct the opera himself.

Upon returning to Königsberg, and under Möller's guardianship, the question of the narrator's future is more seriously considered. Through the influence of the narrator's brother-in-law Wolfram and his wife, both Minna and the narrator are offered a good engagement in Danzig. Möller seizes this opportunity to induce Director Hubsch, who is reluctant to lose Minna, to sign a contract including them both, with the understanding that the narrator will be officially appointed as conductor from the following Easter. A benefit performance of "Die Stumme von Portici" is promised for their wedding, to be conducted by the narrator himself.

Minna is the daughter of poor parents from Oederan in the Erzgebirge of Saxony. Her father, once a trumpeter who fought against the French and was present at the Battle of Wagram, later became a mechanic who invented an improvement in manufacturing cards for carding wool. A financial disaster involving a large order from a Chemnitz manufacturer plunges the family into difficulty. When Minna is ten years old, she is tasked with selling fine wire to milliners for making flowers and proves adept at persuasion. At barely seventeen, she is seduced by a Herr von Einsiedel and gives birth to a daughter, a fact hidden from her father. She accepts an engagement with the Dessau Court Theatre to escape her situation, seeing the stage merely as a means of economic survival rather than artistic fulfillment. She possesses no artistic training or talent for acting, her power to please stemming entirely from her striking beauty. She develops a code of behavior focused on maintaining popularity and cultivating relationships with theatre directors and influential critics, even at the cost of her self-respect.

Despite being attracted to Minna's soberness and seriousness, which supplement what the narrator feels is lacking in his own character, he develops qualms about her character. Her tolerance of inappropriate familiarities from theatre patrons hurts him deeply, and when he discovers Schwabe's letters revealing her intimacy with another man, he determines to leave her immediately. A violent scene ensues, typical of their subsequent altercations. The narrator recognizes he has gone too far in claiming rights over a woman who is not passionately in love with him and merely yielded to his importunity. Minna reminds him that she refused good offers to give way to a penniless young man of unproven talent. The narrator's raging vehemence is what she can least forgive, and he must apologize to restore peace. However, this peace is permanently undermined, and frequent quarrels cause Minna's character to undergo considerable change, leaving her increasingly confused by his moral standards and artistic views.

Wagner describes a passionate resentment that developed in his otherwise tranquil disposition, which intensified over the years and manifested in ways characteristic of someone from the lower middle class whose polish masked any true culture. The real torment of his subsequent married life stemmed from having lost the last support he had found in Minna's exceptionally sweet disposition. At the time of his marriage decision, he was filled only with a dim foreboding of the fateful step he was taking. His agreeable and soothing qualities still had such a beneficial effect upon him that, with his natural frivolity and obstinacy in meeting opposition, he silenced the inner voice that darkly foreboded disaster. Since his journey to Königsberg, he had broken off all communication with his family—his mother and Rosalie—and told no one of his decision to marry.

Under the audacious guidance of his old friend Möller, Wagner overcame all legal difficulties standing in the way of his union with Minna. According to Prussian law, a man who had reached his majority no longer required parental consent to marry, but since Wagner was not yet of age under Prussian law, he had recourse to Saxony's regulations, by which he had attained his majority at twenty-one. The banns were published in Magdeburg without objections. Minna's parents having given their consent, the couple visited the clergyman of the parish of Tragheim, a strange visit that took place the morning before a benefit performance in which Minna played the pantomimic role of Fenella. In cold November rain, they were kept waiting unreasonably long in the vicarage hall, leading to an altercation between them that nearly caused them to separate. The clergyman found them quarrelling but was appeased when their situation tickled their sense of humour, and the wedding was fixed for eleven o'clock the next morning. Another source of irritation was arranging their future home, as Minna's economical ideas filled Wagner with impatience. Furniture and necessaries were obtained on credit through instalments, with no dowry or wedding outfit. Möller gave them a silver sugar-basin, and another actor friend named Ernst Castell gave a silver cake-basket.

The wedding took place on November 24, 1836, with Wagner twenty-three and a half years old. The weather had cleared up beautifully, and Minna wore a splendid gown chosen by Wagner. The church was overcrowded, and their witnesses were drawn from the theatrical company, dressed in all their finery, with not one real friend among the guests. Möller was absent for lack of a suitable partner. Wagner was not insensible to the chilling frivolity of the congregation, and he listened like one in a dream to the nuptial address. The preacher spoke of dark days ahead, bidding them look to an unknown friend, which Wagner initially misunderstood as referring to a mysterious patron. When the pastor pronounced the name of this unknown friend—Jesus—Wagner was simply disappointed rather than insulted. He was so absent-minded during the ceremony that Minna had to nudge him when the prayer-book was held out for the wedding rings. At that moment he saw his whole being divided into two cross-currents: the upper one facing the sun and carrying him onward like a dreamer, while the lower one held his nature captive as prey to inexplicable fear. He chased away the conviction that he was committing a twofold sin through the genuine affection he felt for Minna, whose exceptional character had led her to bind herself to a young man without means of support.

On the way home from church and afterward, Wagner's good spirits rose superior to all his doubts. Minna took charge of receiving and entertaining guests. The table was spread with a rich feast, at which Abraham Möller also took part, though he had been somewhat put out by his exclusion from the church ceremony. The feast made up for the coldness of the room, which for a long time refused to get warm to the great distress of the young hostess. Wagner retained his good spirits until the next morning, when he had to present himself at the magistrate's court to meet creditor demands forwarded from Magdeburg. Möller had advised him to plead infancy according to Prussian law, but this manoeuvre only gained a brief respite since the magistrate was well aware of the marriage that could only have taken place on proof of majority. The troubles that beset Wagner for a long time afterwards had their origin on the very first day of his marriage.

During the period when he held no appointment at the theatre, Wagner suffered various humiliations but made the most of his leisure in the interests of his art. He finished several pieces, including a grand overture on "Rule Britannia," which represented a further deliberate step toward mass effects beyond his earlier "Polonia" overture. At the close of Rule Britannia, a strong military band was to be added to the already over-full orchestra, intended for performance at the Musical Festival in Königsberg in the summer. He also composed an overture entitled "Napoleon," giving careful consideration to selecting means for producing certain effects, including whether to express the French Emperor's downfall in Russia by a beat on the tom-tom. Scruples about this introduction prevented him from carrying out the plan. The conclusions reached regarding the ill-success of his opera "Liebesverbot" resulted in an operatic sketch in which demands on the chorus and singers were more proportionate to the known capacity of the local company. An Arabian Nights tale suggested the subject for a light work called "Mannerlist größer als Frauenlist" ("Man outwits Woman"), which he transplanted from Bagdad to a modern setting. The story of a young goldsmith and a proud aristocrat's daughter led to "Die Glückliche Bärenfamilie," for which Wagner provided dialogue that later met with Holtei's highest approval. He intended to set it to music in a new light French style, but his increasingly acute financial situation prevented further progress.

When the musical conductor Schubert resigned at the beginning of April, Wagner took over the whole charge. The theatre was seriously weakened by the departure of the prima donna, and there was good reason to doubt whether the theatre could be carried on at all. Lent was a particularly bad time for theatrical enterprises, and the audience was decimated. The director made the greatest efforts to fill gaps in the opera staff by engaging temporary strangers and new acquisitions. Wagner's personality and unflagging activity were of real service, as he devoted all his energy to buoying up the tattered ship of the theatre. For a long time he had to endure violent treatment by a clique of students among whom his predecessor had raised up enemies for him. Through the unerring certainty of his conducting, he overcame the initial opposition of the orchestra, which had been set against him. His strained relations with the theatre conductor remained a constant source of trouble, as he had neither the opportunity nor the means to defend himself against being maligned and rendered an object of suspicion. The object was to disgust him with the idea of taking up his appointment as musical conductor, for which the contract had been signed for Easter. Though he did not lose his self-confidence, he suffered keenly from the indignity and the depressing effect of this prolonged strain.

The theatre in Königsberg faced severe financial difficulties due to the poor business methods of director Hubsch, who informed the author in May that closure was imminent. Despite persuading Hubsch to continue by invoking promises of success, the author only succeeded by asking the company to sacrifice part of their salaries, which generated bitterness. While the author maintained composure, his wife Minna found the situation unbearable. Their marriage, which had harbored deep conflicts even before the wedding, deteriorated further under these strained conditions. Minna sought to maintain their social position by leveraging her personal popularity—a situation the author found humiliating. These recurring disputes, marked by the author's violent outbursts, drove Minna to violent convulsions, leaving both parties increasingly estranged and bewildered by their deteriorating relationship.

The author summoned his friend Friedrich Schmitt from Magdeburg to replace the tenor. A wealthy merchant named Dietrich had become a theatrical patron, inviting the actresses to dinner while affecting the manner of a wealthy Englishman. The author strongly disliked Dietrich and objected to his acquaintance, creating tension with Minna. When Schmitt reported that Dietrich had publicly spoken of a suspicious intimacy with the author's wife, the author confronted Dietrich at his home alongside Schmitt. Although Dietrich initially denied the accusations, he secretly contacted Minna afterward, providing her with supposed grievances against her husband. On the morning of May 31, 1837, the author departed for rehearsals, noting that Minna and her daughter Nathalie embraced him tearfully in an unusually passionate farewell. Returning late that afternoon, he discovered the house empty, the wardrobe cleared, and Minna gone. Old Möller quickly ascertained that Dietrich, his personal enemy, had departed for Berlin with Minna by special coach. The author attempted pursuit by express coach but exhausted his funds near Elbing and was forced to pawn wedding silverware before returning to Königsberg.

After raising funds through secret arrangements to address debts from both Magdeburg and Königsberg creditors, the author departed for Dresden on June 3. He learned that Minna wished only to escape an unbearable position and had sought temporary refuge with her parents, while Dietrich had merely accompanied her partway. By the time he reached Minna at her parents' humble dwelling, the author's initial anger had transformed into self-reproach and sympathy. Although Minna's parents received him coldly and defended their daughter's complaints, Minna herself was moved when the author mentioned promising prospects for a musical conductor position in Riga. He signed an agreement there on favorable terms that would allow Minna to abandon theatrical work entirely. The couple then settled in modest lodgings at Blasewitz near Dresden, where Minna's spirits seemed to improve. The author avoided pressing her too hard during this sensitive period. However, after several weeks, tensions resurfaced without clear explanation. When Minna announced plans for a pleasure trip with a friend and her family, the author agreed, accompanying her to her parents' home before returning alone to Blasewitz. When her sister later requested written permission for a passport, alarm gripped him, and he traveled to Dresden seeking answers. Her parents received him hostilely and deflected his questions with implausible statements.

A letter from Möller in Königsberg revealed that Dietrich had traveled to Dresden and stayed at a specific hotel before vanishing—with Minna. The author confronted this devastating confirmation of betrayal and sought refuge with his sister Ottilie and her husband Hermann Brockhaus at their summer villa near Dresden. For the first time, the author deeply appreciated the unconditional support of family, finding solace and understanding without needing extensive explanations. His brilliant brother-in-law, an oriental languages scholar, rekindled the author's dormant creative instincts. During his time with the Brockhaus family, the author reflected that his early marriage, though understandable, had been an error requiring adjustment. Inspired during this period of recovery, the author sketched a grand opera based on Bulwer Lytton's novel *Rienzi*, which he had read during his final days at Blasewitz. Though temporarily confined to small-theatre work, he began aiming for broader horizons. He sent his overture *Rule Britannia* to the London Philharmonic Society and sought collaboration with Scribe in Paris regarding a setting for H. König's novel *Die Hohe Braut*.

Following his appointment in Riga, Wagner departs Berlin in late August, deliberately avoiding Leipzig where his sister Rosalie had recently married Professor Oswald Marbach. In Berlin, he encounters Amalie Planer, Minna's younger sister, who is a singer with a pleasant voice. The two attend a performance of Fidelio together, during which both are moved to tears. Wagner proceeds through Schwerin (where he fails to find traces of Minna) to Lübeck, where he waits for a merchant ship to Riga. Adverse winds delay departure for a week at Travemünde, where the bored Wagner reads Till Eulenspiegel—a book that inspires his concept of a true German comic opera. After a four-day voyage, he arrives at Bolderaa and proceeds to Riga, where he finds himself among the familiar German cultural element that predominates in the city's theatrical life.

The Riga theater operates under a unique management structure: a society of wealthy theater-goers and businessmen provides funding to ensure ideal conditions. Their appointed director is Karl von Holtei, a popular dramatic writer with extensive connections in the theatrical world. Holtei belonged to a society called "Die Liebenswürdigen Libertins," a group of young wits who treated the stage as a playground for their antics, alienating both the middle class and cultured audiences. His wife had been a popular actress at Berlin's Königstadt theater during Henriette Sontag's celebrated tenure there. Holtei had earned particular fame for his melodrama Leonore (based on Bürger's ballad) and various Liederspiele. His easygoing manner and entertaining conversation secured liberal support from Riga's merchants, and he readily engaged young musicians, including Wagner, whose family connections and enthusiasm for Italian and French music appealed to him. Holtei had the operas of Bellini, Donizetti, Adam, and Auber copied out for the company.

During his first visit to Holtei, Wagner encounters Heinrich Dorn, his former mentor from Leipzig now serving as municipal choir-master and music teacher in Riga's schools. Dorn is surprised to find his pupil transformed from an eccentric Beethoven worshipper into an advocate of Bellini and Adam. Dorn takes Wagner to his summer residence, built literally "in the fields" on sandy ground. As Wagner describes his recent experiences, he becomes acutely aware of the desolate surroundings and develops a passionate longing to escape the theatrical whirl that has drawn him to such inhospitable regions. This uneasy mood gradually dispels the flippancy that had degraded his taste during the Magdeburg period, containing the seeds of a new artistic tendency that would increasingly distance him from theater life, causing Holtei considerable annoyance.

With the company incomplete, Wagner helps open the theater with a performance of C. Blum's comic opera Marie, Max und Michel, composing an additional aria for bass singer Günther—a sentimental introduction followed by a lively military rondo that receives warm appreciation. Later, he adds another song to Die Schweizerfamilie for bass singer Scheibler, devotional in character, which pleases both public and composer, signaling the upheaval occurring in his musical development. He composes a National Hymn for Brakel's verses honoring Tsar Nicholas's birthday, coloring it appropriately for a despotic patriarchal monarch; this work achieves lasting fame, being performed on subsequent birthdays. When Holtei proposes a comic opera, Wagner retrieves his libretto for Glückliche Bärenfamilie but is overcome with disgust at the prospect of such writing, ultimately gifting the score to his orchestra assistant Lobmann. Instead, he turns to developing the libretto of Rienzi, which he had sketched at Blasewitz, expanding it so extravagantly that it could only be produced on one of Europe's largest stages.

The theater's prima donna fails to arrive, leaving them without a singer for grand opera. When Wagner proposes inviting Amalie Planer from Dresden, she writes from that city informing him of Minna's return to her parents in miserable health following severe illness. Wagner takes this news coolly, having authorized proceedings for divorce after learning of Minna's stay at a Hamburg hotel with a man named Dietrich, and the subsequent insulting discussions in theatrical circles. He informs Amalie of these circumstances and asks to be spared further news of her sister.

Minna herself writes to Wagner in a heartrending letter, openly confessing her infidelity. She claims despair drove her to it, but that her suffering has taught her a lesson and she now wishes to return to the right path. Wagner concludes that she had been deceived about the seducer's character and that her terrible position has placed her in a most lamentable condition—both morally and physically. In her letter, she expresses awareness of her love for him. Wagner responds that there shall never again be mention between them of what occurred, taking chief blame upon himself, a resolution he carries out to the letter. When Amalie's engagement is settled, Wagner invites both women to join him in Riga, and they arrive on October 19th, 1837, with winter already setting in. He perceives that Minna's health has genuinely suffered and does everything possible to provide domestic comfort and quiet, though his modest conductor's income presents challenges. The couple remains firmly resolved against Minna returning to the stage.

Since they are childless, Wagner and Minna attempt to relieve their domestic hearth by acquiring a young wolf cub as a pet, but when this experiment fails to increase their comfort, they return it after a few weeks. Sister Amalie proves more successful as a companion, her good-nature and simple homely ways compensating for the absence of children. The two sisters, neither having received proper education, often revert to childhood ways, singing children's duets together; Minna, despite having no musical training, cleverly manages to sing seconds. The three share cheerful evenings eating Russian salad, salt salmon from the Dwina, and fresh caviare, happy in their northern home. They initially occupy a small dingy dwelling in the old town, moving in spring to a pleasanter house in the healthier Petersburger suburb.

Amalie's beautiful voice and genuine vocal talent initially earn her favorable reception, much to everyone's benefit. However, her short stature and limited acting abilities restrict her career scope, and when surpassed by more successful competitors, she finds fortune in Captain Carl von Meek, a Russian army officer who falls in love with her and marries her a year later. The unfortunate consequence of this engagement is the serious rift it creates between the sisters, who quarrel bitterly, resulting in Wagner spending an entire year living with two relatives who neither see nor speak to each other.

The household leads a fairly bright life in their new Petersburg suburb, entertaining friends and acquaintances simply though pleasantly. Besides theater people, Wagner knows a few townspeople and becomes quite intimate with the Dorn family. His most faithful attachment develops to Franz Lobmann, the second musical director, a worthy if not highly gifted man. However, Wagner does not cultivate many wider acquaintances, and these grow fewer as his ruling passion strengthens. When he leaves Riga after nearly two years, he departs almost as a stranger, with the same indifference he had felt leaving Magdeburg and Königsberg. His departure is embittered by particularly disagreeable experiences that firmly resolve him to cut himself off entirely from the necessity of mixing with people of the type encountered in his previous attempts to establish himself in theater.

Under the renewed guidance of his restored married happiness, Wagner initially feels distinctly better in his professional work. The theater's secure financial position exercises healthy influence on performances, though the venue itself is cramped, with limited space for scenic display and rich musical effects. Nevertheless, Wagner introduces considerable reinforcements to an orchestra originally calculated only for string quartet, two first and two second violins, two violas, and one cello. These exertions earn him the dislike of Holtei, but enable good concerted music for opera. The thorough study of Méhul's opera Joseph in Ägypten proves particularly stimulating; its noble, simple style and touching effect help transform his taste, previously warped by theatrical connection, marking a significant artistic development during his Riga period.

The chapter opens with Wagner's devastating discovery that his trusted friend Heinrich Dorn had betrayed him. During their time together in Riga, Dorn had become Wagner's most confidential associate, visiting daily and sharing intimate conversations. Wagner had kept no secrets from him, even directing Dorn's opera *Der Schoffe von Paris* to great success. When Wagner learned that his position had been given to Dorn, he confronted his friend directly. The reply revealed that Dorn had exploited Holtei's dislike for Wagner to secure the appointment before Holtei's departure, taking advantage of confidential information Wagner had shared about his precarious financial situation and difficulties with creditors in Königsberg and Magdeburg. Dorn justified his actions by claiming conscience was clear since he believed Wagner would inevitably be forced to leave Riga anyway.

The narrative provides a biographical sketch of Heinrich Dorn, tracing his career trajectory after betraying Wagner. After the failure of three operas, Dorn had retired from theatre work to focus on commercial music, but the success of *Der Schoffe von Paris* in Riga restored his standing among German dramatic musicians. His rise to prominence occurred through questionable means—moving "across the bridge of infidelity to his friend" with assistance from Director Holtei and "thanks to a magnanimous oversight on the part of Franz Liszt." Dorn eventually secured an important position at the Royal Opera of Berlin, partly due to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV's preference for church scenes. Liszt recommended him as musical director of Cologne Cathedral, and during a cathedral festival, Dorn manipulated the Prussian monarch's religious feelings to advance to the Royal Theatre, where he served honorably alongside Wilhelm Taubert.

Manager J. Hoffmann, who deeply felt the treachery practiced upon Wagner, revealed that his contract with Dorn bound him for only one year, after which he wished to negotiate a fresh agreement with Wagner. Riga patrons subsequently offered teaching engagements and concert arrangements to compensate for lost salary. Despite these compensatory offers, Wagner's longing to escape theatrical life had become overwhelming. He resolutely seized this chance to abandon his former vocation entirely. With characteristic shrewdness, he played upon his wife Minna's indignation at the betrayal to secure her agreement to the eccentric plan of going to Paris. Wagner had long dreamed of the most magnificent theatrical conditions, as evidenced by his *Rienzi* conception, and now his sole desire was to reach the very heart of European grand opera without stopping at any intermediate stations.

Before leaving Riga, Wagner had already established preliminary contacts with Parisian operatic circles. While in Magdeburg, he had composed a grand opera in five acts titled *Die Hohe Braut* based on H. König's romance, crafting it in the most luxurious French style. He sent the French-translated scenic draft to Eugène Scribe in Paris, suggesting Scribe might use his plot on condition of securing Wagner the composition contract for the Paris Opera House. To demonstrate his capability for Parisian operatic music, Wagner also sent Scribe the score of his *Liebesverbot*. Simultaneously, he wrote to Meyerbeer informing him of his plans and requesting support. When no reply came, Wagner remained undiscouraged, satisfied simply to be "in communication with Paris." His sister Cecilia's engagement to Eduard Avenarius, who managed Brockhaus's Paris branch, provided additional connections. Avenarius visited Scribe and received acknowledgment of Wagner's earlier communication; Scribe showed some recollection of the plot, recalling only a harpist character from the first act. This partial interest, combined with Scribe's actual letter acknowledging the work, gradually overcame Minna's apprehensions about the Paris adventure.

With the Paris departure fixed for summer 1839 upon expiration of his second year's contract, Wagner undertook intensive preparations. The composition of *Rienzi*'s second act was completed before departure, incorporating an extravagant heroic ballet. Recognizing the imperative need for French fluency—a language he had contemptuously abandoned during classical studies—Wagner engaged an excellent French master with only four weeks available. Realizing he could achieve little in so short a time, Wagner pragmatically used the lessons to obtain an idiomatic translation of his *Rienzi* libretto, writing it in red ink directly onto the finished score portions. This enabled immediate submission to French judges upon arriving in Paris. Despite careful artistic preparation, financial circumstances remained dire. The sale of modest household furniture, a benefit concert, and meager savings barely satisfied creditors in Magdeburg and Königsberg, leaving nothing for the journey itself. Their old Königsberg friend Abraham Möller proposed a solution: reserve all savings for the journey and settle debts after Parisian successes. Möller offered to convey them across the Russian frontier by carriage to an East Prussian port, requiring them to cross without passports that creditors had already impounded.

Director Hoffmann facilitated Wagner's early departure by allowing him to leave months before contract expiration. After conducting the Mitau theatrical season through June, Wagner and Minna secretly departed in Möller's hired special coach. Their goal was Paris, but countless unheard-of hardships awaited. Their journey through July's luxuriant Courland brought temporary contentment, soon disturbed by a massive Newfoundland dog named Robber—originally belonging to a Riga merchant, who had become devotedly attached to Wagner. Despite practical difficulties of traveling with such a large dog, Wagner swore never to part with him. On the evening of the second day, they reached the Russo-Prussian frontier where danger became palpable. Möller's friend guided them by small carriage through bypaths to a suspicious house—a smugglers' drinking den filled with Polish Jews of forbidding aspect. At sundown, a guide led them toward the frontier ditch running the length of the Russian border, watched at narrow intervals by Cossacks. They had to run at full speed down the hill, scramble through the ditch, and hurry beyond gun range, since Cossacks were bound to fire upon fugitives even on the Prussian side. Robber proved remarkably intelligent, silently keeping close as though conscious of the danger. Their trusted helper reappeared, embracing them with delight, and drove them to the Prussian frontier village inn, where the anxiously waiting Möller leaped sobbing from bed to greet them.

Only after safely crossing did Wagner fully realize the danger to which he had exposed himself and especially his poor Minna. He recognized the folly of undertaking such a perilous journey without understanding the tremendous difficulties of secretly crossing the frontier—difficulties Möller had foolishly allowed him to remain ignorant about. Wagner found himself at a loss to convey to his exhausted wife the depth of his regret for the entire affair, which had endangered her through his ignorance and reckless determination to escape his previous circumstances and enter the wider field where he hoped soon to realize his artistic ambitions.

Following the decision to travel by sailing vessel from the Prussian port of Pillau to London, Wagner and his party set out from Tilsit through the rich plain toward Arnau near Königsberg. Their journey overland was accomplished in the poorest available local conveyance, essentially a wagon, deliberately avoiding Königsberg by passing through smaller villages on bad roads to prevent passport complications. The budget constraint was severe—Wagner's entire capital of less than one hundred ducats had to cover both the journey and living expenses in Paris until he could earn money. Minna suffered a serious accident when the clumsy vehicle overturned in a farmyard, causing internal shock that left her helpless and necessitated several days' delay in a peasant's dirty, surly household before she recovered enough to continue. Möller accompanied them on this overland portion.

Upon reaching Pillau, Wagner and his companions faced extraordinary difficulties boarding the merchant vessel Thetis, a small ship carrying a crew of seven including the captain. Since they had no passports, they were forced to slip past the harbour watch in a small boat before daybreak and haul Robber up the steep vessel's side without attracting attention. Once aboard, they immediately concealed themselves below deck to avoid officials inspecting the ship before departure. Only when the anchor was weighed and the land faded from view did they feel able to breathe freely. The journey began with an unexpected prolonged calm in the Baltic, during which Wagner studied George Sand's novel *La Derniere Aldini* to improve his French. He also observed an elderly taciturn sailor named Koske, whom Robber inexplicably disliked. After seven days, they had progressed only as far as Copenhagen, where they made purchases to improve their meagre on-board diet before sailing past Elsinore Castle, bringing youthful memories of Hamlet.

The peaceful passage through the Cattegat toward the Skagerack ended abruptly when the wind shifted to a violent storm that lasted twenty-four hours. Wagner describes the ordeal in the captain's painfully narrow cabin, where sea-sickness, exhaustion, and repeated alarms left them vulnerable. A particularly distressing complication arose when the brandy cask, positioned beneath Wagner's berth, repeatedly attracted Koske, the sailor Robber despised. Each time Koske descended the narrow steps to reach the cask, Robber attacked him fiercely, forcing Wagner to intervene during his already critical state of exhaustion. On 27th July, the captain was compelled to seek refuge on the Norwegian coast. Wagner's relief at sighting the rocky Norwegian shore transformed into wonder as they approached—the continuous cliff line proved to be separate rocks, and as they sailed through, the hurricane's fury diminished progressively until they entered a calm fjord. The granite walls echoing the crew's anchor-casting call inspired what would become the seamen's song in *The Flying Dutchman*. The ship anchored at Sandwike, a fishing village near Arendal, where they rested two days at a hospitable captain's house before the captain insisted on departing despite the pilot's warnings.

The Thetis departed Norway on 31st July, but within hours near Tromsond, the captain and sailors began swearing violently as the pilot, rigid with fear, struggled to avoid barely visible reefs toward which the ship was being driven. The vessel struck a reef severely enough that Wagner's imagination believed the whole ship had split, though only the side was damaged. After examining the vessel at another Norwegian harbour point, the captain transported Wagner's party by small boat to Tromsond, where Wagner experienced striking impressions of a long inland fjord resembling an awe-inspiring desert, later intensified by a walk across depressingly bare dun moors stretching to the horizon under a gloomy sky. After reassuring examinations on 1st August, the vessel sailed again, and after four days of calm, a strong north wind arose, carrying them swiftly toward England. On 6th August, another violent storm爆发; the following day, 7th August, brought what Wagner considered imminent death. The vessel was hurled between mountainous waves and fathomless abysses, while the crew's malignant glances suggested superstitious blame for the disaster, causing Wagner profound dread beyond the physical danger. A furious thunderstorm accompanied the tempest, and Minna expressed a desperate wish to be struck by lightning with Wagner rather than drown, even begging to be bound to him as they sank. Another terrifying night passed in exhaustion.

The storm subsided but left the captain unable to determine their position due to overcast skies blocking astronomical observations. Following another vessel ahead through his telescope, the captain suddenly saw it run aground on a sand-bank and realized they were approaching the most dangerous sandbank belt along the Dutch coast. Through skillful sailing, they held an opposite course toward the English coast, which they sighted on the evening of 9th August near Southwold. The sight of English pilots racing to meet their ship restored Wagner's hope. A powerful grey-haired pilot succeeded after great struggle in boarding the Thetis despite torn and bleeding hands, taking command and inspiring confident deliverance. Yet the dangerous passage through the sandbanks continued for twenty-four hours (10th-11th August) with a westerly gale hindering progress. Only on the evening of 12th August did they reach the mouth of the Thames. Minna had been nervously affected by the numerous small red guardships with bells marking the sandbanks, watching endlessly, while Wagner found these signals of human proximity consoling and slept peacefully despite her reproaches.

Anchored at the Thames mouth awaiting daybreak, Wagner dressed, washed, and shaved on deck while everyone else slept. He watched with deepening interest the signs of life in the famous estuary. Sailing upriver, they transferred to a passing steamer at Gravesend to hasten their arrival. The overwhelming maritime activity—countless ships, houses, streets, docks—astonished them as they approached London. Upon reaching London Bridge and stepping ashore after their terrible three-week voyage, Wagner experienced pleasurable giddiness amid the deafening uproar of the world's greatest city, with Robber whisking around corners threatening to get lost. They took a cab to the Horseshoe Tavern near the Tower, recommended by their captain, but quickly decided to leave that neighbourhood. A friendly Hamburg hunchback directed them to better quarters in the West End, and the hour-long journey in the tiny narrow cabs then in use—where Robber had to be laid crosswise from window to window—introduced them to sights surpassing imagination. They settled in Old Compton Street, where Wagner's inadequate conversational English met the landlady's attempts at French (she being a sea-captain's widow who believed she could speak the language). A disturbing incident occurred when Robber ran away at the door, and two anxious hours of window-watching passed before he returned unconcernedly from as far as Oxford Street—evidence, Wagner believed, of the absolute certainty of animal memory and instincts.

The section covers the immediate after-effects of the sea voyage for the narrator and Minna, including persistent motion-sickness and disorientation that made even their large English hotel bed feel like it was still rocking, severe exhaustion from the journey that led them to initially overlook financial concerns, and their decision to use their London stay both for Minna to rest and for the narrator to pursue musical industry contacts.

Details the narrator’s efforts to explore London and seek out relevant contacts: his failed attempt to locate Sir John Smart, president of the Philharmonic Society, to follow up on his submitted *Rule Britannia* overture, and his decision to seek out author Edward Bulwer Lytton to discuss adapting Lytton’s novel *Rienzi* into an opera, based on reports that Lytton was a sitting Member of Parliament.

Recounts the narrator’s visit to the temporary Houses of Parliament to locate Bulwer Lytton, his accidental introduction to a high-ranking lord who granted him access to the House of Lords, his observations of prominent political figures including Lord Melbourne, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Lyndhurst during a debate on measures to enforce the Anti-Slavery Bill against the Portuguese government, and his departure from London for France via steamer on August 20th.

Describes the narrator and Minna’s choice to settle temporarily near Boulogne-sur-Mer rather than traveling directly to Paris: to avoid early-season disappointment in Paris, finish instrumentation for the second act of *Rienzi*, and take advantage of Meyerbeer’s presence in the area. It also covers their search for affordable rural accommodation and setup of their basic, sparsely furnished household.

Covers the narrator’s positive interactions with Meyerbeer during their stay near Boulogne, including Meyerbeer’s approval of the *Rienzi* libretto and the two completed acts of the score, his promise of letters of introduction to Paris Opera director Duponchel and conductor Habeneck, and the narrator’s introduction to other prominent musical figures including Moscheles and virtuoso pianist Fraulein Blahedka.

Details the narrator and Minna’s arrival in Paris on September 16th, and the narrator’s immediate disappointment with the city after his high expectations, finding it narrow and confined compared to London, and feeling disheartened by the modest, working-class neighborhood of their assigned accommodation near the former birthplace of Molière.

Recounts the narrator’s meeting with E. G. Anders, introduced by his brother-in-law Avernarius, including Anders’s unusual background as a noble-born, highly learned bibliophile who lost his fortune to betrayal and now works a low-paying job at the Bibliotheque Royale, his secretive nature about his past and true identity, and his immediate, unselfish commitment to supporting the narrator’s efforts to succeed in Paris.

Describes the narrator’s befriending of Anders’s housemate, the philologist Lehrs, including Lehrs’s background as the younger brother of a famous scholar at Königsberg who chose independent academic work in Paris over a stable teaching post in Germany, his exploitation and poverty from working for bookseller Didot, and the development of a close, mutually supportive friendship between the two men, united with Anders by their shared financial struggles.

Covers the narrator’s early attempts to gain professional recognition in Paris, centered on Meyerbeer’s promised letters of introduction: his unsuccessful meeting with Opera director Duponchel, who showed no interest in his work, and his successful arrangement for his *Columbus Overture* to be performed at a Conservatoire orchestral practice with the support of conductor Habeneck.

The composer wrote a Bellini-style grand bass aria with chorus intended for Lablache to perform in his role as Orovist in Bellini’s *Norma*, with the text procured via an Italian political refugee hunted down by his friend Lehrs. He delivered the score and a written request to Lablache’s Moorish servant, who insisted on admitting him directly to the famous singer without prior announcement, making the composer uncomfortable enough to leave without meeting Lablache in person. When he returned a few days later, Lablache received him kindly and praised the aria as excellent, but explained it was impossible to add the piece to *Norma* after the opera had already been performed so many times. The composer concluded his attempt to work in Bellini’s style had been fruitless, and recognized he would need personal introductions to singers to secure performances of his other compositions.

When Meyerbeer arrived in Paris, he was not surprised by the failure of the letters of introduction he had provided for the composer, and used the opportunity to impress upon him how difficult it was to succeed in Paris, advising him to seek less pretentious work to build his career. To that end, he introduced the composer to Maurice Schlesinger, before returning to Germany and leaving the composer to navigate the connection on his own.

Inspired by the transformative experience of hearing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and anxious about his struggling position in Paris, the composer sketched an overture to *Faust* that he originally intended as the first movement of a full *Faust Symphony*, with a "Gretchen" movement already forming in his mind. He hoped the Conservatoire orchestra would perform the work, but was told they felt they had already done enough to support him and hoped to be free of his requests for some time. The composer later rewrote sections of the overture 15 years later on the advice of Liszt, and it was published and performed under the title *eine Faust-ouverture* to great appreciation.

Having failed to secure performances elsewhere, the composer asked Meyerbeer for more introductions to singers, and was surprised when Meyerbeer introduced him to M. Gouin, a post-office official who served as Meyerbeer’s sole agent in Paris, with explicit instructions to do his utmost to support the composer. Meyerbeer specifically asked the composer to get to know M. Antenor Joly, director of the Theatre de la Renaissance. Gouin, acting on Meyerbeer’s authority, almost suspiciously readily promised to produce *Liebesverbot*, which only required a completed translation. A special audience was planned for the theatre’s committee to hear a selection of the opera’s numbers, but the theatre’s regular singers refused to participate, claiming they were too busy; Gouin instead recruited several singers under obligation to Meyerbeer, including primadonna Mme. Dorus-Gras, Mme. Widmann and M. Dupont (both of whom had previously rejected the composer’s work), who agreed to perform at the audience.

This section opens with the loss of Wagner’s valuable pet dog early in his Paris stay, likely stolen despite the animal’s well-documented cleverness at navigating Paris streets and entertaining crowds. The dog had previously become a local fixture at the Quai du Pont-neuf, where he delighted onlookers by diving for and retrieving clothing, tools, and other objects from the water, and often swam to meet friends in the Palais Royal gardens, always finding his way home safely despite heavy traffic. The loss occurred during the second month of Wagner’s time in Paris, amid ongoing severe financial strain, and many of his friends viewed it as a stroke of luck given the couple’s inability to afford food for such a large animal. Around this time, Wagner’s sister Louisa arrived from Leipzig to join her husband Friedrich Brockhaus, who had been waiting for her in Paris; the couple planned to travel to Italy together and purchased luxury goods during their stay. Wagner did not expect or receive financial support from his wealthy relatives, and he and Minna avoided disclosing their precarious financial position to avoid appearing to elicit pity. Louisa introduced Wagner to the young Dresden painter Ernst Kietz, who would go on to become a close friend and source of comfort during their hardest times.

This section details additional family visits and new connections made during Wagner’s early Paris stay. Before the end of 1839, Wagner’s youngest sister Cecilia arrived in Paris with her husband Edward Avenarius. Out of consideration for their own modest means and the Avenariuses’ limited financial resources, the Wagners avoided frequent visits, waiting instead for the couple to call on them, which they did only after a long delay. A far more welcome reconnection was with Heinrich Laube, who arrived in Paris at the start of 1840 with his young wife Iduna (née Budaus). Iduna, a wealthy Leipzig doctor’s widow, had married Laube at the start of his one-year prison sentence in Muskau, Silesia, after being moved by his misfortune despite knowing little of him at the time; Laube was able to receive personal support from his friend Prince Puckler during his incarceration. The Wagners met with the Laubes frequently, and their wives became close friends; Laube was the first to respond with good-humored approval to Wagner’s decision to relocate to Paris. Through Laube, Wagner also made the acquaintance of Heinrich Heine, and the two men joked lightheartedly about Wagner’s precarious situation, even making Wagner laugh despite his struggles.

This section focuses on Wagner’s close friendship with the young Dresden painter Ernst Kietz, introduced to him by his sister Louisa. Kietz had studied in Paul Delaroche’s studio for roughly a year at the time of their meeting, and had a simple, childlike disposition that, combined with a lack of formal education and weak character, meant his artistic career was destined for failure despite his evident talent. Kietz’s kind, unaffected nature was a great comfort to Wagner and Minna during their darkest periods of hardship, and he joined their evening circle regularly, providing a stark, amusing contrast to the more serious figures of nervous old Anders and grave-faced Georg Friedrich Lehrs. His comical attempts to speak French, launched with great confidence despite his inability to form two consecutive correct sentences even after 20 years in Paris, greatly amused the group. Kietz struggled to complete portraits due to spending excessive time mixing paints and cleaning his brushes, and only ever finished one portrait in his lifetime: that of his landlord, who was able to secure the work by pressuring the debt-ridden painter. He did, however, create original, delicately executed small sketches based on the group’s evening conversations, including a pencil portrait of Wagner that he completed in the winter of that year and later refined two years later, once he knew Wagner more intimately, to capture Wagner’s characteristic cheerful resilience in the face of hardship, the mood Wagner often displayed during their evening chats.

This section covers Heinrich Laube’s efforts to support Wagner financially, and the couple’s subsequent move to their own apartment in the Rue du Helder. Concerned by Wagner’s frivolous attitude toward his precarious situation, Laube resolved to help him secure financial support to give his Paris ambitions a chance to succeed. Wagner had recently come to a promising agreement with the management of the Théâtre de la Renaissance, and believed he could achieve success if guaranteed six months of financial stability. Laube agreed to arrange this support, and successfully secured monthly stipends for Wagner from one of his wealthy friends in Leipzig and Wagner’s well-off relatives, with payments to be made through Edward Avenarius. With this funding in place, Wagner and Minna decided to leave their furnished apartments and rent their own flat in the Rue du Helder. Minna, who had suffered greatly from Wagner’s previous careless management of their limited funds, took charge of household finances and calculated that they could live more cheaply in their own flat than in furnished rooms and restaurants. With advice from Lehrs, who was familiar with Parisian life, they furnished the new apartment on an installment plan, taking on rent of 1200 francs per quarter. Lehrs urged Wagner to demonstrate confidence in his own success to have any chance of making it in Paris, noting that he only had a year to achieve his goals or face ruin, and quipped that Wagner must “dare all” as befitted his name, as he was not inclined to derive the name Wagner from the German word for carriage (Fuhrwerk). The couple moved into their new Rue du Helder apartment on April 15, with very little luggage, full of high hopes for their future.

This section details the sudden collapse of Wagner’s promising professional prospects following the bankruptcy of the Théâtre de la Renaissance. The very first visitor Wagner received in his new Rue du Helder apartment was Anders, who brought the devastating news that the Théâtre de la Renaissance, with which Wagner had secured his promising agreement, had gone bankrupt and closed its doors. This blow, which came like a thunderclap, shattered all of Wagner’s existing prospects for success in Paris, and his friends openly speculated that Giacomo Meyerbeer, who had sent Wagner from the Grand Opéra to the Théâtre de la Renaissance, had known of the theatre’s impending bankruptcy all along. Wagner was immediately thrown into a state of despair, left with expensive new apartment commitments and no viable path to the success he had hoped for. Despite this, he arranged for the three pieces he had adapted from his early work *Das Liebesverbot* to be performed for temporary Grand Opéra director Edouard Monnaie and librettist Eugène Scribe in the opera’s green room, with Wagner accompanying on piano. Both men praised the music, and Scribe offered to adapt the libretto for Wagner as soon as the opera’s management agreed to stage the work, though Monnaie made clear this was impossible at the time. Wagner recognized these compliments were only polite gestures, but appreciated the rare recognition. The bankruptcy also confirmed Wagner’s long-growing aversion to the superficial, frivolous Parisian taste he had adapted his early work to appeal to, and he was deeply ashamed to have returned to his immature early work in hopes of securing quick success in the city. With no prospects for work in the city during the summer slack season, Wagner found every door he knocked on turned him away with the familiar phrase “Monsieur est à la campagne” (the master is out of town).

This section covers Wagner’s shifting creative and personal hopes amid worsening financial hardship after the Théâtre de la Renaissance bankruptcy. Faced with no viable path to success in Paris, Wagner began romanticizing the idea of moving to the South American Free States, where he could make an honest living free from the pressures of the Parisian arts scene, drawing inspiration from Johann Heinrich Zschokke’s account of European settlers’ relief in *Die Gründung von Maryland*. Minna, who did not understand Wagner’s far-fetched musings, continued to focus on practical economies to sustain them in Paris. Wagner, meanwhile, returned to his creative work, first sketching out the poem for *Der fliegende Holländer* (The Flying Dutchman), planning to adapt it as a one-act opera to serve as a curtain raiser for Grand Opéra ballets, a format he thought more likely to be accepted by Parisian managements. He also resumed work on completing *Rienzi*. As their situation grew more dire, Wagner was forced to draw in advance on the monthly stipends Laube had secured for him, a move that gradually strained his relationship with his brother-in-law Edward Avenarius, who could not understand the couple’s continued insistence on staying in Paris.

The section opens with the composer panicking as he tries to gather funds for his first quarter’s rent. A parcel arrives from the London Philharmonic Society containing his returned overture *Rule Britannia*, accompanied by a 7-franc carriage fee he cannot pay; he refuses to accept the parcel and returns the only existing copy of the overture to his publishers, never following up on its fate. To offset his housing costs, he and his wife sublet the larger portion of their apartment to Fraulein Leplay, a wealthy, extremely miserly elderly woman traveling with her companion, for two months, with his wife providing breakfast for the guests to earn extra small sums. After Leplay departs, they sublet one room to Brix, a modest, industrious German commercial traveler and art student recommended by their acquaintance Kietz, who becomes a loyal companion to the couple during their period of hardship.

The composer receives an unexpected offer of support relayed by the secretary of Russian noble Count Kuscelew, who learned of the couple’s struggles from Laube at Karlsbad. The count seeks a musical director to help recruit members for a small light opera company he plans to bring to his Russian estates, and the composer travels to meet him at his hotel. While the count greets the composer politely and listens to his small French compositions, he quickly concludes the composer is not suited to his project, which the composer later learns was intended to function more as a private harem than a professional opera troupe, as the count only recognized the works of composer Adam. Despite the failed professional arrangement, the count sends the composer 10 golden napoleons as payment for his visit; the composer writes to request a formal commission to justify the payment but receives no response, and is unable to follow up with the count directly.

Unable to convince publisher Schlesinger to publish his original French songs at no cost, the composer decides to self-publish his *Two Grenadiers* through Schlesinger, covering all production costs himself (paying Schlesinger a 50-franc fee) with the agreement that all sales proceeds will go directly to the composer, and his friend Kietz creates a lithographed title page for the work. Schlesinger later claims no copies of the French edition ever sold. After the composer gains recognition for *Rienzi* in Dresden, Mainz publisher Schott releases a German edition of the piece, printing Heinrich Heine’s original German poem (which does not match the metre of the French translation set to the composer’s music) below the French text. The composer is furious at what he sees as an unauthorized insult to his work, protests the publication, and is threatened with a libel suit by Schott, who argues the edition is a legal "reimpression" rather than an illegal "reprint." To avoid further conflict, the composer issues an apology he does not fully understand. Years later, when he inquires with Schlesinger’s Paris successor about the original French edition, he learns a new edition was published but is denied any rights to the work, and has never owned a copy of his own published piece.

To pay off the 50-franc production fee he owed Schlesinger for *The Two Grenadiers*, the composer agrees to write articles for Schlesinger’s *Gazette Musicale*, though he must split his fee with a translator due to his limited fluency in French for literary writing. He initially believes he will earn 60 francs per printed sheet, but discovers the publisher uses a precise iron measuring tool to calculate sheet length, deducting space reserved for titles and author signatures, meaning his first accepted article only counts as half a sheet. He writes several pieces for the publication: an enthusiastic essay on German music that is later reprinted in an Italian Milan journal where he is mistakenly referred to as a "Dottissimo Musico Tedesco," a superficial essay praising a Russian general’s arrangement of Pergolesi’s *Stabat Mater* written at Schlesinger’s request, and an essay on the independence of composition and the work of virtuosos that he writes on his own initiative.

In the middle of summer, the composer is surprised by a two-week visit from Meyerbeer, who is sympathetic to his situation and agrees to introduce him to M. Leon Pillet, the newly appointed manager of the Paris Grand Opera. During their meeting, Meyerbeer suggests the composer would be better suited to composing a ballet act in collaboration with another musician, a proposal the composer rejects outright. He does, however, give Pillet a brief outline of his *Flying Dutchman* concept during the meeting. After Meyerbeer leaves Paris for a longer absence, the composer hears nothing further from Pillet about the proposal.

As the composer’s contributions to the *Gazette Musicale* prove insufficient to cover his expenses, Schlesinger commissions him to create a new method book for the cornett, a popular amateur instrument among young Parisian men at the time. After the composer admits he lacks expertise in the instrument, Schlesinger releases him from the task, but assigns him to arrange 14 "suites" of opera arias for the cornett instead, providing 60 complete piano arrangements of operas as source material. The composer selects and arranges suitable arias, stacking marked sheet music around his work table for easy access to varied melodic material. Before he finishes the work, however, leading Parisian cornett player M. Schlitz reviews the completed pieces, declares the composer knows nothing about the instrument and has used keys too high for amateur players, and agrees to correct the finished work only if he splits the fee with the composer. The remaining unstarted suites are taken off the composer’s plate, and the piano arrangements are returned to the publisher’s shop on the Rue Richelieu.

With the cornett work concluded, the composer’s finances are again in poor shape, and his household’s poverty grows more severe by the day, but he is able to put the finishing touches on his opera *Rienzi*, completing the full score by November 19. He decides to offer the first production of the work to the Dresden Court Theatre, hoping a successful debut will allow him to reestablish ties with Germany. He chooses Dresden specifically because he knows the theater has a suitable lead tenor in Tichatschek, and he has existing connections there: singer Schroder-Devrient, who had previously tried (unsuccessfully) to get his earlier opera *Die Feen* produced at the court theater out of kindness to his family; Hofrat Winkler (known as Theodor Hell), the theater’s secretary who is an old family friend; and conductor Reissiger, who the composer had met years earlier during a trip to Bohemia. He drafts a formal petition to the King of Saxony and a respectful note to the theater director, Herr von Lüttichau, and prepares all materials to send the score to Dresden via the next available mail service.

On the day he plans to send the *Rienzi* score to Dresden, the composer has a full schedule of errands to try to raise money to cover overdue bills and household expenses, including visiting a fifth-floor cheesemonger to request an extension on a debt, asking his brother-in-law’s brother Heinrich (then living in Paris) for financial help, and visiting Schlesinger to get funds for the postage of the opera score. He also needs to return a borrowed metronome to its owner, which he carries under his thin overcoat. Early in the morning, as he leaves his apartment in dense fog, he spots his dog Robber, who had been stolen from the couple a year earlier. He calls to the dog, who seems to recognize him at first but flees when the composer reaches out, terrified by memories of the rare punishments the composer had given him before he went missing. The composer chases the dog through foggy streets near the Church of St. Roch until he loses sight of it entirely, never to see the animal again. Shaken and exhausted, he continues on his errands, interpreting the dog’s flight as a terrible omen reflecting the dire state of his life at the time.

Wagner and Minna suffered a devastating financial setback early in their Paris stay when Wagner gave notice to their landlady one day later than required by local custom, rendering him legally liable for a full additional year of rent. The unyielding property agent refused to release him from the agreement, and their hope of finding a subletter to cover the cost collapsed as Easter passed and the new rental term began.

The couple accepted an offer from a family to take over their Rue du Helder apartment (including all their furniture) for several months to cover the upcoming quarter’s rent, and arranged to relocate to the inexpensive Paris suburb of Meudon for the summer. They moved on April 29, bringing their lodger, the struggling flutist Brix, with them, though they had no clear plan to support themselves moving forward, as Wagner’s patron Schlesinger had no work available for him.

Earlier that winter, Wagner had written a lengthy article on Weber’s *Freischutz* for the *Gazette Musicale* intended to build hype for the opera’s upcoming Paris performance with added recitatives by Berlioz. The article criticized Berlioz’s alterations as damaging the opera’s original folkloric character, earning Wagner backlash from those involved in the production, but praise from writer George Sand, who cited the article in her own work to argue for the French public’s ability to appreciate the opera’s mystical elements.

Wagner began contributing frequent free articles to the *Abendzeitung*, a declining paper edited by Dresden Court Theatre secretary Herr Winkler, in exchange for regular updates on the progress of Wagner’s opera *Rienzi* at the Dresden theatre. To fill the paper’s columns, Wagner compiled content from conversations with his friends Anders and Lehrs, written in the popular journalistic style of Heinrich Heine, and also submitted a German manuscript of his "Beethoven" story to the publication.

Wagner grew deeply disillusioned with the Parisian opera establishment during this period. While he was impressed by the orchestral execution and staging of Meyerbeer’s *Les Huguenots*, he found its performances overly extravagant and never wished to see it again. He was repelled by the low-quality output of the Opera Comique, and the formulaic, unemotional performances of Italian opera that paled in comparison to the work of singer Schroder-Devrient he admired. He attended the opera only four times total during his Paris stay, declined most theatre invitations, and was finally disgusted by the long run of Donizetti’s *La Favorita* at the city’s premier opera house.

Europa* literary monthly editor Lewald, who had previously published Wagner’s musical compositions in his magazine, commissioned Wagner to write Paris-themed articles for the publication, and paid Wagner his first ever fee for a composition for his French songs *Dors, mon enfant* and settings of works by Hugo and Ronsard. Wagner wrote two humorous, Heine-style articles for the magazine: *Pariser Amusements*, which mocked his disappointing Paris experiences and the city’s inhabitants, and *Pariser Fatalitaten*, which profited from the misadventures of a former acquaintance, Hermann Pfau, a destitute vagrant living in Paris whom Wagner had financially supported.

Wagner contacted Leon Pillet, manager of the Paris Opera, after learning Pillet was interested in his *Fliegender Holländer* plot, but Pillet only wanted to purchase the plot to assign to another composer, as his existing contracts meant he could not commission Wagner to compose a full opera for at least seven years, and only offered him work writing music for ballet. After a failed attempt to mediate with Royal Theatres Commissaire Edouard Monnaie, and a warning that another writer was already working on a similar plot, Wagner agreed to sell the plot to Pillet for 500 francs, which he planned to use to develop the work for a German production on his own.

Wagner and Minna’s financial situation in Meudon grew increasingly dire in May and June, despite the creative inspiration Wagner found in the rural setting that led him to write the short story *Ein glücklicher Abend*, translated and published in the *Gazette Musicale*. One morning, Wagner walked all the way to Paris without funds for a train ticket, hoping to raise five francs, but returned to Meudon completely penniless. He learned Minna had given their last loaf of bread to Hermann Pfau, who had arrived starving, and their lodger Brix had also returned from Paris without money or food. Minna took heroic action, convincing the local baker, butcher, and wine merchant to provide food on credit, and served the group a full meal just as the Avenarius family arrived for a visit.

At Schlesinger's request, Wagner wrote a lengthy article for his paper on Halévy's latest opera, emphasizing his hope that the French school would continue studying the German style and avoid relapsing into shallow Italian methods. He praised Auber and his *Stumpe von Portici* while criticizing Rossini's "overloaded melodies," which he compared to sol-fa exercises. However, the editor M. Edouard Monnaie suppressed the Rossini criticism, considering it unsuitable for a musical paper, though he allowed the praise of Auber to stand.

Wagner also wrote about the Lachner libretto incident for his friend Winkler in Dresden. Küstner, theatrical director at Munich, had commissioned a libretto from St. Georges in Paris for his friend Lachner, hoping to secure a great opportunity for the German composer. However, when Halévy's *Reine de Chypre* appeared, it treated the same subject as Lachner's supposedly original work. St. Georges had merely altered the Munich libretto by omission, and when challenged, expressed surprise that Lachner expected a full libretto at the low price offered. Wagner found great amusement in this episode, writing about it for the *Abendzeitung*.

Working on Halévy's opera brought Wagner into closer contact with the composer, whom he found to be genuinely good-hearted and unassuming despite his declining talent. However, Schlesinger was exasperated by Halévy's incorrigible laziness. Halévy had contemplated making changes to the piano score but never proceeded with them, and Schlesinger could not obtain the proof-sheets back, delaying publication.

When Wagner arrived at Halévy's house around ten in the morning to催促 him work on the proofs, Halévy insisted on having breakfast first. Despite Wagner's appealing conversation, friends arrived, and Schlesinger burst in demanding to know why Halévy was not working. Halévy remained unmoved, complaining ironically about his latest success and claiming he had never had less peace than when his operas failed. When Halévy spoke German to Wagner, a visitor expressed surprise, leading Schlesinger to comment that all Jews could speak German. Schlesinger admitted he himself was Jewish but had converted for his wife's sake.

Wagner discovered the source of Halévy's indifference to success: he was about to make a wealthy marriage. Initially Wagner thought Halévy simply wanted to become rich, but he found the composer genuinely modest about his own capacity and skeptical of the works by more successful contemporary French composers. Wagner recognized in Halévy the first frank admission of disbelief in the value of modern artistic creations, a view that would later shape his conclusions about Jewish participation in the arts.

Wagner visited Halévy at the Palais de l'Institut, where he was permanent secretary, after learning that Halévy had approved of Wagner's Paris concerts when French critics condemned them. Halévy expressed curiosity about Wagner's new musical theory, remarking that he had found nothing but music in Wagner's work, though it had generally seemed very good. The visit left Wagner with a depressing sense of Halévy's moral and aesthetic decline, and he noted the hypocritical or impudent exploitation marking Halévy's successors.

Throughout this period of hack-work in Paris, Wagner's thoughts turned to returning to Germany, now viewed in an idealized light. His intercourse with Lehrs had intensified his tendency toward serious study, counteracting his theatrical experiences. Lehrs openly expressed doubts about individual survival after death, suggesting such doubts had motivated great men's noble deeds. This opened fascinating regions of meditation for Wagner, who found a stimulating challenge in contemplating mortality and the afterlife.

Lehrs discouraged Wagner from studying Greek classics, arguing that as a born musician, Wagner would understand such knowledge without grammar or lexicon, whereas genuine Greek study required undivided attention. Instead, Wagner turned to German history, beginning with Raumer's *History of the Hohenstaufen*. The great figures in this work lived vividly before his eyes, particularly Emperor Frederick II.

Wagner saw in Frederick II the highest embodiment of the German ideal. This fair-haired Swabian inherited the Norman realm of Sicily and Naples, developed the Italian language, and promoted knowledge and art in a land previously dominated by ecclesiastical fanaticism and feudal brutality. He gathered poets and sages from eastern lands and made a peace pact with the Sultan, securing privileges for Christians in Palestine. Yet he was betrayed by the Roman clergy and struggled against the bigotry of his age.

Wagner planned a five-act dramatic poem, also suitable for musical setting, concerning Frederick II's son Manfred. After Frederick's death, Manfred found himself in nominal possession of the throne of Apulia under papal suzerainty, surrounded by a degenerate court where his father's spirit survived only faintly. A young Saracen woman arrives from the East to appeal to the alliance between East and West and inspire Manfred to maintain his imperial heritage.

Fatima, as the heroine is called, acts as an inspired prophetess, keeping Manfred at a respectful distance despite his love for her. She is actually the daughter of Frederick II by a Saracen maiden, sent to help Manfred succeed. She guides him through mountains where he sees the spirit of Frederick beckoning him on. At Luceria, a town of Saracens loyal to the Hohenstaufen, Manfred is received with enthusiasm and leads them to victory. However, Fatima, bound by a vow never to yield to his passion, secretly departs. Her rejected lover, the Saracen Nurreddin, kills her in jealous rage, and Manfred realizes his happiness is forever lost.

Despite adorning the theme with gorgeous scenes and complicated situations, Wagner could never rouse sufficient enthusiasm for serious elaboration. Another theme soon captured him: a pamphlet on the "Venusberg" that accidentally fell into his hands.

Wagner encountered the Tannhäuser legend through a popular pamphlet that connected it to the Wartburg contest, building on his earlier familiarity with Tieck's version. Lehrs obtained the Königsberg German Society's annual report containing Lukas's critical study of the Wartburg poem, providing Wagner access to the original text. The depiction of medieval Germany proved remarkably suggestive and deepened his cultural understanding. In the same publication, he discovered a detailed analysis of the Lohengrin legend. These mythological sources formed lasting impressions within him, establishing imagery he would later develop into fully realized dramatic works.

Wagner's longing for Germany intensified as he sought a permanent home where he could pursue creative work. Financial necessity initially kept him bound to Paris. Through Schlesinger's patronage, Jewish musician Dessauer received encouragement to secure a Grand Opera commission. Learning that Pillet's Vaisseau Fantome had been assigned to conductor Dietsch, Dessauer approached Wagner to create a similar libretto for two hundred francs. Wagner drafted a plot based on Hoffmann's Bergwerke von Falun, which Dessauer found compelling for musical development.

Dessauer's submitted plot was rejected by Pillet, who cited insurmountable staging difficulties, particularly for the second act's ballet requirements. Facing acute melancholia, Dessauer then requested Wagner compose an oratorio on Mary Magdalene, reportedly claiming to have seen his own severed head that morning. Despite the unusual circumstances, Wagner agreed to the commission and took time to develop it, a commitment he later regretted having extended indefinitely.

Wagner maintained correspondence with Dresden regarding Rienzi, finding reliable support in chorus-master Fischer, who provided reassuring reports about his affairs. After repeated delays, Rienzi's premiere was postponed to autumn 1842. Meanwhile, Count Redern informed Wagner in March 1842 that the Fliegender Holländer had been accepted for Berlin's opera. Wagner had previously sent the libretto to Ringelhardt in Leipzig, who rejected it citing excessive solemnity despite having harbored resentment since Liebesverbot. Munich's Küstner also declined, deeming it unsuitable for German stages. Meyerbeer's energetic intervention secured the Berlin acceptance, though Wagner later discovered Count Redern had already retired, making the consent ineffectual.

Wealthy family members unexpectedly took interest in Wagner's situation. His brother-in-law Avenarius, concerned by Wagner's poverty, secured help through an appeal to sister Louisa and her wealthy friend Schletter. On December 26th, 1841, Wagner returned home with a goose containing a five-hundred-franc note. This windfall, combined with favorable responses from German managers, emboldened Wagner to approach brother-in-law Friedrich Brockhaus again, despite his previous rejection based on disapproval of Wagner's profession. This time Brockhaus provided necessary travel funds.

With improved prospects and finances, Wagner spent the latter half of winter 1841-1842 in high spirits, enjoying social gatherings through Avenarius's connections. Evening visits to Herr Kuhne's family became regular, where Wagner's piano improvisations for dancing made him almost dangerously popular. These engagements provided entertainment for the small social circle while awaiting his eventual departure from Paris.

Wagner departed Paris on April 7th, 1842, as spring began blooming across the city. Emotional farewells marked the departure, particularly for friends Anders, Lehrs, and Kietz. Anders's poor health and advanced years suggested an early death, while Lehrs's deteriorating condition from poverty had become tragically apparent during their brief time in Paris. Kietz demonstrated characteristic generosity by pressing a five-franc piece upon Wagner despite his own poverty. The five-day journey to Dresden brought harsh weather, including snow near the German frontier at Forbach. Between Frankfurt and Leipzig, crowds from the Easter Fair created additional chaos, forcing continual transfers between inadequate substitute coaches. Only during a brief sunlit moment did they glimpse the Wartburg, profoundly affecting Wagner and inspiring his vision for Tannhäuser's third act. The travelers arrived in Dresden on April 12th, 1842.

Dresden felt cold and desolate under the inclement weather. Minna's parents lived in cramped, dingy lodgings in straightened circumstances, so Wagner secured separate quarters in Topfergasse for twenty-one marks monthly. After necessary business visits regarding Rienzi, Wagner departed for Leipzig on April 15th to reunite with his mother and family after six years. His mother had experienced significant change following Rosalie's death, now living comfortably near the Brockhaus family. Her former strict demeanor had softened to natural cheerfulness, largely due to Friedrich Brockhaus's attentive care. She warmly received Wagner's unexpected visit, with any past bitterness dissolved. She expressed hope for his success, strengthened by Rosalie's prophetic blessing before her death. However, Wagner's stay was brief, as he needed to proceed to Berlin to finalize arrangements with Count Redern for the Fliegender Holländer, where he discovered the Count was retiring and would refer him to the incoming director Küstner, who had not yet arrived.

The composer encountered Mendelssohn in Berlin, where Mendelssohn had been appointed General Musical Director to the King of Prussia. Despite Mendelssohn's comfortable position, he expressed his belief that his work would not prosper in Berlin and his desire to return to Leipzig. The narrator describes Mendelssohn as appearing cold despite his lavish circumstances, noting a strange distance between them.

The narrator visited Rellstab, having received a letter of introduction from his brother-in-law Brockhaus. Unlike other encounters, Rellstab showed no inclination to interest himself in the narrator's affairs, leaving the narrator feeling repulsed by this indifference.

The narrator grew deeply depressed during his time in Berlin. Comparing the city unfavorably to London and especially Paris, he found the city depressing with its "sordid spaces and pretensions to greatness." He expressed a hope that if luck did not favor his life, he might at least spend his days in Paris rather than Berlin.

After the unsuccessful Berlin trip, the narrator went to Leipzig where he stayed with his brother-in-law Hermann Brockhaus, now a Professor of Oriental Languages. His sister's family had grown, and the atmosphere of contentment and intellectual activity deeply affected the narrator's "homeless and vagabond soul."

During an evening conversation, the narrator broke down in tears, and his sister showed understanding of his difficulties. Hermann suggested that the family offer a loan of six hundred marks to help him through the waiting period for his opera Rienzi to be performed in Dresden, to be paid in monthly installments over six months.

While staying with his Leipzig relatives, the narrator played and sang through the entire Fliegender Holländer for them, generating considerable interest. Later, his sister Louisa reported that the effect of his personal performance was not replicated when she heard the opera performed in Dresden.

The narrator visited his old friend Apel, who had gone completely blind. Despite this affliction, Apel surprised the narrator with his cheerfulness and contentment, eliminating any reason for pity. A humorous misunderstanding about a coat color demonstrated the warmth of their reunion.

On April 26th, the narrator returned to Dresden to pursue the production of Rienzi. Interviews with Lüttichau (general manager) and Reissiger (musical conductor) left him cold and incredulous, as both seemed astonished by his arrival and would have preferred he remained in Paris.

The narrator's first positive reception came from Wilhelm Fischer, the old chorus-master, who had carefully read the score, developed serious hopes for the opera's success, and worked energetically to secure its acceptance. Fischer embraced the narrator with overwhelming cordiality upon learning his identity.

The narrator reconnected with actor Ferdinand Heine, whom he had known since childhood. Heine's family provided a foundation for deep friendship. Heine had been nicknamed "David" by the narrator's stepfather and had been part of their family circle, including participation in excursions that Carl Maria von Weber also attended.

Discussions focused on preparing for rehearsals scheduled to begin after summer holidays. Tichatschek, the lead tenor, showed great enthusiasm for the role of Rienzi, partly motivated by the prospect of new costumes and especially new silver armor. Schroder-Devrient was away on holiday at the time.

Plans were made for a summer stay at Toplitz, a location from the narrator's youth, hoping its fine air and baths would benefit both his and Minna's health. Before departing, several visits to Leipzig were necessary to settle matters regarding the Dutchman opera.

On May 5th, the narrator traveled to Leipzig to interview Küstner, the new Berlin Opera director, who was in the awkward position of about to produce an opera he had previously declined in Munich. Küstner promised to consider his options. A follow-up letter on June 2nd requested patience for his final verdict.

During this period, the narrator visited his eldest brother Albert in Halle and was deeply grieved to find him living in mean circumstances at the Halle Theatre despite possessing remarkable talent for dramatic singing. The narrator found the visit harrowing, finding consolation only in Albert's step-daughter Johanna, who sang beautifully.

After returning to Toplitz, the narrator embarked on a several-day walking tour through the Bohemian mountains to mentally develop his Venusberg opera plan. He stayed in various locations including romantic Schreckenstein, climbing peaks daily and spending one moonlit night among ruins wrapped only in a blanket, creating his own ghostly atmosphere.

During his Bohemian wanderings, the narrator developed the detailed plan for a three-act opera on the Venusberg, subsequently composing the work according to that sketch. A chance encounter with a goatherd's whistling momentarily inspired what would become the pilgrims' chorus, though the exact melody was lost and had to be reimagined.

Returning to Toplitz in excellent spirits and health, the narrator soon departed for Dresden on July 18th upon learning that Tichatschek and Schroder-Devrient were returning. He took lodgings facing the Maximilian Avenue and renewed his enthusiasm for Schroder-Devrient upon seeing her perform again.

The narrator found Dresden's operatic performances disappointing, particularly noting the inadequate string section despite the new theater's larger size. German theatrical enterprise struck him as mean compared to Paris, and he felt degraded by the poor translations and reproductions of Paris operas, expressing deep contempt for the situation and uncertainty about signing any German contract.

Wagner's "great ideal," Schroder-Devrient, had long inspired his artistic ambitions. Despite her "maternal" stoutness being unsuited to youthful roles, particularly male attire in *Rienzi*, and a voice that was never exceptionally good and forced her to drag the time, her performances remained incomparable. Her repertoire of limited leading parts, sung so frequently, had developed into mannerisms of conscious calculation and exaggeration that were at times almost painful. Yet Wagner felt uniquely qualified to appreciate her greatness, recognizing that the excitement of her exceptional life could restore her creative powers. However, he observed with sorrow how theatrical life disintegrated her originally noble character. She indulged in language similar to most stage heroines, and her jealousy of singers with finer voices or physical advantages grew painfully with age. Wagner suffered particularly from her difficulty in learning new parts—she did not grasp music easily, and mastering the role of Adriano in *Rienzi* entailed many painful hours for both singer and composer.

In stark contrast to Schroder-Devrient, Wagner found Tichatschek easy to work with, despite his "childish limitations." So musical that he could sight-read the most difficult passages, Tichatschek thought further study needless. He would pick up any clerical errors in the libretto with "incorrigible pertinacity," singing wrong words with perfect expression as though correct. Dismissing corrections with "Ah! that will be all right soon," he compensated for his lack of interpretive intelligence with childlike enthusiasm and brilliant voice. When a B minor passage in the third finale was performed at rehearsals, Tichatschek declared it so lovely that something ought to be paid for it, placing down a silver penny and inviting others to contribute. This "silver penny tradition" became a running joke, with Schroder-Devrient remarking that rehearsals would ruin her. These contributions, given as jest, were actually a welcome help toward defraying the cost of Wagner's daily food.

Wagner employed an ingenious device to ensure frequent piano rehearsals: he promised conductor Reissiger a libretto. Reissiger had long complained of the difficulty obtaining a well-written one, admiring Wagner's habit of writing his own. Though admitting Reissiger had "a good deal of melody," Wagner observed that even Schroder-Devrient rendered his passages indifferently when the subject-matter failed to inspire her, as evidenced by her contrasting performances in Bellini's work. Wagner offered his *Hohe Braut* (founded on Konig's romance, previously submitted to Scribe), promising one page of verse per rehearsal. He faithfully delivered until the book was complete. Later, he was surprised to learn Reissiger had commissioned a different libretto called *The Wreck of the Medusa* from actor Kriethe, apparently suspicious of a trap. Wagner regained his libretto and supplied it to his old friend Kittl in Prague, who set it to music as *Die Franzosen vor Nizza*, achieving great success. A local critic noted this proved Wagner's aptitude as librettist and that he should not have devoted himself to composition—contrasting with Laube's view that *Tannhäuser* suffered from lacking an experienced dramatist.

Wagner and Minna lived very frugally in chilly lodgings, awaiting the premiere. Minna returned from Toplitz in August, accompanied by Wagner's mother. August and September passed amid disturbances from a fluctuating, scanty repertoire. By October, combined rehearsals promised a speedy production, and from the orchestral rehearsals, all shared conviction of certain success. Full dress rehearsals produced a "perfectly intoxicating" effect. When the messengers of peace entered in scene two, a general outburst of emotion occurred, and even the prejudiced Schroder-Devrient answered Wagner's questions in a voice stifled with tears. The theatrical body, down to humblest officials, seemed to love him as a "prodigy," partly from sympathy for a young man who had stepped from obscurity into splendor. During an interval, while others lunched, Wagner sat on a pile of boards, unable to afford refreshment—an Italian singer in a small part noticed and kindly brought wine and bread. This act of kindness would later haunt Wagner: when he fled Dresden in 1849, this same singer, having lost his small role and provoked his wife's ill-treatment, denounced him to police for alleged complicity in the rising, making Wagner feel punished for ingratitude.

On the morning of 20 October 1842, Wagner encountered singer Risse, who gazed at him with wonder, asking how a man looked who was to face such an exceptional fate that very day. The premiere's immediate success was assured, though Dresden audiences typically maintained "chilling restraint" toward unknown composers. However, the numerous theater staff had inundated the city with glowing reports, so the population awaited the promised miracle in feverish expectation. Wagner, seated in a pit-box with Minna, his sister Clara, and the Heine family, experienced the evening as a dream. He felt no real pleasure or agitation, standing aloof from his work while the crowded auditorium agitated him like a natural phenomenon. He could not even glance at the audience and sought shelter in his box's farthest corner, unconscious of applause and requiring Heine to force him onstage after each act's curtain calls. A growing anxiety consumed him: after the first two acts, the performance had already lasted as long as the entire *Freischütz*, and when the clock reached ten after Act Three, he despaired of finishing. Yet the audience remained, growing neither restless nor diminished, and Tichatschek sang with increasing vigor. Past midnight, Wagner finally obeyed the thunderous calls, stepping onstage beside his trusty singers as the extraordinary evening concluded with triumphant success.

Following the premiere of *Rienzi*, which lasted from six o'clock until past midnight, Wagner experienced feelings of desperation amplified by the temper of his relatives. A celebration at a local inn, arranged by Friedrich Brockhaus and his family from Leipzig, collapsed when the kitchen and cellar were closed. Everyone present was exhausted, and the only response to the unprecedented length was one of outcries. The next morning, Wagner appeared at the clerks' office intending to arrange curtailments for any possible second performance. Consumed by what he described as a "blind rage for striking out," he was now convinced that every part of his score was unnecessary and that the previous evening's work appeared as mere chaos. His sole focus was reducing this "convolution of monstrosities" to reasonable proportions, anticipating that the management would inform him that such a lengthy opera would never be performed again.

When Wagner's abbreviated passages were delivered to the copyists, he learned that the tenor Tichatschek had forbidden the cuts from being carried out. Fischer, the chorus-master, also wished to speak with him about the matter, and work was suspended amid anticipated confusion. Upon confronting Tichatschek at the theatre that evening, Wagner received a defiant response spoken in a half-choked voice: "I will have none of my part cut out—it is too heavenly." This statement transformed Wagner's anxiety into a sense of bewitchment, as such an unprecedented testimony to his success could not but shake him from his despair. Fischer joined in expressing radiant delight, and others confirmed that enthusiastic emotion had thrilled the entire city. A letter of thanks soon arrived from the Commissioner acknowledging Wagner's splendid work.

The second performance took place on October 26th after several days' rest for the actors, though various curtailments were implemented despite Wagner's difficulty in obtaining Tichatschek's consent. Despite still being considerably longer than average, the opera drew no particular complaints. Wagner came to adopt Tichatschek's view that if the performer could endure it, so could the audience. For six consecutive performances, all continued to receive enthusiastic applause, and the piece eventually filled the house to overflowing each time it was presented. The permanence of this success became increasingly obvious as Wagner began to recognize the envy it drew upon him from various quarters.

The opera had excited particular interest among the elder princesses of the royal family, who considered its exhausting length a drawback but were nevertheless unwilling to miss any of it. Intendant Lüttichau proposed presenting the piece at full length but split across two successive evenings—"Rienzi's Greatness" on the first day and "His Fall" on the second. Wagner readily agreed to this arrangement, composing a special introductory prelude for the second evening featuring three acts, which met with the approval of Princesses Amalie and Augusta. However, the public viewed this as an attempt to charge two entrance fees for a single opera, pronouncing it a decided fraud. Public annoyance became so pronounced that attendance was threatened, and after three performances of the divided *Rienzi*, the management reverted to the traditional arrangement, with Wagner obligingly reintroducing his cuts.

The poet Julius Mosen, whose acquaintance Wagner had sought upon arriving in Dresden the previous summer, had previously shown Wagner a volume of his plays including the tragedy *Cola Rienzi*, dealing with the same subject as Wagner's opera. Wagner had requested that Mosen take no notice of his libretto, acknowledging that his poetry could not compare to Mosen's own. Shortly before Wagner's premiere, Mosen had produced his own play *Bernhard von Weimar*, one of his least successful works, which brought him little pleasure and shared the inevitable fate of politically-oriented dramatic harangues. Mosen confessed his bitter chagrin at being unable to secure acceptance for his *Rienzi* tragedy in Dresden, attributing this to its political tendency. When Wagner met Mosen at his sister Louisa's the day after the premiere, Mosen overwhelmed him with a scornful outburst of irritation at Wagner's success. Wagner felt a strange sense of the essential unreality in opera of such a subject, offering no serious rejoinder and feeling only pity for the unlucky playwright.

The success of *Rienzi* occasioned controversy and created an ever-widening breach between Wagner and newspaper critics. Karl Bank, the chief musical critic in Dresden, had known Wagner from Magdeburg where he had listened with delight to Wagner's playing from *Das Liebesverbot*. However, Bank could not forgive Wagner for failing to procure him tickets for the first performance. The same situation occurred with Julius Schladebach, another critic who settled in Dresden around that time. While Wagner was always anxious to be gracious to everybody, he felt an invincible repugnance for showing special deference to any man merely because he was a critic. As time progressed, he carried this policy to the point of almost systematic rudeness, which resulted in unprecedented persecution from the press throughout his life. However, at that time journalism had not yet become prominent in Dresden, with few contributions sent elsewhere, so the unpleasant side of success scarcely affected him initially, and he felt himself pleasantly borne along on the breath of general goodwill for the first and only time in his life.

The success of *Rienzi* brought unexpected fruits, though not primarily in material profit, which for the present consisted of nine hundred marks paid by the General Board as an exceptional fee instead of the usual twenty golden louis. Wagner did not dare hope to sell his work profitably to a publisher until it had been performed in other important towns. However, fate intervened through the sudden death of Rastrelli, royal director of music, which occurred shortly after the first production of *Rienzi*. This created an unexpected vacancy for which all eyes immediately turned to Wagner, though negotiations proceeded slowly.

The General Board demonstrated its passionate interest in Wagner's talents by insisting that the first performance of *Der Fliegende Holländer* be reserved for Dresden rather than conceded to the Berlin opera. With no objections raised by the Berlin authorities, Wagner gladly handed over his latest work to the Dresden theatre. Though this meant dispensing with Tichatschek's assistance since there was no leading tenor part, Wagner could count on the helpful cooperation of Schröder-Devrient, to whom a worthier task was assigned in the leading female role than what she had received in *Rienzi*.

Wagner was relieved to find that Schröder-Devrient's poetry made a special appeal to her, despite her having grown strangely out of humour with him due to her scanty share in the success of *Rienzi*. Their study of the part of Senta, bringing them into close contact, became one of the most thrilling and momentously instructive periods of Wagner's life. The great actress, especially under the influence of her famous mother Sophie Schröder who was visiting, showed undisguised vexation that Wagner had composed so brilliant a work as *Rienzi* for Dresden without specifically reserving the principal role for her. Yet her magnanimity triumphed over this selfish impulse: she loudly proclaimed Wagner a "genius" and honoured him with special confidence. However, when she invited Wagner to become her accomplice and adviser in her "dreadful love affairs," this confidence began to have its risky side. Nevertheless, she openly proclaimed herself before all the world as his friend on several occasions, making most flattering distinctions in his favour.

Wagner accompanied Schröder-Devrient on a trip to Leipzig for a benefit concert for her mother, which she made attractive by including two selections from *Rienzi* under Wagner's personal conductorship. Mendelssohn, who was also on friendly terms with her, attended and produced his overture to *Ruy Blas*, then quite new. It was during these two busy days that Wagner first came into close contact with Mendelssohn, whose previous knowledge of him had been limited to rare visits. At the house of Wagner's brother-in-law Fritz Brockhaus, Mendelssohn played accompaniment to several of Schubert's songs while Devrient sang. Wagner sensed in Mendelssohn a peculiar unrest and excitement, observing that he thought but little of a success in opera merely in Dresden and apparently placed little value on musicians like Wagner. Mendelssohn's Ardently desire to write a successful opera may have made him annoyed that such a triumph should be thrust into his face based upon a style of music he might regard as poor. On their way home together, Mendelssohn abruptly asserted that music had but one great fault—namely, that more than any other art it stimulated not only good qualities but also evil ones such as jealousy. Wagner blushed with shame to apply this speech to Mendelssohn's feelings toward him, though he sensed that neither he nor Mendelssohn scored the real success of that evening.

The tremendous effect of the evening was produced not by the musicians but by the grey-haired Sophie Schröder in a recitation of Bürger's *Lenore*. While the daughter had been taunted in newspapers with unfairly employing musical attractions to cozen a benefit concert from the music lovers of Leipzig for a mother who never had anything to do with music, the aged and almost toothless dame declaimed Bürger's poem with truly terrifying beauty and grandeur. This episode, like much else Wagner witnessed during those few days, gave him abundant food for thought and meditation.

The author traveled to Berlin with Devrient, who had been invited to perform at a grand state concert. While the primary purpose was an interview with Director Küstner regarding the Fliegender Holländer, the visit became notable primarily for the encounter with Liszt, who had also been commanded to appear at the same royal event.

During a difficult period in Paris when the author was compelled to accept hack-work from Schlesinger, Franz Liszt arrived in the city. Laube, who had always supported the author, recommended him to Liszt and advised him to seek Liszt out, noting that he was "generous" and would find means of assistance. The author visited Liszt at his hotel early one morning, finding several gentlemen waiting. Liszt proved pleasant and affable, conversing in French about his recent professional journey in Hungary. Unable to participate in the French conversation, the author felt bored until Liszt asked what he could do, seeming unable to recall Laube's recommendation. The only result was the author's desire to make acquaintance. Liszt promised to send a ticket for his upcoming matinee, and his secretary Belloni subsequently delivered a card of admission to a concert at the Salle Erard. The author witnessed Liszt perform brilliant pieces including "Variations on Robert le Diable," but the experience left him feeling stunned rather than truly impressed. This encounter occurred precisely when the author had abandoned a path contrary to his nature, turning his back on it in silent bitterness. He was in no suitable mood for fair appreciation of this prodigy, who was then at the height of his fame, and did not visit Liszt again.

The author had shared an outline of his Paris meeting with Liszt to his patroness Devrient, who had noted it with particular attention, as it touched her weak point of professional jealousy. When Liszt questioned her about the success of Rienzi at the Berlin concert, she maliciously taunted him with his apparent lack of penetration, pointing out that the now-interesting composer was the very same "poor musician" Liszt had "turned away so contemptuously" in Paris. She told this story with triumphant malice, greatly distressing the author, who immediately attempted to correct the false impression. While debating this in her room, they heard the famous bass part from the "Revenge" air played on piano—Liszt fetching Devrient for rehearsal. She introduced the author with malicious delight as the composer of Rienzi whom Liszt now wished to meet after previously showing him the door in Paris, causing considerable embarrassment.

When Devrient introduced the author to Liszt as the composer of Rienzi, the author earnestly assured Liszt that the patroness was only joking and deliberately distorting his account of the former visit. Liszt seemed pacified by these solemn assertions, and his prior opinion of the impulsive singer likely provided additional context. Though unable to remember the Paris visit, Liszt was alarmed to learn anyone had received such treatment from him. Devrient further teased him about his newly received Doctor's degree from the University of Königsberg, pretending to mistake him for a chemist. Eventually, Liszt stretched himself flat on the floor, imploring her mercy against her invective. He then assured the author with heartfelt sincerity that he would make it his business to hear Rienzi and would endeavor to give a better impression of himself than fate had previously permitted.

The almost naive simplicity and naturalness of Liszt's every phrase and word, particularly his emphatic manner, left a most profound impression on the author. No one could fail to be equally affected by these qualities, and for the first time, the author realized the almost magic power Liszt exerted over all who came into close contact with him. This encounter corrected his former erroneous opinion about the source of Liszt's influence, revealing it to stem not from mere virtuosity but from genuine personal warmth, amiability, and boundless good-nature that made him utterly defenceless against Devrient's attacks yet deeply captivating to all who witnessed his behavior.

The excursions to Leipzig and Berlin interrupted only briefly the period devoted to studying the Fliegender Holländer at home. Maintaining Devrient's keen interest in her Senta part was paramount, given the weakness of the rest of the cast. The author was convinced that adequate interpretation of the work's spirit could come from Devrient alone. The part suited her essentially, and peculiar circumstances in her life brought her naturally emotional temperament to a high pitch of tension. She confided that she was on the point of breaking off a regular liaison of many years with a young lieutenant in the Royal Guards (son of Muller, ex-Minister of Education) to form another hasty and less desirable attachment with Herr von Münchhausen, whom she had met during a recent Berlin visit. Despite her pale, distracted appearance and poor appetite, she insisted on rehearsals, plunging into her role as if it were a matter of life and death. She learned the difficult part through repeated persevering rehearsal, singing for hours at a time with such passion that the author often begged her to spare herself. She would respond by expanding her still magnificent chest muscles, assuring him no harm was being done. Her voice acquired youthful freshness and endurance during this period, and her courage under intense strain was so great that she agreed to have the general rehearsal on the very day of the first performance, avoiding a delay that would have disadvantaged the author.

Devrient confided in the author about ending her long-standing relationship with Muller, whom the author liked for his excellent disposition and who had loved her with the earnestness of first love. Her new choice, von Münchhausen, was a tall, slim young man whose intentions seemed frivolous and selfish. Devrient seemed aware that no one, certainly none of her older friends who knew her best, would approve of this behavior. She candidly admitted that she confided in the author because he was a genius who would understand her temperament's demands. Though repelled by her passion and its circumstances, the author had to confess that this infatuation, so repulsive to him, held this strange woman in a powerful grasp that warranted a certain amount of pity and even real sympathy.

The performance took place on January 2nd, 1843. Its result proved extremely instructive, marking the turning-point of the author's career. The ill-success taught him how much care and forethought were essential for adequate dramatic interpretation. He had believed his score would explain itself and that singers would find the right interpretation on their own. Even Schroder-Devrient realized too late in rehearsals how utterly incapable Wachter was of realizing the horror and supreme suffering of the Mariner—his distressing corpulence, broad fat face, and extraordinary arm and leg movements drove the passionate Senta to despair. During one rehearsal, when Devrient as Senta came to Wachter in the guise of a guardian angel, she broke off to whisper despairingly, "How can I say it when I look into those beady eyes? Good God, Wagner, what a muddle you have made!" The author placed secret dependence on Herr von Münchhausen, who promised to sit in the front row so Devrient's eyes would fall on him. Her magnificent performance, though she stood alone on the stage, did succeed in rousing enthusiasm in the second act. The first act offered audiences nothing but dull conversation between Wachter and Herr Risse, while the third act's loud orchestral raging failed to animate the sea or phantom ship. Audiences wondered how such a crude, meager, gloomy work could follow the incident-abundant Rienzi.

The Fliegender Holländer saw only four performances before Devrient left Dresden for some time, with diminishing audiences making clear that Dresden taste had not been pleased. The management was compelled to revive Rienzi to maintain the author's prestige. The contrast between the triumph of Rienzi and the failure of the Dutchman provided much food for reflection. The author had to admit, despite misgivings, that the success of Rienzi was not entirely due to cast and staging—though fully aware of the Fliegender Holländer's defects in this respect. Even though Wachter was far from realizing the author's conception of the Fliegender Holländer, the author could not conceal that Tichatschek was equally far removed from the ideal Rienzi, never laying aside his brilliant heroic leading-tenor manners to render that gloomy demonic strain in Rienzi's temperament on which the author had laid unmistakable stress. In the fourth act, after the curse, Tichatschek would fall on his knees and abandon himself to bewailing his fate in piteous tones, claiming the popularity of this interpretation meant he intended no change.

Analyzing the real causes of Rienzi's success revealed that it rested on Tichatschek's brilliant and extraordinarily fresh voice, the refreshing effect of the chorus, and the gay movement and coloring on stage. A more convincing proof came when the opera was divided into two parts, and the second part—more important dramatically and musically—was noticeably less well attended because the ballet occurred in the first part. The author's brother Julius, visiting from Leipzig, provided naive testimony when he sat with the author in an open box and was begged to restrain any applause. His enthusiasm at a certain ballet figure was too much for him, and he clapped loudly to the audience's great amusement, admitting he could not hold himself in any longer. This same ballet secured for Rienzi the enduring preference of the future King of Prussia (William I), who many years later ordered its revival despite its having utterly failed to arouse public interest through its dramatic merits. At a later Darmstadt performance, wholesale cuts were made in the opera's best parts while ballets were expanded through additions and repetitions. This ballet music, which the author had composed with contemptuous haste at Riga in a few days without inspiration, seemed so strikingly weak that he was thoroughly ashamed of it, having been compelled to suppress its best feature, the tragic pantomime.

The author reflected deeply on what drew audiences to opera. At Darmstadt, while significant cuts were made to the opera's best portions, ballets were expanded through additions and repetitions. The author was ashamed of the ballet music he had composed hastily in Riga without inspiration, noting he had even suppressed its best feature—the tragic pantomime. The Dresden ballet resources could not execute his stage directions for the arena combat or the significant round dances that were later admirably carried out in Berlin. Instead, he had to accept a humiliating substitution: a long, foolish step-dance by two insignificant dancers, ended by soldiers marching on with shields forming a Roman testudo, while the ballet-master and assistant in flesh-colored tights leaped onto the shields and turned somersaults to remind the audience of gladiatorial games. This moment always evoked resounding applause, and the author had to acknowledge that this point marked the climax of his success—the evidence that theatrical spectacle, rather than musical or dramatic substance, was what audiences truly craved.

Upon the death of the architect Rastrelli, Wagner was tempted with a post at Dresden but approached these negotiations with hesitation and coolness. He felt nothing but scorn for theatrical life, viewing the apparently distinguished ruling body of a court theatre as concealing arrogant ignorance beneath its splendors. He saw every noble impulse stifled among those occupied with theatrical matters, maintained by a ridiculously rigid and bureaucratic system. Convinced that handling the business of the theatre would be the most distasteful thing imaginable, Wagner explained to his trusted friends that he did not think he should accept the vacant post.

Despite his reservations, several factors combined against his decision. The prospect of securing livelihood through a permanent position with a fixed salary proved irresistible. Friends argued his work would be better served by a fixed position without arduous duties, reminding him that since completing the Fliegender Holländer he had found no leisure for composition. When Morlacchi's death left a court conductorship vacant, and the King was willing to offer him the post, his wife became very excited, as German society placed great value on court appointments tenable for life. Caroline von Weber played a significant role in weakening his opposition, appealing emotionally to his duty to continue her late husband's work. She also pointed out the practical considerations regarding his wife's future security. Lüttichau, the general director, showed an unexpected kindness toward him, further influencing his decision. Ultimately, Wagner was seduced by his own hopeful conviction that wherever fate led him, he would find opportunities to convert his dreams into reality.

On 2nd February 1843, Wagner was politely invited to the director's office where the royal orchestra staff assembled. Through the medium of his friend Winkler, Lüttichau solemnly read a royal rescript appointing Wagner as conductor to His Majesty with a life salary of four thousand five hundred marks a year. A substantial exemption was granted in his favor, omitting the year's probation required even of Weber. After taking the oath as a servant of the King and being presented to the assembled orchestra, Wagner was summoned to an audience with the King. His Majesty expressed satisfaction with Wagner's operas performed in Dresden, though with polite hesitation he suggested clearer definition of various characters in his musical dramas, feeling the elemental forces overpowered the interest in the persons. The King also explained his rare attendance at operas as resulting from early training that had instilled a peculiar aversion to theatre-going. Notably, Lüttichau was annoyed by the long duration of this audience, and Wagner would only be admitted to personal intercourse with the King two more times during his life.

The appointment marked the zenith of his hastily adopted Dresden career, after which anxiety reasserted itself in many forms. Wagner quickly realized his material difficulties, as the advantages of his new position bore no proportion to the heavy sacrifices and obligations incurred. Pressing creditors and threats of prosecution appeared immediately, followed by demands from Königsberg tradesmen and claims dating even to his school days. From three thousand marks borrowed at interest from Schroder-Devrient, he paid these debts and compensated his friend Kietz for sacrifices made during his poverty in Paris. However, he had no allowance for establishing his household in Dresden or purchasing the required expensive court uniform, forcing him to borrow money at interest simply to begin. Despite the extraordinary success of Rienzi at Dresden, relatives expected him to double his salary from opera receipts, but only limited initial interest in Fliegender Holländer followed. A whole year passed without any inquiries for his scores, and plans to publish the piano score were thwarted when Hartel of Leipzig would only publish on the condition he abstained from any payment.

Wagner believes his appearance at Dresden marked the beginning of a new era in journalism and criticism, which found fuel for its vitality in vexation at his success. Critics C. Bank and J. Schladebach, newly established as musical journalists, had been annoyed by the success of Rienzi and now found their opportunity when his appointment removed any need for human consideration. Envy found congenial food in the perception that he was now doing "too well," and a hostile estimate of him spread through the German press in columns given to Dresden news. This estimate fundamentally never changed, except temporarily during his exile in Switzerland until Liszt's exertions brought his operas back to German stages. The two immediate orders for his scores were due only to the limited activity of his journalistic critics at that time, and Wagner attributed the subsequent cessation of all inquiries mainly to their false and calumnious reports. His friend Laube attempted to defend him, resuming editorship of the Zeitung für die Elegante Welt and publishing a biographical notice with a portrait, but Laube eventually became anxious and confused about Wagner's works under the weight of systematic detraction, ultimately blessing Wagner as though he were a lost soul.

Following his appointment, Wagner observed a noticeable change in the attitude of those connected with his work, which provided material for journalistic commentary. Despite lacking ambitious motives, Wagner requested permission to conduct performances of his own works. He noticed that with each performance of Rienzi, Reissiger became increasingly negligent, allowing the production to regress to its former expressionless state. When his appointment was being considered, Wagner asked to conduct the sixth performance of Rienzi in person. Despite having no prior conducting experience and without holding a single rehearsal, Wagner led the Dresden orchestra to a splendid performance. Singers and orchestra were inspired with new life, and everyone acknowledged it as the finest performance of Rienzi yet given. Reissiger willingly handed over the rehearsing and conducting of the Flying Dutchman because he was overwhelmed with work following the death of Musical Director Rastrelli. Wagner was also asked to conduct Weber's Euryanthe as proof of his ability to interpret scores other than his own. The performance pleased everyone, and Weber's widow became so impressed that she advocated strongly for Wagner to accept the Dresden conductorship, declaring that for the first time since her husband's death she had heard his work correctly interpreted in both expression and time.

Reissiger, who would have preferred a subordinate musical director but instead received an equal colleague, felt aggrieved by Wagner's appointment. Though his natural indolence might have inclined him toward peace and good understanding, his ambitious wife stirred up his fears of Wagner. This never developed into open hostility, but Wagner noticed certain indiscretions in the press afterward, revealing that his colleague's friendliness—never speaking without first embracing him—was not entirely honorable. Wagner also received unexpected proof of bitter envy from Karl Lipinsky, a celebrated violinist who had led the Dresden orchestra for many years. Lipinsky possessed an ardent temperament and original talent but was marred by incredible vanity, which his emotional and suspicious Polish temperament made dangerous. Wagner found him annoying because, despite his inspiring and instructive violin execution, Lipinsky was ill-suited to lead a first-class orchestra. The violinist justified his own praise by coming in slightly before the other violins and marking his variations in piano passages with fanatical precision. Only the most skillful flattery had any effect on him. When a new conductor with fresh ideas takes office, orchestra members naturally brought Wagner various suggestions for improvement, which Lipinsky found irritating. When an old contrabassist died, Lipinsky urged Wagner to bypass normal promotion procedures and appoint a distinguished player from Darmstadt named Muller instead. When a musician whose seniority rights were threatened appealed to Wagner, he kept his promise to Lipinsky, explaining his views on seniority abuses and declaring his sworn duty to the King to prioritize artistic interests. Wagner was astonished when the entire orchestra turned against him. During a subsequent discussion of Lipinsky's grievances, Lipinsky accused Wagner of threatening to undermine the established rights of orchestra members. Director Lüttichau, about to leave Dresden while Reissiger was on holiday, was extremely uneasy about the dangerous unrest. The deceit and impudence of which Wagner had been a victim became a revelation, but he gathered the calm sense necessary to reassure the director that he understood the people he dealt with and would act accordingly. Wagner kept his word and never again collided with Lipinsky or other orchestra members. Conversely, all musicians soon became so firmly attached to him that he could always rely on their devotion. Nevertheless, one thing remained certain: Wagner would not die as conductor at Dresden. His position and work there became a burden, making the occasionally excellent results of his efforts all the more bittersweet.

Wagner's position at Dresden brought him one friend whose intimate relations survived their artistic collaboration. Each conductor was assigned a musical director who needed to be a musician of repute, a hard worker, adaptable, and above all a Catholic, since both conductors were Protestants, which caused much annoyance to the Catholic cathedral clergy who held numerous positions filled from the orchestra. August Röckel, nephew of Hummel, submitted his application from Weimar and provided evidence of his suitability under all these requirements. He belonged to an old Bavarian family; his father was a singer who had performed Florestan at the premiere of Beethoven's Fidelio and remained on close terms with the Master, preserving many details about his life. His subsequent position as a singing teacher led him into theatrical management, and he introduced German opera to Parisians with such success that the credit for the popularity of Fidelio and Der Freischütz with French audiences must be awarded to his enterprise, which was also responsible for Schröder-Devrient's debut in Paris. August Röckel, still a young man, gained practical musical experience by helping his father with these undertakings. His father's business had extended even to England, giving August practical knowledge of many things and fluency in French and English. Music remained his chosen vocation, and his great natural talent justified hopes of success. He was an excellent pianist who read scores with ease, possessed an exceptionally fine ear, and had every qualification for a practical musician. As a composer, he was actuated less by a strong creative impulse than by the desire to demonstrate capability, aiming for the reputation of a clever operatic composer rather than recognition as a distinguished musician, hoping to achieve this through popular works. Actuated by this modest ambition, he completed an opera called Farinelli, for which he also wrote the libretto, aspiring to the same reputation as his brother-in-law Lortzing. Röckel brought this score to Wagner and begged him—before hearing any of Wagner's operas in Dresden—to play something from Rienzi and the Flying Dutchman. His frank, agreeable personality induced Wagner to accommodate his wishes, and Wagner became convinced that he made a great and unexpectedly powerful impression on Röckel, who determined not to bother him further with his opera score. Only after becoming more intimate and discovering mutual personal interests did Röckel ask Wagner to show practical friendship by attending to his score. Wagner made various suggestions for improvement, but Röckel soon became so disgusted with his own work that he set it aside permanently and never seriously attempted a similar task. After becoming acquainted with Wagner's completed operas and plans for new works, Röckel declared it his vocation to be a spectator, a faithful helper, and the interpreter of Wagner's new ideas, removing and relieving him from the unpleasantnesses of his official position and dealings with the outside world. He wished to avoid the ridiculous position of composing operas while living in close friendship with Wagner. Nevertheless, Wagner urged him to turn his talent to account, calling his attention to several plots including an idea from a small French drama called Cromwell's Daughter, which was subsequently developed into a sentimental pastoral romance, for which Wagner presented him with an exhaustive plan. All Wagner's efforts remained fruitless, and it became evident that Röckel's productive talent was feeble. This perhaps arose partly from his extremely needy and trying domestic circumstances, which wore him out to support his wife and numerous growing children. Indeed, he claimed Wagner's help and sympathy in quite another fashion than by arousing interest in his artistic development. He was unusually clear-headed and possessed rare capacity for teaching and educating himself in every branch of knowledge and experience. Moreover, he was so genuinely true and good-hearted that he soon became Wagner's intimate friend and comrade. He was and continued to be the only person who really appreciated the singular nature of Wagner's position toward the surrounding world, and with whom he could fully and sincerely discuss the cares and sorrows arising therefrom. What dreadful trials and experiences, what painful anxieties their common fate was to bring, would soon become apparent.

The earlier period of Wagner's establishment in Dresden also brought him another devoted and lifelong friend, though his qualities exerted a less decisive influence upon his career. This was a young physician named Anton Pusinelli, who lived nearby. He seized the occasion of a serenade sung in honor of Wagner's thirtieth birthday by the Dresden Glee Club to express personally his hearty and sincere attachment. They soon entered upon a quiet friendship from which they derived mutual benefit. Pusinelli became Wagner's attentive family doctor, and during his residence in Dresden—marked by accumulating difficulties—he had abundant opportunities to help. His financial position was very good, and his ready self-sacrifice enabled him to give Wagner substantial succor and bound him by many heartfelt obligations.

A further development of Wagner's association with Dresden society was provided by the kindly advances of Chamberlain von Konneritz's family. His wife, Marie von Konneritz (née Fink), was a friend of Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn and expressed her appreciation of Wagner's success as a composer with great warmth, almost with enthusiasm. Wagner was often invited to their house and seemed likely, through this family, to be brought into touch with the higher aristocracy of Dresden. He merely succeeded in touching the fringe, however, as they really had nothing in common. Nevertheless, he made the acquaintance of Countess Rossi, the famous Sontag, who greeted him most heartily to his genuine astonishment, thereby giving him the right to approach her later in Berlin with some familiarity. The curious way in which he was disillusioned about this lady on that occasion would be related in due course. Wagner mentions that through his earlier experiences of the world, he had become fairly impervious to deception, and his desire for closer acquaintance with these circles speedily gave way to complete hopelessness and lack of ease in their sphere of life. Although the Konneritz couple remained friendly throughout his prolonged sojourn in Dresden, the connection had no influence upon his development or position. Only once, during a quarrel between Lüttichau and himself, did Lüttichau observe that Frau von Konneritz, by her unmeasured praises, had turned Wagner's head and made him forget his position toward him. But in making this taunt, Lüttichau forgot that if any woman in the higher ranks of Dresden society had exerted a real and invigorating influence upon Wagner's inward pride, that woman was his own wife, Ida von Lüttichau (née von Knobelsdorf).

The power which this cultured, gentle, and distinguished lady exercised over Wagner's life was something he experienced for the first time and might have become of great importance had he been favored with more frequent and intimate intercourse. But it was less her position as wife of the general director than her constant ill-health and Wagner's own peculiar unwillingness to appear obtrusive that hindered their meetings except at rare intervals. His recollections of her merge somewhat in his memory with those of his own sister Rosalie. He remembers the tender ambition that inspired him to win the encouraging sympathy of this sensitive woman who was painfully wasting away amid the coarsest surroundings. His earliest hope for fulfilling this ambition arose from her appreciation of the Flying Dutchman, despite the fact that following closely upon Rienzi it had so puzzled the Dresden public. In this way, she was the first who, so to speak, swam against the tide and met him upon his new path. Wagner was so deeply touched by this recognition that when he published the opera, he dedicated it to her. The account of his later years in Dresden records more of the warm sympathy for his new development and dearest artistic aims for which he was indebted to her. But of real intercourse they had none, and the character of his Dresden life was not affected by this acquaintance, otherwise so important in itself.

On the other hand, Wagner's theatrical acquaintances thrust themselves with irresistible importunancy into the wide foreground of his life. After his brilliant successes, he remained restricted to the same limited and familiar sphere in which he had prepared himself for these triumphs. Indeed, the only one who joined his old friends Heine and Gaffer Fischer was Tichatschek with his strange domestic circle. Anyone who lived in Dresden at that time and chanced to know the court lithographer Fürstenau would be astonished to learn that without being truly aware of it, Wagner entered into a familiarity that was to prove lasting with this man who was an intimate friend of Tichatschek. The importance of this singular connection may be judged from the fact that his complete withdrawal from Fürstenau coincided exactly with the collapse of his civic position in Dresden. Wagner's good-humored acceptance of election to the musical committee of the Dresden Glee Club also brought him further chance acquaintances. This club consisted of a limited number of young merchants and officials who had more taste for any kind of convivial entertainment than for music. However, it was sedulously kept together by a remarkable and ambitious man, Professor Lowe, who nursed it with special objects in view, for the attainment of which he felt the need of an authority such as Wagner possessed at that time in Dresden.

Wagner became deeply involved in arranging for the transfer of Weber's remains from London to Dresden. As head of the Dresden Glee Club, he sought to unite all male choral unions of Saxony for a grand gala performance. Professor Lowe, who chaired the committee, earned the nickname "Robespierre" due to his revolutionary fervor and tireless supervision.

Wagner was commissioned to compose an important piece for male voices alone, intended to last half an hour. Recognizing the monotony inherent in male singing, he chose a dramatic theme—the apostolic Pentecost with the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Rather than using traditional solos, he structured the work as detached choral masses, creating the "Lovefeast of the Apostles" (Liebesmahl der Apostel). Despite the constraints of limited time, he was satisfied with the result when performed at rehearsals under his personal direction. When twelve hundred singers gathered in the Frauenkirche for the actual performance, Wagner was astonished at the comparatively feeble effect produced by this massive chorus, concluding that enormous choral undertakings were folly.

Escaping the Dresden Glee Club proved difficult, and Wagner succeeded only by introducing Herr Ferdinand Hiller to Professor Lowe as a replacement.

On June 7, 1843, the statue of King Frederick Augustus was unveiled at the Dresden Zwinger. Wagner collaborated with Mendelssohn to compose a festal song for the occasion. Wagner wrote a simple song for male voices, while Mendelssohn undertook the more complex task of interweaving the National Anthem ("God Save the King," known in Saxony as "Heil Dir im Rautenkranz") into his composition. Mendelssohn achieved this through artistic counterpoint, beginning his melody in such a way that brass instruments could simultaneously play the Anglo-Saxon air. Wagner's simpler song reportedly sounded well from a distance, though Mendelssohn's combination failed to achieve its intended effect. Both composers received recognition—Wagner a gold snuff-box from the gala committee.

With a permanent royal appointment secured, Wagner sought to establish a stable domestic life that would allow serious study. His official duties proved manageable, and he received exceptional consideration from the management, even receiving a holiday during his first summer.

Wagner spent the summer at Toplitz, a place he had come to appreciate. He rented four spacious rooms at the Eiche in Schönau, where he had previously lived in straitened circumstances. He invited his sister Clara and his mother, whose gout required annual Toplitz baths. Wagner attempted the mineral water cure for his chronic gastric troubles, but the treatment proved counterproductive and irritated his condition. He was observed racing through the Thurn Gardens rather than taking leisurely walks as proper cure protocol demanded.

During his morning walks while drinking mineral water, Wagner occupied himself with J. Grimm's "German Mythology." The work captivated him despite its fragmentary nature and scholarly density. He found in it a heterogeneous collection of legends—a rugged rock clothed in brambles—that nevertheless enchanted him with its magic. The legends spoke to him of ancient homes, and his imagination thrilled with ever-clearer images of long-lost forms. Wagner experienced this as an "entire rebirth," seeing revealed before him a world in which he had previously moved blindly.

Wagner had completed his poem "Der Venusberg" (The Mount of Venus)—his original title for Tannhäuser—by May of his thirtieth year. However, he lacked deep knowledge of mediaeval poetry. Despite having a piano in his room at the Eiche, he struggled to compose; though he smashed all its strings, nothing satisfactory emerged. He managed to sketch initial music for the Venusberg theme already in his mind, but was troubled by excitability and rushes of blood to the brain, spending whole days in bed reading Grimm's German legends.

Wagner sought relief from his ailments through a journey to Prague in an open carriage with his wife, revisiting his favorite inn, the Black Horse. He met his friend Kittl, now grown fat and rotund, and explored the city's antiquities. He was delighted to learn that his youthful friends Jenny and Auguste Pachta had married into the highest aristocracy. Reassured that all was well, he returned to Dresden to resume his duties.

In October 1843, Wagner and his wife prepared a roomy, well-situated house on Ostra Allee overlooking the Zwinger. Everything was solid and substantial, befitting a man of thirty establishing a permanent home. Without subsidy for this undertaking, he financed it through loans, expecting operatic successes in Dresden would provide harvest. Three treasures adorned his house: a Breitkopf and Hartel concert grand piano, a stately writing-desk (later belonging to chamber-music artist Otto Kummer), and a title-page by Cornelius for the Nibelungen in a Gothic frame—the only object remaining faithful to him. Most importantly, his library transformed the house into a true home, collected according to a systematic plan for his proposed studies. Old German literature and medieval works were especially well represented, including the rare "Romans des douze Paris," alongside historical works and classical literature from all times and languages—Italian poets, Shakespeare, French writers in the original, and German translations of Greek and Roman classics. He equipped himself for universal history with the most voluminous works, hoping for long peaceable enjoyment of this hard-earned home. On the failure of his Dresden career, this characteristic collection passed to Herr Heinrich Brockhaus as security for fifteen hundred marks he owed—his wife remained unaware of this obligation, and Wagner never recovered the collection.

The first act of Tannhäuser was completed in January 1844, while two performances took Wagner from home—early in the year to Berlin for "The Flying Dutchman" and in March to Hamburg for "Rienzi." The Berlin production made the greater impression. Theatre manager Küstner surprised Wagner by announcing an early performance, despite the opera house having burned down only a year prior. Rather than wait for its rebuilding, Wagner's opera was slated for production at the Comedy Theatre, a temporary opera house. All remonstrances proved futile—the work was already being rehearsed and would be produced within days, destined for a short run since it would not be remounted when the new opera house opened. The production was coupled with a special engagement of Schröder-Devrient, which only confirmed Wagner's suspicion that his opera served as a makeshift during her visit. Conductor Henning (or Henniger) proved incompetent regarding the work, so Wagner took the desk himself, conducting one full rehearsal and two performances—though Schröder-Devrient participated in neither. Wagner found the string instruments weak and the orchestra thin, but was satisfied with the actors' capacity and zeal. The staging under stage manager Blum proved excellent, a pleasant surprise that gave Wagner great satisfaction despite these frustrations.

The Berlin audience at the first performance of Der Fliegende Holländer appeared determined to discover the composer's weaknesses rather than appreciate his efforts. During the first act, the prevailing opinion deemed Wagner a bore, and no applause was forthcoming—something his friend Küstner explained away by saying any attempted clapping would have been attributed to paid claques and vigorously opposed. Wagner himself remained composed and was not discouraged, knowing the true test would come with the second act.

The second act brought a dramatic reversal, with the audience abandoning their hostile stance and yielding to genuine enthusiasm. The applause grew into boisterous enthusiasm, and at the close of the act, Wagner led his singers on stage for bows amid a storm of shouts. Renewed outbursts marked the end of the performance, suggesting a genuine triumph. Felix Mendelssohn, present in a stage box with Meyerbeer, appeared pale and weary, murmuring only, "Well, I should think you are satisfied now!" He never discussed The Flying Dutchman further, showing remarkable indifference despite Wagner's references to his own Midsummer Night's Dream music.

A few days later, a second performance with the same cast proved even more startling. Some friends who had attended the first night began applauding after the overture, but others responded with hisses, and no one else ventured further applause. Wagner's friend Heine arrived from Dresden to study scenic arrangements and invited him to supper at a wine-bar unter den Linden. There, reading the newspaper criticisms of the first performance, Wagner experienced a terrible spasm of the heart at their contemptible tone and shameless ignorance regarding his work. Their Berlin host explained that the people of Berlin waited to hear what critics like Rellstab had to say before knowing how to behave.

After the depressing supper, Wagner returned to his hotel around midnight, exhausted and slightly intoxicated. A gentleman in black with a pale refined face approached him—this was Professor Werder, who had waited since the close of the performance and was determined to speak with Wagner. Despite Wagner's protests about being unfit for business, Werder accompanied him to his room and, in flowing and impressive language, declared that The Flying Dutchman was an unrivalled masterpiece that had awakened in him new hope for the future of German art. Wagner was profoundly moved by this unexpected validation, having mistaken Werder for one of E.T.A. Hoffmann's fantastic creations. The next morning he felt refreshed and continued his journey home, deeply impressed by Werder's midnight visit.

Wagner paid a farewell call on Schroder-Devrient, who promised to do everything possible for The Flying Dutchman. He collected his fee of a hundred ducats and set off for home. On his way through Leipzig, he used the ducats to repay advances made to him by his relatives during his earlier poverty-stricken period in Dresden, then continued his journey to recuperate among his books and contemplate the deep impression made by Werder's midnight visit.

Before the end of winter, Wagner received an invitation to Hamburg for a performance of Rienzi from the enterprising director Herr Cornet, who confessed many difficulties in managing his theatre and hoped for a great success. The journey was difficult, requiring a mail-coach after Hanover and a risky crossing of the ice-filled Elbe. Hamburg itself was still rebuilding from a recent fire, with many ruins and a gloomy sky that made Wagner's prolonged stay disagreeable. He was tormented by rehearsals with poor material, worn out and suffering constant colds, and realized he had become an unconscious accomplice of Cornet's basest interests.

Director Cornet sacrificed scenic dignity to ridiculous and tawdry showiness, imagining that pageantry alone would ensure Wagner's success. He hunted out old fairy-ballet costumes from his stock and believed plenty of bustling people on stage would suffice. The singer provided for the title-role, a man named Wurda, was an elderly, flabby, and voiceless tenor who sang Rienzi with the expression of a lover like Elvino—Wagner was so disgusted he considered making the Capitol tumble down to bury him sooner. Wagner found his only ray of light in Mme. Fehringer, who played Adriano with great fire and was later engaged by Liszt for Ortrud in Lohengrin at Weimar, though her powers had deteriorated by then.

Noticing Wagner's discouragement and ill-humour, Herr Cornet procured a fine parrot as a parting gift, hoping to please him. Wagner carried it home in its narrow cage on his melancholy journey and was touched that it quickly became attached to him. His wife Minna greeted him with joy, regarding the beautiful grey parrot as proof that he would do something in life. They already had a pretty little dog born on the day of the first Rienzi rehearsal. Minna taught the parrot snatches from Rienzi, which it would greet Wagner with from a distance. These additions brightened their home in the absence of children, and Wagner felt his domestic hearth was finally established with prospects of comfortable competency.

With no further theatrical performances of his operas occurring, Wagner concluded that the slow diffusion of his works was due to the lack of piano adaptations. He resolved to publish at his own expense, arranging with F. Meser, the court music-dealer in Leipzig, who had previously published only a valse. They signed an agreement for Meser's firm to appear as nominal publishers in exchange for a ten percent commission, while Wagner provided the necessary capital. The publication of two operas, including the exceptionally bulky Rienzi, required not only piano selections but also adaptations for duet or solo, necessitating considerable capital for repayment of old loans, settlement of debts, and completion of house-furnishing expenses.

Wagner approached Schroder-Devrient, who had returned to Dresden at Easter 1844, explaining his project and its necessity. She believed in the future of his works and declared willingness to provide the necessary capital by selling her Polish state-bond investments, with Wagner paying customary interest. However, when Wagner requested his first advance, he encountered a new phase in her life that proved disastrous. After breaking from the unlucky Herr von Munchhausen and returning to her former connection with Hermann Muller, Schroder-Devrient had now fallen for a young lieutenant of the Guards. This man, whose moral and intellectual weaknesses were apparent to all, took control of her fortune, declaring it was disadvantageously invested. Muller explained with evident pain that Schroder-Devrient had renounced all control over her capital and could not keep her promise to Wagner. This placed Wagner in entanglements that dominated his life and plunged him into sorrows that marked all his subsequent enterprises, forcing him to turn to friends at exorbitant interest rates to raise money for publishing his operas.

Despite Wagner's earlier disappointing experiences in Berlin and Hamburg, signs of encouragement emerged. His opera *Rienzi* maintained strong popularity in Dresden, a city of considerable importance especially during summer when visitors from across Europe passed through. The opera, unavailable elsewhere, was in great demand among both German and international visitors, consistently receiving marked approbation. On one notable occasion, Franz Liszt, unable to catch *Rienzi* in the regular repertoire, persuaded the management to arrange a special performance. Wagner met Liszt between acts in Tichatschek's dressing room and was heartened by his almost enthusiastic appreciation. Though Liszt's perpetual touring lifestyle prevented more intimate contact, he subsequently sent admirers from the upper classes to Dresden to hear *Rienzi*, having shared reports and piano selections from the work that had piqued their interest.

Beyond Liszt's support, Wagner received deeply touching testimonials from unexpected quarters. Following the second performance of *Der fliegende Holländer* in Berlin, a startling midnight visit from Werder had initiated this pattern. Subsequently, an unsolicited effusive letter arrived from Alwino Frommann, who would become one of Wagner's faithful friends. After Wagner's departure from Berlin, Frommann heard Schroder-Devrient perform in *Der fliegende Holländer* twice and described in her letter the profound effect the work had produced on her. This communication conveyed for the first time the vigorous and confident recognition that Wagner later described as rarely falling even to the greatest masters, and which cannot fail to exercise a weighty influence on one who yearns for self-confidence.

For the anniversary of Wagner's appointment, he was commissioned to stage Gluck's *Armida*, which they performed in March 1843 with Schroder-Devrient's participation just before her temporary departure from Dresden. The production carried particular significance as Meyerbeer was simultaneously inaugurating his general directorship in Berlin with the same work. Meyerbeer reportedly consulted critic Rellstab for hints on interpretation, though Wagner learned of another peculiar anecdote involving candlesticks and a score exchange, leading him to rely on his own careful handling of this difficult score. Wagner introduced softness through modulating variations in tone and modifying the basso continuo, which originally ran uninterrupted in common time, by using legato playing and pizzicato. Eduard Devrient, a great Gluck connoisseur, later praised Wagner's tenderly modulated rendering compared to the "coarsest bluntness" of the Berlin performance, particularly citing a brief chorus of male and female nymphs in the third act. The spectacular production drew large houses and earned Wagner a reputation as a conductor in close sympathy with Gluck, though *Iphigenia in Tauris*, a far superior work performed soon after with Devrient's admirable interpretation of the title role, drew empty houses.

Wagner had to live off his *Armida* reputation for a long time, as he was often compelled to give inferior performances of repertoire pieces including Mozart's operas. The mediocrity of these stopgap performances, often given without proper rehearsal, disappointed those who had expected great things from his Mozart interpretations after his *Armida* success. Sympathetic listeners explained their disappointment by claiming Wagner did not appreciate or understand Mozart, failing to realize how impossible it was for him, as a mere conductor, to exercise any real influence on such desultory performances. Wagner found himself in a false position, powerless to remedy these issues, which contributed not a little to making his new office and dependence on the paltry theatrical routine unbearable. Colleague Reissiger, when Wagner poured out his woes about the management's neglect of proper opera standards, comforted him by saying he too would eventually relinquish all such "fads" and submit to the inevitable fate of a conductor, proudly patting his stomach in hopes that Wagner would soon boast of one as round as his own.

During Mendelssohn's invited appearance conducting his *St. Paul* for a Palm Sunday concert in Dresden's famous chapel, Wagner's knowledge of the work under such favorable circumstances pleased him enough to make a fresh attempt to approach the composer with sincere friendly motives. However, a remarkable conversation following the performance quickly repelled this impulse. After the oratorio, Reissiger was to conduct Beethoven's Eighth Symphony. Wagner had noticed in rehearsal that Reissiger had fallen into the common error of taking the tempo di minuetto of the third movement at an inappropriate waltz tempo, which not only destroyed the piece's imposing character but rendered the violoncello part absurd. Wagner had pointed this out, and Reissiger had agreed to take the movement at the proper minuetto tempo. When Wagner related this to Mendelssohn during the performance, Mendelssohn acknowledged Wagner was right and thought it should be played as Wagner said. Yet when the movement began, Reissiger reverted to the old waltz time. Rather than expressing anger, Mendelssohn gave Wagner a friendly nod as if he approved. Wagner was so amazed by this absence of feeling that he was struck dumb, and his particular opinion of Mendelssohn gradually matured, later confirmed by Robert Schumann, who told Wagner that Mendelssohn had conducted Beethoven's Ninth Symphony first movement year after year at a perfectly distracting speed.

Amid Wagner's yearning to influence how masterpieces were performed, he struggled against dissatisfaction with ordinary theatre repertoire duties. It was not until Palm Sunday 1844, after his dispiriting Hamburg expedition, that his desire to conduct the *Pastoral Symphony* was fulfilled. However, numerous faults remained, requiring indirect methods to address. The orchestra arrangement at these famous concerts, with musicians seated in a long thin semicircle around the singers' chorus, was so inconceivably stupid that only Reissiger's explanation made it comprehensible. All these arrangements dated from the time of the late conductor Morlacchi, an Italian opera composer who had no true realization of the orchestra's importance. Despite learning that the court's preference for this Italian over Carl Maria von Weber had always been absolute, and that inherited habits would be difficult to eliminate, their *Pastoral Symphony* performance succeeded beyond expectation. This incomparable enjoyment from Beethoven's works enabled Wagner to realize his prolific strength for the first time. Kockel shared this enjoyment with heartfelt sympathy, supporting Wagner with eye and ear at every rehearsal.

Following the *Pastoral Symphony* success, Wagner received gratification from another triumph that summer, socially important though not musically significant. The King of Saxony, toward whom Wagner had felt warmly drawn when he was Prince Friedrich, was expected home from a long visit to England. Reports of the King's stay had rejoiced Wagner's patriotic soul—while in England, Tsar Nicholas arrived unexpectedly, and the King was obliged to participate in festivities honoring him, receiving enthusiastic acclamations from English crowds who preferred him over the unpopular Tsar. When Wagner learned the King would not stop in Dresden but go directly to his summer residence at Pillnitz, he saw an opportunity to prepare a hearty reception. As a servant of the Crown, any official act might have seemed like a parade, so Wagner hastily organized a reception song using his position as conductor of the Glee Club to summon singers, instrumentalists, theatrical company members, and orchestra players. After arranging matters with the Lord Chamberlain at Pillnitz, Wagner composed verses and music during rapid drives back and forth. The agreeable sensation of rushing through warm summer air, coupled with sincere affection for the German prince, worked him up to a high pitch of tension in which he formed the lyrical outlines of the "Tannhäuser March," which first appeared at this royal welcome and soon developed into his most popular melody to date.

Director Littichau was enraged beyond measure at Wagner's unauthorized negotiations with court officials regarding concert arrangements. When Littichau returned to town, he learned from Reissiger that Wagner had bypassed proper channels by dealing directly with Herr von Reizenstein, who happened to be Littichau's personal enemy. Wagner offered to cancel everything, but Littichau was embarrassed by the offer. Wagner then suggested handing the composition and conducting to Reissiger, but Littichau could not accept this, as he had a poor opinion of Reissiger. The real grievance was that Wagner had dealt with Reizenstein, and Littichau complained bitterly about the rudeness he had endured from this official.

The project was threatened not only by the director's anger but also by wretched weather. Rain fell in torrents all day, putting at risk the planned early morning concert at Pillnitz requiring a special boat with hundreds of helpers. Röckel consoled Wagner by affirming his belief in Wagner's luck, a faith Wagner says has followed him throughout his life despite frequent misfortunes. Fortunately, August 12, 1844 proved to be the most perfect summer day Wagner could remember, with the royal family visibly touched by the performance that followed.

Reissiger conducted Wagner's composition while Wagner sang with the tenors in the choir. The King and royal family were deeply moved, and the Queen of Saxony later recalled this occasion with peculiar emotion as the fairest day of her life. After Reissiger conducted with great dignity, the King requested an encore of the last three stanzas due to a painful tooth. Wagner devised a remarkable combined evolution—having the entire song repeated with only one verse in the original crescent formation, while four hundred singers filed off through the garden in a march, the final notes reaching the royal ear as an echoing dream-song. The Queen kindly provided an ample breakfast on the lawn, and the party spent the day exploring the castle grounds before returning to Dresden in high spirits.

The next morning, a complete change had come over Littichau during the night. The tall, hard-faced man greeted Wagner with rapturous expression, declaring that Wagner was a great man destined for universal admiration while Littichau himself would be forgotten. Their business intercourse thereafter assumed an almost confidential tone. Littichau smiled about having yielded the place of honour to Reissiger and confessed he was beginning to understand Wagner, though he could not comprehend how Reissiger could accept a position to which he had no right. Though their relationship later deteriorated into open enmity, a peculiar tenderness towards Wagner remained perceptible in Littichau's subsequent abuse.

In early September, Wagner went to Fischer's vineyard near Loschwitz, not far from the famous Friedrichswinter vineyard, where he rented a summer residence somewhat late in the year. During six weeks of open-air life, Wagner composed the music for Act II of Tannhäuser, completing it by October 15th. A performance of Rienzi during this period drew an audience of extraordinary importance, prompting Wagner to return to town briefly.

During this extended stay at Fischer's vineyard under the strengthening stimulus of open-air life, Wagner composed the music for the second act of Tannhäuser. The peaceful rural setting and extended period of creative work enabled him to complete this substantial portion of the opera within the six-week holiday.

A performance of Wagner's opera Rienzi drew an audience of no ordinary importance. Notable attendees included Spontini, Meyerbeer, and General Lwoff, composer of the Russian National Anthem, seated together in a stage box. Wagner did not seek to learn their impressions of the work, satisfied simply that his opera had been performed before a crowded house amid overwhelming applause. After the performance, Wagner's little dog Peps, who had run after him from the country, was brought to him, and he drove off immediately to the vineyard without greeting the European musical celebrities.

During the Dresden performance of Rienzi, Spontini, Meyerbeer, and General Lwoff attended together in a stage box. Wagner deliberately avoided seeking their opinion of his work, preferring the quiet satisfaction of knowing they had heard his opera performed successfully before a full audience amid great applause.

After the conclusion of the Rienzi performance, Wagner was delighted to have his little dog Peps brought to him. The faithful dog had run after Wagner all the way from the country to Dresden. Without waiting to greet the European musical celebrities present, Wagner drove off at once to the quiet vineyard, where Minna was greatly relieved to recover her pet, which she had believed lost for hours.

Wagner received a visit at the vineyard from Werder, a friend he had made in Berlin under dramatic circumstances. This time Werder appeared in ordinary human circumstances, and under the kindly light of day they disputed amiably about the true worth of The Flying Dutchman. Wagner's mind had somewhat turned against this earlier work since Tannhäuser had occupied his thoughts, and he found it strange to be contradicted by his friend and receive instruction about the significance of his own work.

Upon returning to their winter quarters, Wagner was determined not to allow as lengthy an interval between composing Acts II and III as had separated Acts I and II. Through careful cultivation of solitary walking habits and their soothing influence, Wagner succeeded in finishing the music of Act III by December 29th, before the end of the year.

This period was seriously occupied by Spontini's visit regarding a proposed production of his opera La Vestale. Knowing that Schroder-Devrient was among the cast, Wagner inspired Lüttichau to invite Spontini to personally supervise his justly famous work, particularly timely as Spontini had just left Berlin after great humiliation there. Wagner, entrusted with conducting the opera, was given the unusual task of making this decision with the master. Spontini expressed frank satisfaction with the vocalists but expected the orchestra to contain "twelve good contrabasses," a demand that alarmed Wagner sufficiently to warn the director that the enterprise would not be easy.

When Wagner met with Spontini to discuss arrangements, the master inquired about the baton Wagner typically used for conducting. Upon learning it was a medium-sized wooden rod freshly covered with white paper, Spontini sighed and asked if it would be possible to procure him a baton of black ebony with a "fairly large knob of ivory at each end." Wagner promised to have one prepared for the next rehearsal similar in appearance to what Spontini desired, and another of the specified materials for the actual performance. Spontini visibly relieved, granted permission to announce his consent to conduct.

The day before the planned full-dress rehearsal, Spontini unexpectedly arrived at Wagner's door at noon, clad in a long blue pilot-cloth coat, resembling a Spanish grandee in manner. He showed Wagner the correspondence and proved that the invitation had not been declined and that he had accurately complied with their wishes in all points. Wagner, genuinely delighted to behold this wonderful man and hear his work conducted by himself, undertook to do everything possible to meet his desires. Spontini smiled with childlike kindliness and agreed to conduct the following day's rehearsal.

The rehearsal proved disastrous. Spontini was ill at ease and wished to have oboists placed behind him. His conducting technique was unique—he gripped the baton about the middle with his clenched fist, waving it like a field-marshal's staff for command rather than beating time. Confusion arose immediately, exacerbated by Spontini's confused use of German when giving instructions. He insisted this was not a full-dress rehearsal but a thorough re-study from the beginning, causing great despair in the old chorus-master Fischer, who had previously advocated inviting Spontini. Fischer's frustration grew to open anger, responding coarsely to Spontini's suggestions. When Spontini whispered praise of the chorus to Wagner—"your choirs do not sing badly"—Fischer suspiciously demanded to know what the old hog wanted, and Wagner had trouble pacifying the converted enthusiast.

The most serious delay occurred during the first act due to the evolutions of a triumphal march. Spontini expressed intense dissatisfaction with the apathetic demeanour of the performers during the procession of vestal virgins. Unaware that the cast had followed the stage manager's instructions to kneel upon the priests' appearance, Spontini demanded that the Roman army demonstrate devout respect by flinging themselves to the ground and striking their spears against their shields in unison. Despite endless attempts, someone always clattered either too soon or too late. Spontini demonstrated the action himself repeatedly with his baton, but the desired sharp and emphatic crash remained elusive.

Spontini's extreme excitement and terrible short-sightedness rendered him unable to perceive anything that appealed solely to the eye. His vision was so poor that the carefully choreographed kneeling of the performers was invisible to him. What he demanded was a more drastic manifestation of respect from the Roman army—specifically, a unified prostration accompanied by a crashing blow of spears against shields. The rehearsal process became tedious as the company struggled to achieve the precise timing and coordination he required.

At the end of the first act, Spontini went onto the stage to provide a detailed explanation of his reasons for wishing to defer his opera's premiere for a considerable time. He intended to prepare the production through multitudinous rehearsals according to his exacting taste. However, he found no assembled company waiting to hear him—the performers had hastily dispersed to vent their frustration over the difficult situation. Only the workmen, lamp-cleaners, and a few chorus members gathered in a semicircle to observe this remarkable man deliver his impassioned address on the requirements of true theatrical art.

Upon observing the undignified scene, Spontini's companion gently pointed out the uselessness of his declamation to the scattered audience and promised that everything would eventually be accomplished precisely as he desired. This intervention succeeded in extricating Spontini from an embarrassing position. Among those present, only one person found this strange turn of affairs not unwelcome, perceiving through Spontini's burlesque extravagances and eccentricities the miraculous energy with which he pursued and attained an almost unknown ideal of theatrical art.

The resolution came through Eduard Devrient, who had witnessed La Vestale in Berlin and carried every detail of that performance in his mind. It was proposed that Devrient personally drill the chorus and supers into appropriate solemnity during the reception of the vestals. This arrangement pacified Spontini, and they proceeded to establish a plan for a series of rehearsals according to his specifications. Devrient's expertise proved invaluable in bringing about wonderfully distinct ensembles throughout the production.

Through Spontini's theatrical peculiarities, both musicians and singers became fascinated by this exceptional man, and the production attracted unusual attention. Despite his extraordinary eccentricities, which required time to understand, Spontini's meticulous pursuit of theatrical perfection demonstrated a level of dedication that had become rare in contemporary times. His methods, though sometimes seemingly excessive, aimed at achieving effects of remarkable precision and impact.

The production began with a pianoforte rehearsal during which Spontini made a point of explaining his requirements to the singers. He spoke primarily about general interpretation rather than rendering details, showing considerable deference to the great singers, especially Schroder-Devrient and Tichatschek. His approach involved making decided allowances for these principal performers while maintaining his exacting standards for the overall artistic vision of the production.

During the piano rehearsals, Spontini issued one specific prohibition: he forbade Tichatschek from using the word "Braut" (bride) when Licinius addressed Julia in the German translation. The word sounded horrible to his ears, and he could not comprehend how anyone could set such a vulgar sound to music. This sensitivity to linguistic quality reflected his French sensibilities and his insistence on refined expression throughout the opera.

Spontini delivered an extensive lecture to the singer portraying the High Priest, a performer he considered somewhat coarse and less talented. He explained how to understand and interpret this character from the recitative dialogue between the High Priest and the Haruspex. The key instruction was that the entire intrigue was based upon priestcraft and superstition—the High Priest must make clear that he does not fear his antagonist commanding the Roman army because, if necessary, he has machines ready to miraculously rekindle the dead fire of Vesta, thus preserving the priesthood's unassailable power regardless of Julia's fate.

During one rehearsal, Spontini was asked why he had omitted trombones from the magnificent triumphal march of the first act, despite his characteristic effective use of the instrument. Astonished, he asked, "Est-ce que je n'ai pas de trombones?" Upon being shown the printed score, he requested that trombones be added immediately. He also inquired about the Basse-tuba he had heard in Wagner's Rienzi, expressing desire to include it in La Vestale. The task was undertaken with care and good judgment, and when Spontini heard the effect at the next rehearsal, he responded with a grateful glance.

Spontini explained his unique method of conducting: he directed the orchestra only with his eyes. According to his explanation, his left eye represented the first violins and his right eye the second. He maintained that to have power through eye contact, one must not wear glasses, even if short-sighted. He confessed that he could not see twelve inches in front of him, yet could make the orchestra play exactly as he wished simply through the intensity of his gaze.

Spontini's orchestra arrangement methods, while sometimes arbitrary, were based on correct principles. From his Paris days, he retained the habit of placing the two oboists immediately behind him—a preference originating from mere accident but to which he always adhered. This arrangement required the oboists to angle their instrument mouthpieces away from the audience, causing considerable frustration for one excellent oboist that required diplomatic intervention to resolve.

Spontini's method included spreading the string quartet over the whole orchestra, a system still misunderstood by some German orchestras. His approach also involved preventing brass and percussion instruments from drowning each other by dividing them on both sides and placing delicate wind instruments at judicious distances to form a chain between the violins. This orchestral blend created harmonious balance rather than the rough arrangement of dividing instruments into two halves—strings and winds—which many celebrated orchestras still retained. The implementation of these improvements in Dresden was aided by Spontini's own endorsement, making it easy to obtain royal approval for the changes.

Spontini insisted on exceptionally sharp rhythmic accents during rehearsals. Through his association with the Berlin orchestra, he had acquired the habit of marking notes he wished emphasized with the word "diese" (this), which initially seemed incomprehensible. The great singer Tichatschek, who possessed a natural genius for rhythm, was highly pleased by this approach, as he also compelled the chorus toward precision in important entries, maintaining that proper accentuation of the first note ensured the rest would follow naturally.

The violas alone bore a grudge against Spontini for some time. During the accompaniment of Julia's lugubrious cantilena at the end of the second act, Spontini would not tolerate their "horribly sentimental" playing. Turning suddenly toward them, he asked in a sepulchral tone, "Are the violas dying?" The two pale, melancholy old men who tenaciously held their posts despite pension rights stared at him with real fright, reading a threat in his words. The situation required careful explanation in sober language to restore their composure.

Spontini insisted on altering the opera's ending according to the antiquated French opera seria method. Against the German theatres' customary cut of ending with the fiery duet between Licinius and Julia supported by the chorus, he demanded a lively chorus and ballet. He refused to finish his work with what he considered a dismal churchyard episode. The entire finale scene was transformed, with Venus shining resplendent in a rose bower where the long-suffering lovers would be wed at her altar amid lively dancing and singing by rose-bedecked priests and priestesses.

The revised finale required Venus to appear resplendent in a rose bower setting. The scene called for rose-bedecked priests and priestesses to wed the lovers at Venus's altar, accompanied by lively dancing and singing. Despite the elaborate staging changes, the production unfortunately did not achieve the success everyone had hoped for.

A significant difficulty arose regarding the principal role of the youngest vestal virgin. The great Schroder-Devrient was no longer of an age to portray the youthful character convincingly—she had acquired matronly contours that contrasted unfavorably with the extremely girlish-looking high-priestess portrayed by the companion's niece, Johanna Wagner. The age discrepancy was difficult to disguise, and Wagner's marvelous voice and acting talent made the audience wish to see the two women's parts reversed.

Johanna Wagner's extraordinary voice and great talent as an actress made every audience member long to see the roles of the two women reversed. This awareness placed Schroder-Devrient in a most difficult position. Her efforts to overcome this disadvantage resulted not infrequently in great exaggeration and straining of her voice, and at one crucial moment her part was sadly overacted.

When Schroder-Devrient had to gasp the words "er ist frei" ("he is free") and move toward the front of the stage after the great trio in the second act, she spoke the words instead of singing them. This failure to achieve the intended effect—the speaker could not produce the proper dramatic impact—led to a reflection on a previous success when she had thrilled audiences by almost whispering "Noch einen Schritt und du bist todt!" in Fidelio. That tremendous effect came from the shock of descending from the ideal sphere of music to dreadful reality, a moment the author termed "the moment of lightning"—when two different worlds meeting yet divided were suddenly revealed.

The toneless, hoarse delivery of the spoken words was like throwing cold water over the audience. The public may have expected too much, being curious to see Spontini conduct with raised prices; or perhaps the antiquated French plot seemed obsolete despite the majestic beauty of the music; or the tame ending left the same cold impression as the dramatic failure. In any case, there was no real enthusiasm, and the only approval came as a rather lukewarm call for the celebrated master, who, covered with numerous decorations, made a sad impression as he bowed his thanks for the moderate applause.

Spontini himself was not blind to the disappointing result. He decided to defy fate by employing means he had often used in Berlin to ensure packed houses—specifically, Sunday performances, as experience had taught him he could always fill the theatre on that day. His prolonged stay before the premiere provided several more opportunities to enjoy his interesting company.

A memorable dinner took place at Schroder-Devrient's house with Spontini and his wife, a sister of the celebrated pianoforte maker Erard. Spontini listened deferentially to others while expecting to be asked for his opinion. When he spoke, it was with rhetorical solemnity in sharp, precise, categorical sentences that forbade contradiction. Herr Ferdinand Hiller was among the guests, and conversation turned to Liszt.

When Hiller spoke about Liszt, Spontini eventually gave his opinion in characteristic fashion—but with a spirit showing that from his Berlin throne he had judged affairs of the world without impartiality or goodwill. While holding forth in this manner, he brooked no interruption. When Madame Devrient happened to laugh with her neighbour during dessert in the middle of his harangue, he shot an extremely angry glance at his wife, whom he silenced with the declaration: "I am sure it is my wife who provoked this laughter; I do not want anyone to laugh in front of me—I never laugh myself, I love seriousness."

Despite his insistence on seriousness, Spontini sometimes succeeded in being jovial. He amused his companions by crunching enormous lumps of sugar with his marvelous teeth, setting them all wondering at the feat. After dinner, as they drew their chairs closer together, he usually became very excited, revealing a more animated side beneath his formal exterior.

Spontini displayed genuine affection for Wagner and openly declared his love, attempting to dissuade him from pursuing a career as a dramatic composer. He offered to stay in Dresden for another half-year to produce his operas, particularly Agnes von Hohenstaufen, under his direction. The master framed this as a sacred duty to protect Wagner's happiness, presenting his advice as a friendly service despite anticipating resistance. This encounter represented a pivotal moment where Spontini attempted to steer the younger composer away from what he considered the fatal mistake of seeking success as a dramatic composer "after Spontini."

Spontini outlined his revolutionary contributions to music, beginning with his assertion that after Gluck, he had accomplished "the great revolution" with La Vestale. He claimed to have introduced the suspension of the sixth in harmony and the bass drum into the orchestra. With Cortez he took "one step forward," and then "three steps" with Olympic. He dismissed his early Berlin works—including Nurmahal and Alcidor—as mere occasional pieces, but declared that he had advanced "a hundred steps" with Agnes von Hohenstaufen, where he had invented an orchestral treatment that perfectly replaced the organ. Later, he attempted Les Atheniennes at the urging of the Crown Prince of Prussia, producing letters from the monarch as evidence of this flattering invitation.

Spontini supported his claim that no one could invent anything new by declaring that since La Vestale, "not a single note has been written that was not stolen from my partitions." To prove this was scientifically grounded rather than mere talk, he cited an elaborate treatise by a celebrated member of the French Academy—supposedly read with his wife—which had mysteriously never been printed. This scientific work supposedly demonstrated that without Spontini's invention of the suspension of the sixth, modern melody would not exist, and that every melodic form used since had been borrowed from his compositions. Wagner was thunderstruck by these assertions.

Spontini expressed contempt for all national schools of music, asking rhetorically what nation could produce a composer to surpass him. He characterized the Italians simply as "cochons" (pigs), dismissed the French as mere imitators of the Italians, and declared the Germans would never advance beyond their "childhood in music." He suggested that if Germans had ever possessed any talent, the Jews had ruined it. He recalled hopefully that there had been promise for Germany when he was "emperor of music in Berlin," but since the King of Prussia had "delivered his music to the disorder caused by the two wandering Jews he had attracted," all hope was lost. His earlier works had included subjects as diverse as Roman, Spanish-Mexican, Greco-Macedonian, and German, and he dismissed everything else as worthless.

The charming hostess intervened to change the subject and divert Spontini's thoughts. She invited him, along with Heine who was among the guests, to visit the nearby theatre to see Antigone, then being performed. The production interested Spontini because of its antique stage equipment, executed according to Semper's excellent plans. At first he wanted to refuse, claiming he had seen all this far better when his Olympia had been performed. After consenting and attending, he quickly returned to his original dismissive opinion, smiling scornfully and assuring everyone that he had seen and heard enough to strengthen his verdict against the production.

Heine reported that shortly after he and Spontini had taken their seats in the nearly empty amphitheatre, the Bacchus chorus began and Spontini immediately turned to him, saying: "C'est de la Berliner Sing-Academie, allons-nous-en" (This is from the Berlin Singakademie, let us go). Through an open door, a streak of light fell upon a lonely figure behind one of the columns, and Heine recognized Mendelssohn, concluding that he had overheard Spontini's dismissive remark.

Despite earlier indications that Spontini intended to stay longer in Dresden to have all his operas performed, Schröeder-Devrient conceived a plan to spare him the mortifying disappointment of finding his enthusiastic hopes for a second performance of Vestalin unfounded. She pretended to be ill, and the director asked Wagner to inform Spontini that his production would have to be indefinitely postponed. Wagner found the visit distasteful and was glad to make it with Röckel, whose French was much better. To their astonishment, they found the master, already informed by Devrient's letter, in the brightest of spirits rather than the anger they had expected.

Spontini announced he had to leave immediately for Paris, en route to Rome, as the Holy Father had commanded him to come and receive the title of "Count of San Andrea." He showed them a second document from the King of Denmark, which actually conferred only the title of "Ritter" of the "Elephanten-Order"—though he mentioned only "Ritter," finding the particular order too ordinary for his dignity. He was childishly pleased, feeling miraculously rescued from the narrow sphere of his Dresden Vestalin production to be transported into regions of glory, from which he looked down upon the distressing "opera" world with sublime self-content. Wagner and Röckel silently thanked the Holy Father and King of Denmark, bade affectionate farewell, and promised to seriously consider his friendly advice about Wagner's career as a composer.

Wagner later learned that when Spontini heard he had fled Dresden for political reasons and sought refuge in Switzerland, he believed this was because of Wagner's share in a plot of high treason against the King of Saxony. Spontini viewed himself as Wagner's benefactor because Wagner had been nominated conductor of the royal orchestra. The master expressed his opinion by ejaculating in tones of deepest anguish: "Quelle ingratitude!" (What ingratitude!)

Berlioz, who was at Spontini's deathbed until the end, reported that the master had struggled most determinedly against death, repeatedly crying: "Je ne veux pas mourir, je ne veux pas mourir!" When Berlioz tried to comfort him saying, "Comment pouvez-vous penser mourir vous, mon maître, qui êtes immortel!" Spontini retorted angrily: "Ne faites pas de mauvaises plaisanteries!" News of Spontini's death, received in Zürich, touched Wagner deeply despite their disagreements. He later expressed his feelings in the Eidgenossischen Zeitung, praising particularly Spontini's absolute belief in himself and his art—unlike the fashionable Meyerbeer and aged Rossini. Yet Wagner noted this belief had deteriorated into a "veritable superstition." He recognized he had only seen the caricature of the man, though this tendency toward overweening self-confidence might have manifested earlier. Spontini's fixation on unessential details demonstrated his childish judgment, though this did not diminish the great value of his works. Wagner justified Spontini's boundless confidence, sharing the contempt for composers who were replacing him. Despite his absurd idiosyncrasies, Wagner learned to feel deep sympathy for this man, the like of which he never met again.

Marschner, as a very young man, had been nominated musical director of the Dresden orchestra by Weber. After Weber's death, he had hoped to take his place entirely, but was disappointed—less because his talent was unknown than due to his repellant manner. His wife suddenly came into money, enabling him to devote all his energies to composing operas without filling any fixed post. Marschner represented a markedly different type of important musical celebrity from the eccentric Spontini.

During Wagner's wild youth in Leipzig, Marschner's operas Der Vampir and Templer und Judin saw their first appearances. Wagner's sister Rosalie had taken him to Marschner to hear his opinion, though the visit led to nothing. Wagner attended the first night of Des Falkner's Braut, which was not a success. Marschner then went to Hanover. His Hans Heiling, originally produced in Berlin, was heard by Wagner first in Würzburg; it showed vacillation in tendency and decrease in constructive power. He produced several other operas—Das Schloss am Aetna and Der Babu—which never became popular. The Dresden management always neglected him, as though bearing a grudge, with only his Templer played often.

Colleague Reissiger had to conduct Templer und Judin, and Wagner always took his place in his absence, including once when he was working on Tannhäuser. Although he had often conducted the opera in Magdeburg, the wild nature of the instrumentation and lack of mastership affected him so severely it literally made him ill. He implored Reissiger to resume at any cost. After his nomination, Wagner started Hans Heiling's production for artistic honor, but the insufficient distribution of parts—unavoidable in those days—made complete success impossible. The whole spirit of the work seemed terribly old-fashioned.

Wagner heard that Marschner had finished another opera called Adolph von Nassau, and criticism—whose genuineness he could not judge—stressed its "patriotic and noble German atmosphere." Wagner did his best to urge Lüttichau to secure the opera before it was produced elsewhere. Marschner, who had not been treated with particular consideration by the Hanoverian opera authorities, accepted with great joy, sent his score, and declared himself willing to come to Dresden for the first performance. However, Lüttichau was not eager to see Marschner take the conductor's podium, and Wagner also thought too-frequent appearances of outside conductors would cause confusion and might not prove as amusing and instructive as Spontini's visit had been. They decided Wagner should conduct the new opera himself, a decision he soon regretted. The weak plot by Karl Golmick had been set to such superficial music that the principal effect lay in a drinking song for a quartet, with the German Rhine and German wine playing their stereotyped role. Wagner lost all courage but had to proceed, trying only to maintain a grave bearing and make the singers take interest in their task.

Tichatschek and Mitterwurzer, assigned the two principal male parts, were both eminently musical and sang everything at first sight. After each number they looked up as if to say, "What do you think of it all?" Wagner insisted it was good German music and they must not get confused, but they stared at each other in amazement. Eventually they could stand it no longer and burst into loud laughter, which Wagner could not help joining. He had to take them into his confidence and get them to promise to follow his lead and pretend to be serious, since abandoning the opera at that stage was impossible. A Viennese coloratura singer from Hanover, on whose services Marschner greatly relied, was taken with her part chiefly for the chance to show "brilliancy." In the finale, Marschner had actually tried to outdo Donizetti: the Princess had been poisoned by a golden rose gift from the wicked Bishop of Mainz and had become delirious. Adolph von Nassau, with the knights of the German empire, swore vengeance and, accompanied by the chorus, poured out his feelings in a stretta of such incredible vulgarity and amateurishness that Donizetti would have thrown it at any pupil who had dared compose such a thing. At the dress rehearsal, Marschner was very pleased, and Wagner exercised his art of concealing his real thoughts without compelling himself to falsehood. He succeeded well enough that Marschner had every reason to think himself considerately and kindly treated.

During the performance, the public behaved much as the singers had done at rehearsals, treating it as a "still-born child." Marschner was comforted by the encore of his drinking quartet, reminiscent of Becker's song about the German Rhine. After the performance, Wagner hosted a supper party that the singers refused to attend. At this gathering, Ferdinand Hiller insisted in his toast that "all stress must be laid on the GERMAN master and GERMAN art." Surprisingly, Marschner himself contradicted this position, admitting that there was something wrong with German operatic compositions and that he should have written more brilliantly for singers' voices.

Despite his high gifts, Marschner's genius declined due partly to a tendency toward change, which he frankly acknowledged. When Wagner encountered him again in Paris during the memorable Tannhäuser production, he chose not to renew their old relations to avoid witnessing the consequences of Marschner's changed views. Marschner was in a state of almost helpless childishness, under the influence of a young ambitious woman trying to make one final attempt at conquering Paris for him. Puff paragraphs claimed Marschner was better suited to French taste than Wagner, but Marschner died before his wife could establish this point.

Ferdinand Hiller behaved charmingly and took a commanding position in the Dresden musical world, working for its success for many years. He established himself comfortably with private capital and became known as a delightful host whose house, frequented by a numerous Polish colony, was influenced by his exceptional Jewish wife of Polish origin, who had been baptized a Protestant in Italy. Hiller began his Dresden career with his opera Der Traum in der Christnacht. Meyerbeer also stayed in Dresden periodically, working in retirement on his Feldlager in Schlesien at a little house near the Pirnaischer Schlag. Dresden, called "Florence on the Elbe," had been roused to lasting enthusiasm by Wagner's Rienzi, drawing many opera composers to the city.

Hiller considered Der Traum in der Christnacht a peculiarly "German composition," setting to music a gruesome play by Raupach about a father and daughter dying of consumption. Despite his undoubted musical merits, which even Rossini acknowledged, Hiller's sad experience was that his operas always failed, whether performed in French in Paris or in Italian in Italy. He tried the Mendelssohnian style in Germany, composing an oratorio called Die Zerstorung Jerusalems that escaped the public's notice and gained an unassailable reputation as "a solid German work." Hiller also succeeded Mendelssohn as director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus concerts but could not retain the position. His attempts to displace Röckel's opera Farinelli with his own work failed due to Lüttichau's contentment with Reissiger and Wagner as celebrities. Hiller's Der Traum in der Christnacht was performed twice before empty houses, though Hiller eventually accepted Wagner's advice to shorten it by one act. Hiller then proposed that Wagner help him choose a subject for his next opera, admiring Wagner's advantage of writing his own texts.

A beautiful and solemn event in December 1844 was the removal of Carl Maria von Weber's remains from London to Dresden. For years, a committee had agitated for this transfer after learning that Weber's insignificant coffin had been carelessly disposed of in a remote corner of St. Paul's. Professor Lowe urged the Dresden Glee Club to take action, and a successful concert generated funds. The theatre management initially opposed the plan, claiming the King had religious scruples about disturbing the dead. Wagner became president of the committee, joined by Herr Hofrat Schulz and a Christian banker. Despite opposition from Lüttichau, who argued against giving "exaggerated honour" to Weber, the movement gained momentum when the Berlin Court Theatre announced a benefit performance. Meyerbeer helped arrange a performance of Euryanthe that yielded six thousand marks. Weber's elder son traveled to London and brought the remains by boat down the Elbe to Dresden. Wagner undertook to compose funeral music arranged from Euryanthe, using parts of the overture relating to the vision of spirits, the Cavatina, and returning to the first sublime motive. The music was orchestrated for eight wind instruments with muffled drums replacing the original tremolo. A solemn torchlight procession at night conducted the coffin to the Catholic cemetery in Friedrichstadt, where the solemn ceremony of lowering it into the vault took place the following morning. Shortly before the transfer, Weber's second son Alexander had died, deeply affecting his mother, who initially saw the removal as sacrilege. Wagner delivered a speech justifying the undertaking, which achieved general acceptance.

This occasion gave Wagner his first experience delivering a solemn public speech. He had written out and memorized his speech, feeling thoroughly under the influence of his subject. During the delivery, he was so affected by the sound of his own words that he seemed to see himself before the multitude while remaining in a trance, causing a long pause that puzzled onlookers. Afterward, he resumed speaking with such fluency that the celebrated actor Emil Devrient was deeply impressed simply from the standpoint of a dramatic orator.

The memorial ceremony concluded with a poem and musical composition by Wagner himself, performed admirably despite its vocal difficulties. Lüttichau became fully convinced of the enterprise's merit. Weber's widow expressed profound emotion at the ceremony. Wagner reflected on how his youthful admiration for Weber's genius had shaped his musical development, and how this symbolic second funeral stirred him deeply after so many years.

Turning from Weber's grave to his living successors revealed an unsatisfactory situation. Despite intimacy with great contemporary masters that had satisfied his thirst for intellectual discourse, Wagner found these successors to be "absolutely hopeless" as artistic influences.

During winter 1844-45, Wagner divided his time between external attractions and deep meditation. Through great energy and early rising, he completed the Tannhäuser score by early April 1845, having finished composition at the end of the previous year. He created particular difficulties for himself by using specially prepared paper required for the printing process, involving challenging formalities. Each page was transferred to stone immediately, with one hundred copies printed, though this resulted in a loss of fifteen hundred marks.

Wagner's efforts to spread his fame through Tannhäuser were motivated by financial necessity. Since beginning self-publication of his operas, he had presented the King of Saxony with a specially bound piano arrangement of Rienzi, completed the Flying Dutchman, and published piano arrangements and selected songs from both operas. Twenty-five copies of both opera scores were made through autographic transfer. Heavy expenses necessitated sending scores to theatres, but all important theatres returned his work, with Munich even sending it back unopened. He proceeded with piano arrangements of Tannhäuser while Röckel handled the Flying Dutchman and Klink managed Rienzi.

Meser, the court music publisher, strongly opposed the title "Der Venusberg," warning that students and medical school professors would make obscene jokes about it. Disgusted by these details, Wagner agreed to change it. He added the legend subject to his hero's name, creating "Tannhäuser und der Sangerkrieg auf Wartburg," a decision later criticized by Simrock, the legend investigator. The title was printed in Gothic characters to give the work a mediaeval appearance.

Lüttichau shared Wagner's confidence in Tannhäuser's success. Wagner induced the management to have scenery painted by the best painters of the Paris opera house, whose German-style scenic art had impressed him in Dresden. Negotiations with Parisian painter Desplechin were settled the previous autumn. The management agreed to beautiful mediaeval costumes designed by his friend Heine. However, Lüttichau constantly postponed ordering the Hall of Song scenery, suggesting the Hall for Kaiser Karl the Great from Oberon would suffice. Wagner had to convince him that a specific atmospheric scene was needed, becoming irritable before Lüttichau agreed to commission it immediately, promising to make the joy greater. This Hall would later cause significant trouble.

In July, Wagner holidayed at Marienbad in Bohemia to take the cure with his wife. The volcanic Bohemian landscape always inspired him. During an exceptionally hot summer, despite intending to follow the prescribed rest cure, he took Wolfram von Eschenbach's poems and the anonymous epic Lohengrin. While reading in the nearby woods, he developed a longing to express the inspiration these works generated.

From Gervinus's History of German Literature, Wagner became fascinated by the Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Hans Sachs. While walking alone, he conceived a humorous scene where Hans Sachs, as a cobbler-poet, teaches the Marker a practical lesson by making him sing. The scene concentrated on the Marker with his chalk-marked slate and Hans Sachs with chalk-marked shoes, each indicating the other's singing was a failure. He added a Nuremberg street brawl to conclude Act 2, envisioning the entire Meistersinger comedy. However, Lohengrin, first conceived during his Paris period, suddenly revealed itself completely with all dramatic details. The swan legend particularly fascinated him. Despite doctor's orders to rest, his excitement grew. After the Meistersinger sketch, he returned from a bath to write out Lohengrin, repeating this for several days until the complete sketch was on paper. The doctor then advised him to abandon the waters, declaring him unfit for such cures. His excitement prevented normal sleep, though excursions to places like Eger, with its Wallenstein associations, provided some relief. By mid-August, Wagner returned to Dresden feeling as if he had wings.

In September, with singers returned from summer holidays, rehearsals resumed with earnestness. Schröder-Devrient immediately recognized Tannhäuser's extraordinary difficulties. She read principal passages aloud and questioned how Tichatschek, described as a "childish creature," could find the proper tones. Wagner argued his clearly written music would speak for the performer, but she shook her head. She questioned whether Elizabeth's prayer would fulfill Wagner's intentions if sung by a young, pretty voice without soul or life experience. Devrient also struggled with Venus's small but crucial part, paralyzed by loss of confidence in her physical attractions as she could no longer hide her age and matronly appearance. She humorously despaired about what to wear, declaring she could not appear like the goddess wearing only a belt. Despite these concerns, Wagner hoped the music's general effect would prevail, strengthened by Hiller's praise of the orchestration's sobriety. His wife, however, missed the trumpets and trombones that gave Rienzi its brightness, noting the feeble impression made by the Sängerkrieg music—a concern Wagner acknowledged as valid from the public's perspective, recognizing the fault lay in insufficient production control.

Wagner found himself "on the horns of a dilemma" regarding the Sangerkrieg, having to choose between presenting it as a concert of arias or as a competition in dramatic poetry. His true intention was revolutionary: to force listeners for the first time in operatic history to take genuine interest in a poetical idea by following all its necessary developments. He believed that only through this interest could the audience understand the catastrophe, which should arise not from any outside influence but from the natural spiritual processes at work. This demanded great moderation and breadth in the music's conception, with orchestration kept sparse and purely musical effects deliberately suppressed until the situation became so intense that the listener could only feel the tragic nature of the crisis. When Wagner played the Sangerkrieg on the piano, the proper effect was undeniable, but conveying this understanding to opera singers presented exceptional difficulties.

Wagner recalled the disastrous consequences of neglecting to properly superintend *Der Fliegende Holländer*'s production, and sought to teach the singers his own interpretation. However, influencing Tichatschek proved impossible—if made to do things he could not understand, he became nervous and confused. Tichatschek knew his advantages: his metallic voice, great musical rhythm and accuracy, and perfect delivery. Yet at the first performance, Wagner witnessed with horror what had escaped him during rehearsals: at the close of the Sangerkrieg, when Tannhäuser in frantic excitement must sing his praise to Venus, Tichatschek moved toward Elizabeth and addressed his passionate outburst to her. Wagner thought of Schroder-Devrient's warning as Croesus must have thought when crying "O Solon! Solon!" at the funeral pyre. Despite Tichatschek's musical excellence, the Sangerkrieg failed entirely.

In stark contrast to Tichatschek, Mitterwurzer—a young baritone with a delightfully mellow voice that possessed the rare quality of bringing out the soul's inner note—became the vehicle for Wagner's success. Although reticent and unsociable, he approached his study of Wolfram with great zeal. When Wagner went through the opening song with him, he was surprised to find Mitterwurzer struggled with the rendering, being incapable of repeating it and rendering it in a commonplace, mechanical way. Mitterwurzer begged Wagner to leave him to discover the newly revealed world himself. During several rehearsals, he only whispered to overcome the difficulty, but at the last rehearsal he acquitted himself admirably, throwing himself into the role wholeheartedly. His transformation in bearing, look, and appearance to fit the role of Wolfram proved him not only a thorough artist but Wagner's "savior at the very moment when my work was threatening to fail through the unsatisfactory result of the first performance."

By contrast with the failed Tannhäuser, the part of Elizabeth made a sweet impression. Wagner's niece possessed a youthful appearance, tall slender form, decidedly German features, and an incomparable voice expressing almost childlike innocence—though her talent was more theatrical than dramatic. She soon rose to fame by her impersonation, and people would later tell Wagner the success of Tannhäuser performances had been entirely due to her. Particularly remembered was her charming acting when receiving guests in the Wartburg Hall, a moment her uncle and talented brother had trained her to perform untiringly. Yet it was never possible to make her understand the proper interpretation of the prayer in the third act. Wagner felt inclined to say "O Solon! Solon!" as he had with Tichatschek when he was obliged to make a considerable cut in this solo after the first performance, a change that greatly reduced its importance forever. Johanna, despite her reputation as a great singer, never succeeded in singing the prayer properly, whereas a French singer, Mademoiselle Marie Sax, later achieved this in Paris to Wagner's entire satisfaction.

By early October, rehearsals had progressed but the scenery remained incomplete. Only a few scenes from Paris had arrived, and these very late. The Wartburg Valley was beautifully effective, but the Venusberg's inner part gave great anxiety—the painter had not understood Wagner, painting clusters of trees and statues reminiscent of Versailles in a wild cave, failing to combine the weird with the alluring. Extensive alterations were required, including painting out the shrubs and statues. The greatest misfortune was the tardy delivery of the Hall of Song scenery due to great negligence by the Paris artists. Wagner waited daily at the railway station examining all packages, but no Hall of Song arrived. He finally allowed himself to be persuaded not to postpone the premiere further and decided to use the Hall of Karl the Great from *Oberon*—originally suggested by Lüttichau—as a substitute. When the curtain rose for the second act, this familiar throne-room from another opera considerably added to the audience's disappointment, who had anticipated astonishing surprises.

The first performance of Tannhäuser took place on October 19th, marking the culmination of months of challenging rehearsals, singer difficulties, and logistical obstacles with scenery. The premiere represented a crucial moment for Wagner's artistic vision, though the performance faced significant obstacles that affected its initial reception, including the absence of the proper Hall of Song set and challenges with several key performers' interpretations.

On the morning of the premiere, the leader Lipinsky introduced Wagner to a very beautiful young lady named Mme. Ivalergis, niece of the Russian Chancellor Count von Nesselrode. Liszt had spoken to her about Wagner with such enthusiasm that she had traveled all the way to Dresden especially to hear the first production. Wagner regarded this flattering visit as a good omen. Though she turned away somewhat perplexed and disappointed by the unintelligible performance and its doubtful reception, in later years Wagner knew how deeply this remarkable and energetic woman had been impressed despite the underwhelming first showing.

A great contrast to the aristocratic visit was Wagner's reception of C. Gaillard, editor of a newly started Berlin musical paper, who had written an entirely favorable and important criticism of *Der Fliegende Holländer*. Although necessity had compelled Wagner to remain indifferent to critics generally, this notice gave him much pleasure, and he invited his unknown critic to hear the Tannhäuser premiere. Wagner was deeply touched to find a young man who, threatened by consumption and exceedingly badly off, had come simply from a sense of duty and honor, not mercenary motive. Despite recognizing that Gaillard's knowledge and capacities would never attain great influence, his kindness of heart and extraordinarily receptive mind filled Wagner with profound respect. Gaillard remained faithful and devoted to Wagner through trying circumstances until succumbing to his terrible disease a few years later.

Wagner renewed his acquaintance with the friend won through the Berlin production of *Der Fliegende Holländer*, whom he had not had opportunity to know more thoroughly for a long time. He met her again at Schroder-Devrient's, where she was already on friendly terms and spoke of the soprano as "one of my greatest conquests." Past her first youth with no beauty of feature except remarkably penetrating and expressive eyes revealing her soul's greatness, she was the sister of Frommann, the bookseller of Jena, and could relate intimate facts about Goethe's stays at her brother's house. Having held the position of reader and companion to Princess Augusta of Prussia, she was regarded as almost a bosom friend of that great lady. Despite living in extreme poverty, she secured independence through her talent as a painter of arabesques. She remained faithfully devoted to Wagner and was among the few uninfluenced by the unfavorable first Tannhäuser performance, promptly expressing enthusiastic appreciation of his latest work.

The opening Venus scene represented a complete failure, stemming from the sketchy and clumsy portrayal of the Venus role and the entire introductory scene. Wagner explains that despite Schröders-Devrient's greatness as an actress and Tichatschek's unusual gifts as a singer, the drama never rose to genuine warmth. The scene failed to prepare audiences for the inevitable catastrophe that follows, as both performers proved unable to convey the passion the poetic conception demanded. The fundamental problem lay in the gap between the singers' capabilities—Tichatschek could handle joyous or declamatory accents but proved totally incapable of expressing pain and suffering.

The tide turned decisively with Wolfram's touching song and the closing scene of Act I. Tichatschek achieved a tremendous effect with the jubilant music of his concluding phrase, and Wagner learned that the end of the first act left the audience in a great state of enthusiasm. This positive reception continued into Act II, where Elizabeth and Wolfram made a very sympathetic impression on audiences. The contrast with Tannhäuser's failure could not have been more stark—the hero alone continued to lose ground throughout the performance.

Wagner traces Tannhäuser's progressive alienation of the audience, culminating in the finale where the hero nearly broke down in dejection as though the failure of Tannhäuser were his own. The fatal defect lay in Tichatschek's inability to find the right expression for the theme of the great Adagio passage beginning with the words "To lead the sinner to salvation, the Heaven-sent messenger drew near." At the end of Act II, the hero slunk away with the humble bearing of a penitent sinner rather than asserting his feelings with boundless energy. His later reappearance in Act III seemed designed merely to awaken charitable sympathy rather than tragic grandeur.

Recognizing Tichatschek's absolute inability to render the Adagio expressively, Wagner determined that it seemed "terribly long and tedious" to audiences. Rather than humiliate so devoted a singer, Wagner attributed the omission to his own conclusion that the theme was a failure. This decision, made to protect Tichatschek's pride, had lasting consequences: the passage continued to be omitted in all subsequent productions of Tannhäuser, as though this had been approved and demanded by Wagner himself. The passage was "so immeasurably vital to the opera" that its absence compromised the work's dramatic significance.

The immediate aftermath of the premiere left Wagner in extreme depression. He felt not from the audience's friendly behavior but from his own inward conviction that the failure stemmed from immature and unsuitable material in the production. His sister Clara and her husband were equally affected. Wagner's communications to publishers reveal how dark his prospects and position appeared during this period. The first night had been perceived as a generally acknowledged failure, with the public expressing angry astonishment that after approving Rienzi, Wagner had paid no attention to their taste in writing his new work.

Wagner's strategy for salvaging Tannhäuser required protecting Tichatschek, whose limitations he recognized but could not address directly. "At the slightest attempt on my part to explain anything to Tichatschek I had to abandon it, as I realised the impossibility of success—I should only have made him so embarrassed and annoyed, that on one pretext or another he would never have sung Tannhäuser again." Wagner arrogated all blame to himself, making considerable curtailments that lessened the dramatic significance of the leading role without interfering with the other parts that had been favorably received.

Wagner describes a storm of criticism following the premiere. Critics attacked "as ravens attack carrion thrown out to them." Hostile forces exploited the contemporary German-Catholic agitation set in motion by Czersky and Ronge, claiming that Tannhäuser represented a reactionary tendency—contrasting Meyerbeer's glorification of Protestantism in the Huguenots with Wagner's alleged glorification of Catholicism. The rumor that Wagner had been bribed by the Catholic party persisted for a long time. A certain M. Rousseau, editor of the Prussian Staatszeitung, even approached Wagner claiming he had been sent from Austria to further the Catholic cause in Berlin. The Dresdener Anzeiger daily published fresh attacks on Wagner's reputation.

Amid the hostility, Wagner found crucial allies. Gottfried Semper, despite earlier disputes about Wagner's choice of Minnesanger and Pilgrim material, was the only person who had actually purchased a copy of the Tannhäuser text. His earnest remark that one must be thoroughly acquainted with a subject before passing judgment proved the first encouraging sign Wagner could remember. Even more significant was Röckel, who had without Wagner's knowledge disputed, explained, quarrelled, and petitioned on his behalf. Röckel and Heine together ran a campaign in the Dresdener Anzeiger, countering attacks with witty snubs and encouraging comments that eventually reached Wagner's notice. The evening before the second performance, Röckel's bright demeanor and his declaration that the "peculiar HEAT" of Wagner's temperament meant Tannhäuser could not be destroyed, provided vital consolation.

The second performance arrived after an agonizing week-long delay while Tichatschek recovered from hoarseness. Though the theater was nearly empty, the audience consisted largely of the first friends of Wagner's art and received the piece very cordially. Mitterwurzer aroused the greatest enthusiasm. To assist clarity in the obscure final scene, Wagner's friends Röckel and Heine arranged for young artists to give vent to torrents of applause at unconventional moments—particularly after the words "An angel flies to God's throne for thee, and will make his voice heard; Heinrich, thou art saved." This strategically provoked outburst suddenly made the entire situation clear to the public and became the principal moment for audience sympathy at all subsequent productions.

A third performance before a full house followed, with Schröders-Devrient watching from a small stage box as Lüttichau beamingly declared Tannhäuser safely through. The opera was repeated often through the winter, but Wagner noticed that when two performances followed close together, there was not such a rush for the second. He concluded he had not yet won general approval—only the more cultured section of the community embraced his work. Among these genuine friends of Tannhäuser were many who as a rule never visited the theatre at all. This interest from a totally new public grew in intensity, expressing itself through strong sympathy for the author. Wagner describes this cultivated success with evident pride, noting that he had succeeded in making the cultured public acquainted with his peculiar tendencies by stimulating their mental faculties and stripping performances of realistic accessories.

Despite the cultured public's embrace, Wagner recognizes that Tannhäuser did not "familiarise the uncultivated taste of the ordinary public" with his tendencies as embodied on the stage. The conviction that he would never attain with Tannhäuser in Dresden what he wished—that the excellence of the execution might overshadow the author—guided all his future undertakings. The work had won over educated audiences but remained inaccessible to general opera-goers, creating a fundamental limitation on its popular success. Wagner took this failure seriously as an artistic problem to be addressed in subsequent work.

The author expanded his circle of acquaintances over the winter to connect with interesting friends, gaining instructive and encouraging insights into the local cultural scene. A particularly inspiring part of these new connections was his close intimacy with Dr. Hermann Franck of Breslau, who was residing quietly in Dresden at the time.

Dr. Hermann Franck was a comfortably well-off man who earned an excellent reputation among a large, select circle of private friends through his wide knowledge, sound judgment, and considerable skill as an author, without ever seeking widespread public fame. He endeavored to use his abilities for the general good, and was persuaded by Brockhaus to edit the newly founded *Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung*, though he resigned the post after one year and rarely engaged with journalism afterward, due to his negative experiences with the public press.

Unprompted by the author, Franck wrote a full report on *Tannhäuser* for the *Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung*, which was published as a supplement to the paper in October or November 1845. The author regards this as the most far-reaching and exhaustive account of the work ever written, and it marked the first time his name appeared in the major European political paper; the paper later shifted its editorial stance to allow criticism of the author and his work.

The author was particularly drawn to Franck’s delicate, tactful approach to criticism and discussion, rooted in genuine global culture rather than social rank. Franck’s reserved, cool manner charmed rather than repelled the author, and the author often shaped Franck’s critical opinions, including when he challenged Franck’s habit of dismissing prominent figures as “good-natured” to avoid close analysis of their work, later pressing Franck for a clear explanation of Meyerbeer’s supposed good-nature.

Franck had previously praised Mendelssohn’s apparent self-sacrifice in leaving a 9,000-mark Berlin general musical conductor post for a lower-paying Leipzig Gewandhaus conductor role, but the author revealed the appointment was not a sacrifice: a passionate admirer of Mendelssohn’s had influenced the King of Saxony to appoint him as a secret Leipzig conductor with a 6,000-mark secret salary, on top of his 3,000-mark public Gewandhaus salary, matching his Berlin pay. The arrangement was kept hidden to avoid offending lower-paid conductors and protecting the institution’s interests, allowing Mendelssohn to maintain a public reputation for artistic altruism. Franck was astonished by the revelation, calling it one of the strangest cases of undeserved fame he had encountered.

The author and Franck found common ground in their views of many contemporary Dresden artistic figures, including dismissing Ferdinand Hiller as the leading example of an overly “good-natured” artist. While the author was initially impressed by the fame of the Düsseldorf School painters he met through *Tannhäuser* connections, Franck provided convincing reasons for his disappointment with their work, including calmly dismissing the King of Saxony’s reception room frescoes by Bendemann as poorly executed. The author noted these artists were all friendly and “good-natured,” even if their work did not inspire him.

Ferdinand Hiller, whose main goal for social gatherings was artistic inspiration, organized a weekly rotating social circle of artistic figures that the author joined. The group included painter and poet Reinecke, painters Hubner and Bendemann, and others; Reinecke had the misfortune of writing a new libretto for an opera for Hiller, the fate of which is noted for later discussion. Robert Schumann, who was in Dresden at the time working on an opera that later developed into *Genovefa*, also made friendly overtures to Hiller and the author.

The following winter, Hiller expanded the social circle into a formal club that met weekly in a room at Engel’s restaurant at Postplatz. The gatherings included prominent cultural figures such as J. Schnorr von Carolsfeld, recently appointed director of Dresden’s museums, sculptor Hänel, sculptor Rietschel, architect Semper, and dramatist Gutzkow, though discussions of the work of attending masters were rare, and the group often struggled to find consistent topics of conversation.

The author was deeply impressed by Schnorr von Carolsfeld, having previously seen his large, well-executed cartoons depicting events from old German history that aligned with the author’s contemporary interests, and was delighted when Schnorr began attending the Engel’s gatherings, as their conversations often focused on old German legends, a topic of great interest to the author. Though Schnorr’s whining, pedagogical manner clashed with the power of his artwork, the author considered it a great stroke of luck that he frequented the restaurant on Saturdays.

Sculptor Hänel regularly attended the Engel’s gatherings, and his remarkable talent earned the author’s great respect, though the author initially struggled to reconcile Hänel’s affected, opinionated manner with his artistic skill, until his friend Pecht explained Hänel’s standing as an artist, dispelling the author’s doubts. Sculptor Rietschel was the opposite of Hänel: free of affectation, with a warm, sympathetic nature that drew the author to him, and he gave the author an enthusiastic assessment of his work as a conductor. The two never developed close camaraderie, however, as the group’s members rarely expressed enthusiasm for each other’s work; for example, Hiller’s friends praised his orchestral concerts publicly at banquets, but expressed only doubt and reservations about his work in private conversation.

Robert Schumann, who was in Dresden at the time working on an opera that later developed into *Genovefa*, made friendly overtures to the author and Hiller. The author had known Schumann since their time in Leipzig, where they began their musical careers around the same time, and had previously contributed to Schumann’s former publication *Neue Zeitschrift für Musik*, including a longer piece from Paris on Rossini’s *Stabat Mater*. The author felt sympathy for Schumann after a poorly received conducting performance of his *Paradies und Peri* at the theater, and a warm friendship quickly developed between them.

After attending a *Tannhäuser* performance, Schumann visited the author to express his full support for the work, only criticizing the abrupt stretta of the second finale, a critique the author confirmed was valid, as he had been forced to curtail the opera against his wishes, creating the flaw Schumann noted. The two often discussed musical matters on walks, and Schumann was looking forward to the author conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as he had been disappointed by Mendelssohn’s misinterpretation of the first movement’s tempo at Leipzig performances. The author found Schumann’s company unremarkable otherwise, as his conservative views meant he did not take to the author’s ideas. Schumann later invited the author to hear his *Genovefa* libretto, a mix of Hebbel and Tieck styles, but when the author offered suggestions for revisions to fix perceived flaws, Schumann resented the interference, wanting the author to be swayed by his work but unwilling to accept feedback on it, so the author ceased offering input.

Architect Gottfried Semper was the only member of the Engel’s gathering who actively enlivened meetings, though his outbursts often led to heated arguments with the author, to the discomfort of fellow attendee Rietschel. The two initially positioned themselves as antagonists, as Semper attacked the author as a representative of medieval Catholicism, until the author convinced him his interests lay in early German antiquity and Teutonic myths, after which they bonded over shared enthusiasm for genuine heathen legends, isolating them from the rest of the group. Their discussions always turned into heated arguments, as Semper had a habit of flatly contradicting others and knew his views opposed the entire group, and the author eventually realized Semper was the only member passionately committed to his views, while the others were content to drop topics when convenient.

Dramatist Gutzkow, a frequent attendee at the Engel’s gatherings, had been summoned to Dresden to work as a dramatist and adapter for the court theater, where several of his recent works (*Zopf und Schwert*, *Das Urbild des Tartuffe*, *Uriel Acosta*) had achieved great success, leading to hopes he would usher in a new era of glory for the Dresden theater, where the author’s operas had also premiered. The author regretted that his friend Laube had not been summoned to fill the same role at the theater.

The author’s friend Laube, who had not been summoned to Dresden as a dramatist, had thrown himself into dramatic literature work, having studied the techniques of French writer Scribe in Paris, convinced that mastering Scribe’s style was necessary for successful German poetic drama, a theory he demonstrated in his comedy *Rococo*. The author considered Laube’s theory a complete failure, as his only successful works relied on popular political catchphrases about German unity and liberalism, aimed first at Dresden’s *Residenz Theater* subscribers then the broader German public, crafted with skill the author believed could only be learned from modern French comic opera writers.

Heinrich Laube had visited Dresden frequently for new productions and acknowledged with modest candour his indebtedness to study in developing his dramatic skills. Laube demonstrated considerable zeal in preparing and producing his plays, making him a practical asset for the Dresden theatre. Despite these qualifications, the position ultimately went to his rival Gutzkow, a decision that troubled Wagner considerably.

The appointment of Gutzkow as director of dramatic art struck Wagner as fundamentally flawed. While Gutzkow possessed literary skill that had produced some effective plays, these successes were invariably followed by wearisome productions, suggesting his triumphs had been largely accidental. Lüttichau, prioritizing showy reputation over lasting benefit to the theatre, selected Gutzkow and believed this would advance higher culture. Wagner objected strenuously, viewing Gutzkow as utterly incompetent for the practical demands of theatrical management, an opinion he expressed frankly to Lüttichau, which likely contributed to their eventual estrangement. To mitigate the expected failure, Wagner requested that Gutzkow not interfere with opera management, and Gutzkow readily agreed. Despite creating mutual mistrust, Wagner attempted personal contact at the artists' club, hoping to reach the man whose head was perpetually bowed with anxious reserve, though without success.

An opportunity for discussion arose when Gutzkow requested orchestral accompaniment for Uriel Acosta, specifically soft tremolo chords during the hero's heresy recantation scene. Wagner found this application absurd and degrading to both music and drama. During an evening conversation, Wagner expounded his principles regarding music's proper role in drama, but Gutzkow responded with nervous, distrustful silence before declaring that Wagner went too far in claiming significance for music. Gutzkow's practical argument proved startling: he defended the use of musical sound as mere diversion when a performer exited without applause, essentially treating music as a decorative filler for theatrical convenience. Witnessing Gutzkow seriously defend this position convinced Wagner he had nothing further in common with the man.

Despite his estrangement from literary and artistic zealots in society, Wagner drew closer to Berthold Auerbach, whose Black Forest Pastoral Stories had been enthusiastically recommended by Alwine Frommann. Auerbach had become a Dresden resident, staying with his friend Hiller among the city's literary circles. The short, sturdy Jewish author cultivated an image as a Swabian peasant boy, dressed in green jacket and hunting cap, though later revelations suggested this was deliberately cultivated rather than naive. Gottfried Keller recounted how Auerbach had advised him to adopt a rough, eccentric appearance with matching coat and cap to succeed in literary circles. Wagner initially perceived no affectation, noting how completely Auerbach had assimilated peasant mannerisms, though he wondered why such delightful qualities should enable such ease in seemingly antagonistic social spheres.

Auerbach represented the first Jewish acquaintance with whom Wagner could discuss Judaism freely, and Auerbach seemed eager to remove prejudice through his agreeable manner. His childhood account of secretly reading Klopstock's Messiah and being mocked by a teacher who asked if he had been lending money revealed touching compassion rather than bitterness. These traits strongly attracted Wagner. However, as time passed, Wagner grew concerned that Auerbach could not escape the atmosphere of Jewish questions, as the universe seemed to contain no other problem for him. When Wagner good-naturedly advised him to drop the whole Jewish question and consider other standpoints, Auerbach lost his ingenuity and began an ecstatic, seemingly insincere whine about Judaism requiring his whole sympathy. Later information that Auerbach had arranged Jewish marriages and made a fortune from them, combined with his later appearance in Zürich—looking common and dirty with restless mannerisms—confirmed Wagner's unease about the man's genuine motivations.

While Tannhäuser brought Wagner into contact with people of acknowledged importance and exceptional culture, the experience impressed him unfavourably regarding the apparent pinnacle of artistic life. Despite the recognition, he felt neither rewarded nor diverted by acquaintances gained through the first performances that winter. Rather than enjoying these circles, he felt an irresistible desire to withdraw and compose something, recognizing this as the only means of escaping the disturbing and painful excitement Tannhäuser had generated.

Within weeks of Tannhäuser's premieres, Wagner had worked out the entire Lohengrin text. He read it to intimate friends in November, then to Hiller's circle, where it was praised as effective. Schumann thoroughly approved while confessing he could not envision the musical form Wagner intended, seeing no resemblance to traditional solo writing. Wagner amused himself by reading portions in the form of traditional arias and cavatinas, after which Schumann laughingly declared satisfaction.

Serious reflection soon aroused grave doubts regarding the tragic character of Lohengrin's material. The conductor Franck raised objections both sensible and tactful, finding Elsa's punishment through Lohengrin's departure offensive and questioning whether it satisfied tragic demands for dramatic realism. Franck suggested alternatives: Lohengrin dying before the audience from Elsa's loving treachery, or being spell-bound by some powerful motive preventing his departure. Though refusing these suggestions, Wagner considered whether he could retain Lohengrin's departure while allowing Elsa to accompany him as a form of penance, which Franck found more promising though Wagner remained doubtful.

The resolution came through Frau von Lüttichau, to whom Wagner had sent the poem for critique. Her brief but decisive letter declared that Franck must be devoid of all poetry if he did not understand that Lohengrin must depart in precisely the manner Wagner had chosen. This pronouncement lifted a weight from Wagner's heart. He triumphantly showed the letter to Franck, who, much abashed, opened a correspondence with Frau von Lüttichau that settled the matter. A similar challenge arose later when Adolf Stahr raised identical objections, momentarily unsettling Wagner, who foolishly wrote agreeing with Stahr's position without realizing this grieved Liszt, who had defended Wagner against Stahr. Happily, within days Wagner recognized his momentary madness, regained proper perspective, and sent Liszt the laconic verdict: "Stahr is wrong, and Lohengrin is right."

The composer was occupied with revising his poem (later to become Lohengrin), struggling to find the peaceful state of mind necessary for creative work. The Tannhäuser disaster had filled him with despair regarding his artistic future, and he saw no possibility of extending his works to other German theatres, even after the success of Rienzi. His financial affairs had reached a critical state, and he tried to escape through studying history, mythology, and literature, particularly German medieval subjects.

The composer became deeply interested in the German Middle Ages, studying Grimm's published German records with great earnestness. Though he could not pursue this work with philological precision, he immersed himself in the material. Many observers later remarked on the unique charm of Lohengrin, attributing it to the happy subject choice, not understanding the scholarly foundation that had informed its development.

The composer determined to conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for the annual Pension Fund concert in spring 1846. This symphony was almost unknown in Dresden, having been performed years earlier by Reissiger with an acknowledged failure. The composer felt a deep personal longing for this work, having first encountered its score in his boyhood and staying up nights to copy it. Revisiting these pages now filled him with mystic reveries and drew him into an almost despairing inquiry about his fate.

The orchestral directors and trustees of the Pension Fund were terrified that the Ninth Symphony would drive audiences away and harm the fund. They begged the general director Lüttichau to dissuade the composer from his choice. The composer responded by borrowing the orchestral parts from the Leipzig Concert Society and deciding to prepare the public thoroughly, making the symphony's success a point of honor that required all his powers.

The composer wrote a programme guide to help audiences understand the work, drawing on passages from Goethe's Faust to appeal to feelings rather than critical judgment. This programme was well received not only in Dresden but later elsewhere. He also wrote anonymous enthusiastic paragraphs in the Dresden Anzeiger to prepare public taste for a work that had been in ill-repute locally.

The performance exceeded all expectations and was particularly successful with non-musical audiences. Dr. Kochly, a philologist, told the composer it was the first time he could follow a symphonic work with intelligent interest. Anacker of Freiburg, previously an antagonist, became a convert after hearing the Fugato interpretation. Even Gade from Leipzig offered to pay double for his ticket to hear the bass recitative again.

The composer made detailed interpretive decisions throughout the symphony. He modified the wind and string balance, having strings play moderately instead of true fortissimo in passages where woodwinds needed to be heard. He conceived the Fugato as a glad but earnest war-song, taking it at a continuously fiery tempo. After twelve special rehearsals, he achieved a rendering of the bass recitative that expressed both exquisite tenderness and great energy. He reorganized the hall in amphitheatre fashion, concentrating the orchestra toward the center with singers raised around it.

The performance gave the composer pleasant feelings of ability and power, confirming that earnest desire could achieve overwhelming success. However, it also raised the difficult question of why his own Tannhäuser had not achieved similar recognition. This question, the composer reflects, remained the secret influencing all his subsequent development.

Wagner faced severe financial catastrophe and could no longer delay taking unpleasant measures. His publisher C.F. Meser invited him to discuss their financial affairs at a café called the 'Verderber.' They debated the prospects of the upcoming Easter Fair while drinking what they believed was fine Haut-Sauterne—only to discover it was actually Tarragon vinegar. Despite this inauspicious omen, Wagner managed to find humor in the situation, realizing he would need to try other means of saving himself rather than relying on the Fair.

The situation was dire: Wagner needed to repay capital for publishing his operas and had been forced to seek help from usurers, spreading rumors of his debts. Madame Schroder-Devrient, who had previously lent him three thousand marks upon his arrival in Dresden, now turned hostile due to jealousy of his niece Johanna and suspicion that Wagner had arranged her dismissal from the theatre. She placed the I.O.U. in the hands of a lawyer, who sued Wagner for payment. This forced Wagner to confess everything to Lüttichau and beg for royal intervention.

Lüttichau supported Wagner's petition to the King, but the necessary funds could only be granted as a loan from the Theatre Pension Fund at five percent interest. Wagner also had to secure the capital with a life insurance policy costing three percent annually of the borrowed sum. These sacrifices would significantly diminish his already slender conductor's salary. Financial efforts to gather the insurance premium required frequent appeals to Leipzig. Wagner was plagued by doubts about his health and lifespan until his doctor friend Pusinelli provided satisfactory medical information, allowing him to insure his life at the three percent rate.

The final journey to Leipzig had a pleasant aspect thanks to an invitation from Louis Spohr, representing a reconciliation between the composers. Spohr had written to Wagner about returning to dramatic composition after enjoying the Flying Dutchman, sending his opera Die Kreuz-fahrer to Dresden. When the general management returned the opera curtly, Spohr felt offended, but Wagner's efforts had calmed him. Their meeting in Leipzig impressed Wagner—Spohr was tall, stately, and calm. Despite their musical differences, Spohr expressed warmth about Wagner's Lohengrin libretto. However, Wagner later learned that Tannhäuser's Cassel performance had caused Spohr such distress that he feared Wagner was on the wrong path.

To recover from hardships and compose new work, Wagner obtained three months' leave to retreat to a peasant's house in Gross-Graupen between Pillnitz and Saxon Switzerland. Excursions to Porsberg and Liebethaler strengthened his nerves. While planning Lohengrin, annoying echoes of Rossini's William Tell plagued him until he hit on singing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony theme during his walks. At Pirna, he was moved to hear a bather whistling the Tannhäuser Pilgrim's Chorus—his first sign of the work's popular potential. His nephew Hans von Bülow visited, and Wagner relied primarily on his wife's company and little dog Peps. Despite time devoted to business affairs and health, he completed a hasty sketch of all three acts of Lohengrin.

Returning to Dresden in August, Wagner resumed conducting duties and worked energetically on Lohengrin, employing a method he never repeated: completing the third act first. He determined to make it the opera's pivot, partly for the Holy Grail musical motive, finding the plan perfectly satisfactory. The work was interrupted only by the urgent task of revising Gluck's Iphigenia, which he postponed completing until the New Year.

Undertaking Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis production that winter, Wagner felt duty-bound to give it careful attention. He was upset by the poor Berlin score translation and obtained the original Paris edition. He revised both the translation for correct declamation and the score itself, aligning the poem with Euripides, eliminating the tender love relationship between Achilles and Iphigenia, cutting the inevitable marriage ending, and joining disconnected arias with connecting links. Only in the third act was he obliged to compose his own recitatives for Iphigenia and Artemis. He finished this tremendous task by year's end. At the beginning of 1847, he acted as stage manager, recasting scenes to animate the representation. Mitterwurzer was the only actor who truly pleased him, delivering a splendid intelligent rendering of Agamemnon. The success exceeded expectations, with the directors themselves adding Wagner's name as 'Reviser' to the program for the second performance. Critic Ferdinand Hiller was the only musician to make strange comments, finding fault only with his treatment of the overture.

Hiller's artistic gatherings in Dresden had evolved into more intimate salons held in his own home. He had established a society for subscription concerts with the financial backing of wealthy art patrons, notably banker Kaskel. Lacking access to the royal orchestra, Hiller assembled musicians from town and military bands, achieving respectable results through his determination. His concerts introduced Dresden audiences to previously unknown compositions, particularly from modern music, and featured emerging performers including the young violinist Joachim.

Wagner found Hiller's interpretations of familiar works revealing of his true musical capabilities. Hiller's careless handling of Sebastian Bach's Triple Concerto astonished Wagner. Similarly, his tempo di minuetto in Beethoven's Eighth Symphony struck Wagner as even more problematic than the renditions by Reissiger and Mendelssohn. Despite promising to observe the correct tempo for the third phrase, Hiller reverted to the standard waltz measure at the performance, blaming momentary distraction. These concerts, which only ran for two seasons, concluded with a banquet in Hiller's honor.

During this period, Wagner found himself drawn toward Greek literature and history rather than music. Pursuing reading that led him away from professional duties into solitude, he sought to address gaps in his cultural education. He approached Old and Middle High German studies by first immersing himself in Greek antiquity, developing such enthusiasm that conversations inevitably turned to this subject. His engagement with Greek texts was driven by spiritual needs rather than professional requirements.

Eduard Devrient, forced to resign as stage manager-in-chief due to a conspiracy led by his own brother Emil, became a significant figure in Wagner's intellectual life. Their conversations about theatrical triviality and the damaging effects of ignorant court management drew them together. Devrient's insightful understanding of Wagner's production of Gluck's Iphigenia, which he contrasted favorably with a condemned Berlin production, established a basis for their friendship. Through Devrient's specialized experience, Wagner came to understand that mere literary excellence was insufficient for theatre, and that true prosperity required focusing on stagecraft and dramatic actors. Devrient's publication of "Die Geschichte der deutschen Schauspielkunst" further illuminated theatrical problems that concerned Wagner.

Wagner resumed work on the third act of Lohengrin, which had been interrupted during the Bridal Scene, completing it by winter's end. A Palm Sunday performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony revived his spirits, and he sought further refreshment by changing his residence without requesting permission. This move to the Marcolini Palace marked a productive period for his compositional work.

The old Marcolini Palace, featuring extensive gardens partly in French style, was located in a quiet Dresden suburb. Sold to the town council with apartments available for rent, the palace housed sculptor Hänel in ground-floor studios. At Easter, Wagner moved into spacious apartments above Hänel at minimal rent, gaining access to the large garden. The arrangement improved both his mental state and finances, though the distance from the theatre proved inconvenient after exhausting rehearsals. An exceptionally fine summer lifted his spirits and helped overcome practical drawbacks.

Wagner firmly withdrew from theatre management responsibilities, having cogent reasons for doing so. His efforts to reorganize the royal institution's chaotic administration were repeatedly thwarted. He had compiled a pamphlet proposing orchestra reorganization, better allocation of royal funds, more judicious salary decisions, and formation of an independent concert society with its own hall. Plans for a concert hall were fully developed, with architects and builders prepared to replace dilapidated structures near the prison with a suitable building. Despite practical support from orchestra administrators, management rejected his proposals with thanks but no action. All his efficiency suggestions failed. Every proposal could be undermined by singer temperament or junior business inspectors. After stormy discussions, Wagner withdrew from all management participation, confining himself to rehearsals and performances of assigned operas.

Despite strained relations with Lüttichau, Wagner's position remained respectable due to the growing popularity of his operas. Tannhäuser and Rienzi, presented during summer to distinguished audiences, were consistently chosen for gala performances. This success allowed him to pursue his own path without interference while completing Lohengrin in seclusion.

Wagner's studies profoundly influenced his dramatic understanding. For the first time, he mastered Aeschylus with real feeling, aided by Droysen's commentaries, envisioning the Oresteia as if witnessing an actual Athenian production. The Agamemnon trilogy especially inspired sublime emotion, creating an atmosphere so removed from modernity that he could not reconcile himself with contemporary literature. After working through other tragedians, he reached Aristophanes, finding boundless delight in comedies like "The Birds." Alongside Greek drama, he studied Plato's dialogues, particularly the Symposium, gaining deep insight into Greek life and beauty that made ancient Athens feel more genuine than modern conditions.

Wagner turned from historical studies to Germanic antiquity under the guidance of Jakob Grimm. Seeking to master German myths more thoroughly than his earlier perusal of the Nibelung and Heldenbuch had allowed, he found Mone's commentary on Heldensage particularly suggestive, despite scholarly skepticism about its boldness. This drew him to northern sagas and, as far as language permitted, to the Edda and prose versions of the Heldensage. The Wolsungasaga, illuminated by Mone's commentaries, influenced his material handling. These conceptions of old-world legends, gradually strengthening, took shape through plastic forms that inspired his later works.

Despite Tannhäuser's growing success in Dresden, it attracted no attention elsewhere. Recognizing Berlin as the only city with real influence in Germany's theatrical world, Wagner resolved to focus his efforts there. Believing King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. would be sympathetic to his later works, he planned to bring them to the royal notice through appropriate channels.

Wagner initially intended to dedicate Tannhäuser to Friedrich Wilhelm IV, hoping the King's appreciation for his earlier opera would extend to this new work.

Court Musical Director Count Redern informed Wagner that the King could only accept dedications of works actually performed in his presence. Since Tannhäuser had been rejected by the court theatre as too epic in form, Redern suggested adapting it for a military band to perform at parade—a suggestion that prompted Wagner to devise an alternative approach.

Following this setback, Wagner decided his campaign in Berlin must begin with the opera that had already achieved triumph in Dresden—Rienzi. He obtained an audience with the Queen of Saxony, the King's sister, and asked her to use her influence to secure a royal command performance of Rienzi in Berlin.

The Queen's intercession proved successful. Wagner soon received word from his friend Küstner that the production of Rienzi was scheduled at the Berlin Court Theatre, with an invitation for Wagner to conduct in person.

Full of confidence, Wagner set out for Berlin in September, trusting that the premiere would lead to his ultimate goal—an introduction to the King and the opportunity to present Lohengrin for royal consideration.

Upon arrival, Wagner found official preparations proceeding adequately, but all rehearsal arrangements were disrupted when Jenny Lind's visit was announced. She occupied the Royal Opera exclusively for some time, causing significant delays.

During the postponement, Wagner pursued his primary objective—an audience with the King—to present Lohengrin and seek royal command of its first performance at the court theatre.

Count Redern received Wagner warmly, inviting him to dinner and social gatherings. He engaged earnestly in discussions about securing an introduction to the King, promising his full support.

Wagner also frequented Sans-Souci to pay respects to the Queen, though he only reached her ladies-in-waiting. They advised him to contact Privy Councillor Illaire, head of the Royal Privy Council, who seemed impressed by Wagner's request and agreed to help arrange a royal audience. Illaire suggested seeking Ludwig Tieck's recommendation for Wagner's work.

Wagner visited Tieck, the royal pensioner living near Potsdam. The poet welcomed him almost as a friend. Wagner found their long conversations valuable, particularly as Tieck expressed genuine disgust at modern German drama modeled on French stagecraft and the lack of true poetic feeling.

While Tieck declared himself delighted with the Lohengrin poem, he questioned how such unconventional scenes could be set to music within opera's conventional structure. Though Wagner believed he had roused Tieck's enthusiasm for his musical drama ideals, Tieck grew increasingly somber when Wagner mentioned hoping for the King's patronage. Tieck warned that although the King would listen with interest and even embrace Wagner's ideas warmly, there would be no practical result: 'What can you expect from a man who today is enthusiastic about Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris, and tomorrow mad about Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia?' Tieck nonetheless promised to recommend Wagner's poem to Illaire and bid him farewell with sincere, if anxious, blessing.

The desired royal invitation remained delayed as rehearsals resumed after Jenny Lind's departure. Wagner decided to wait until after the premiere, confident the King would attend a work performed by royal command.

As the performance date approached, Wagner's hopes diminished. The tenor cast as Rienzi was utterly lacking in talent and far below average. Though conscientious and recommended by his host Meinhard, no amount of coaching could overcome his fundamental limitations.

At the dress rehearsal, Wagner was forced to acknowledge that while scenery, chorus, ballet, and supporting roles were excellent, the lead character—central to the entire opera—had faded into insignificance.

The October premiere met with a reception due primarily to the inadequate lead tenor. However, Frau Koster's enthusiastic performance as Adriano and several brilliant passages suggested apparent success, though Wagner knew this superficial triumph lacked real substance.

The Berlin critics immediately began their attacks, seeking to demolish any success the opera might have achieved. After conducting the second performance himself, Wagner questioned whether his desperate efforts were worthwhile.

Wagner sought his friends' opinions. Hermann Franck, recently settled in Berlin, provided valuable insight and encouragement during these difficult two months, though Wagner felt almost ashamed to burden him with concerns about a work of limited practical importance to the stage.

Franck concluded that Wagner had been foolish to choose Rienzi for this occasion. Since Rienzi appealed merely to the general public, Tannhäuser would have been preferable—potentially educating a party in Berlin useful to Wagner's higher artistic aims. Such a work might have renewed interest in drama among people like Franck who had abandoned hope of finding nobler theatrical ideals.

Professor Werder provided further discouraging information about Berlin's artistic character. He explained that at performances of unknown works, audiences came with the sole purpose of finding flaws. Werder warned Wagner repeatedly not to expect anything above average from Berlin's cultured society, though he respected the King's genuine considerable gifts.

Wagner visited Bernhard Marx, who had earlier shown interest in Fliegender Holländer. Marx now seemed extraordinarily limp and listless beside his young wife. He had abandoned all hope of success for efforts directed toward elevating opera, citing the inconceivable shallowness of all officials. Marx recounted his fruitless scheme to found a music school: despite the King's detailed interest and warm sympathy, endless negotiations led nowhere, and the matter simply ended without resolution.

Wagner learned that Countess Rossi, the renowned Henriette Sontag living in seclusion in Berlin, remembered him fondly from Dresden and wished to see him. She too complained bitterly about the general apathy of Berlin's influential classes, which prevented artistic aims from being realized. She believed the King found satisfaction in the theatre's poor management, opposing neither criticisms nor supporting improvements.

The Countess expressed keen interest in Wagner's latest work, and he gave her the Lohengrin manuscript to read. At their next meeting, she promised an invitation to a musical evening in honor of Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, her elderly patron, and returned the manuscript with assurances that it had appealed to her deeply—though her warm, friendly sympathy felt like cold water poured down Wagner's back. The promised invitation never materialized.

Having previously given the Lohengrin manuscript to Countess Rossi for perusal, Wagner received it back with her comments about the elves and fairies dancing before her as she read. He soon departed and never saw her again.

Herr Kossak also sought Wagner out and received him kindly, to whom Wagner gave the Lohengrin poem. When Wagner visited by appointment, he found Kossak's room freshly scrubbed with boiling water, the steam causing them both discomfort. Kossak returned the manuscript with an expression of almost tender concern, assuring Wagner—without any doubt of his sincerity—that he found it 'very pretty.'

The author found his conversations with H. Truhn at Lutter and Wegener's wine bar entertaining, discussing ideas about opera development. Truhn made witty, pointed comments and seemed genuinely interested in the author's artistic aims. However, after the production of Rienzi, Truhn joined other critics in their disapproval. The only steadfast supporter was the author's old friend Gaillard, who backed him through thick and thin. Unfortunately, Gaillard's music-shop had failed and his musical journal had already closed. The author discovered Gaillard was also the author of dubious dramatic works and was suffering from a terminal illness, which cast a melancholy shadow over their interactions despite Gaillard's loyalty and devotion.

Since the author had undertaken the Berlin enterprise against his own wishes, driven solely by the need for success, he decided to make a personal appeal to the influential critic Rellstab. The author hoped to point out the clearer, brighter outline of Rienzi, as Rellstab had previously criticized The Flying Dutchman for its "nebulousness" and "lack of form." Rellstab appeared pleased that the author sought his input but immediately expressed his firm conviction that any new art form was impossible after Gluck, dismissing contemporary efforts as "meaningless bombast." This conversation convinced the author that all hope in Berlin had been abandoned, and he was informed that only Meyerbeer had successfully navigated the Berlin artistic scene.

Upon arriving in Berlin, the author called on Meyerbeer, his former patron, who claimed to still take interest in his career. However, the author found Meyer's servant packing trunks in the hall, and Meyerbeer confirmed he was leaving and could do nothing for him at that moment. The author later discovered with surprise that Meyerbeer had remained in Berlin all along, hiding from visitors. Meyerbeer eventually appeared at a rehearsal of Rienzi. The author later learned from conductor Taubert that rumors claimed the author was seeking a director's position at the court theatre, which he vigorously denied. The author realized Meyerbeer's influence remained paramount in Berlin artistic circles.

All attempts to gain access to the King continued to fail despite the author's efforts. His chief intermediary was Count Redern, who, despite the author being warned about Redern's allegiance to Meyerbeer, maintained such an open and friendly manner that the author continued to trust him. The author placed his final hope in the fact that the King could not possibly avoid attending a performance of Rienzi, which had been ordered by royal command. Count Redern informed him with apparent despair that the King would be away hunting on the day of the premiere. When the author begged for the King's presence at least at the second performance, Redern reported that his Majesty had conceived an utter disinclination to comply, reportedly muttering, "Oh bother! have you come to me again with your Rienzi?"

At the second performance of Rienzi, after the impressive second act, the audience showed signs of wanting to call the author forward. As he moved from the orchestra to the vestibule, he slipped on the smooth parquet floor and might have fallen had not a strong hand grasped his arm. He turned to find the Crown Prince of Prussia, who had left his box and invited the author to meet his wife, who wished to make his acquaintance. The Crown Princess had only recently arrived in Berlin and had heard the opera for the first time that evening, expressing her appreciation. She revealed she had received favorable reports about the author and his artistic aims from their mutual friend Alwine Frommann. The entire meeting was unusually friendly and pleasant, with the Prince present throughout.

Alwine Frommann proved to be the author's greatest source of comfort during his Berlin ordeal. She followed all his fortunes with deep sympathy and did everything possible to offer consolation and courage. The author visited her almost every evening when business allowed, gaining strength from her ennobling conversation for the struggles ahead. Alwine and their mutual friend Werder showed warm and intelligent sympathy for Lohengrin, which was then the author's primary creative focus. When the Crown Princess finally arrived in Berlin, Alwine hoped this connection might help the author's situation with the King, though she noted the Princess herself was in deep disfavor and could only influence the King through strict etiquette. Despite these efforts, no favorable news reached the author before he was forced to leave Berlin.

The author had to conduct a third performance of Rienzi and waited until the latest possible date to learn the fate of his most cherished projects. When this period passed without success, he was forced to confront the complete failure of his Berlin hopes. The cold, wet weather and grey skies of those final weeks intensified his depression. Everything he heard, combined with his private anxieties, weighed upon him heavily. His hopes of gaining the King of Prussia's support for his artistic ideas were shattered, and he felt as if he had "plunged into chaos" upon realizing the futility of expecting a prosperous settlement of German affairs from Prussia.

The author's conversations with Hermann Franck about the social and political situation took on an increasingly gloomy character. The King of Prussia's efforts to summon a united conference had failed, and although the author had initially seen hopeful significance in this undertaking, Franck's intimate knowledge of the project's details completely disillusioned him. Franck's dispassionate views on Prussia, supposedly the model of German intelligence and good government, destroyed all the author's favorable opinions. The author came to realize the "fearful hollowness" that existed on every side, a stark contrast to the great hopes he had harbored while miserable in Dresden.

In this state of despair, the author went to say goodbye to Count Redern, who told him with a very sad face the news that had just arrived: Mendelssohn had died. The author found he could feel little emotion at this moment, and it was Redern's obvious grief that first brought home the significance of this loss. The author was at least spared having to explain his own troubled affairs to Redern, who was so preoccupied with mourning Mendelssohn.

The only remaining matter in Berlin was attempting to balance material success against material loss. During his two-month stay, the author's wife and sister Clara had been with him, drawn by hope of a brilliant Berlin success for Rienzi. However, Director Küstner proved unwilling to offer proper compensation. From correspondence, Küstner could prove legally that he had only expressed a desire for the author's cooperation in studying Rienzi, not extended a formal invitation. With Count Redern unavailable due to his grief over Mendelssohn's death, the author had no choice but to accept Küstner's offer of paying royalties on the three performances that had already occurred. The Dresden authorities were surprised when the author found himself forced to request an advance on his income to conclude this "brilliant undertaking."

Traveling with his wife in horrible weather through a deserted countryside, the author fell into the blackest despair, believing he might survive such a mood only once in a lifetime and never again. Despite his misery, he was amused when his wife entered into a lively discussion with a commercial traveller who had spoken disparagingly about "the new opera Rienzi." The wife passionately corrected the man's mistakes, pointing out that he had not even heard the opera himself but based his opinion solely on hearsay and reviews. She earnestly emphasized to him that he "could not possibly know whose future he might not injure by such irresponsible comment." These were the only consoling impressions the author carried home to Dresden.

Upon returning to Dresden, the author immediately felt the direct results of his Berlin reverses in the condolences of acquaintances. Papers had spread news that his opera had been a dismal failure. The most painful aspect was having to face these expressions of pity with a cheerful countenance, assuring people that things were not nearly as bad as reported and that he had enjoyed many pleasant experiences. This unaccustomed effort placed him in a peculiar position as he encountered these sympathetic but misinformed well-wishers.

The author's situation resembled that of Hiller, who had given a performance of his new opera Conradin von Hohenstaufen around the same time. Hiller had kept the composition secret from the author and hoped to make a decided hit after three performances that took place during the author's absence. Both the poet and composer believed they had combined the tendencies of both Rienzi and Tannhäuser in a manner suited to the Dresden public. Hiller, departing for Düsseldorf where he had been appointed concert-director, confidently commended his work to the author's judgment. He acknowledged that his niece Johanna's wonderful performance as Conradin had contributed greatly to the opera's success. When a fourth performance was announced after Hiller left Dresden, the author attended and found nearly all seats empty, encountering only the librettist Reinike. The author learned the truth about Hiller's self-deception: Frau Hiller, of Polish origin, had arranged for a large contingent of Polish friends to attend the premiere. These friends enthusiastically spurred the audience to applaud on opening night but found little pleasure in the work themselves. A second performance was poorly attended, and a third Sunday performance was arranged by once again mobilizing the Polish community to fulfill their "charity" toward the Hiller household. Hiller placed his confidence in this third-performance verdict, claiming an undoubted success. The fourth performance exposed this artificiality, as no one was obligated to attend. Even the author's niece was disgusted, believing no singer could make such a tedious opera successful. When the author pointed out weaknesses in the subject matter to the poet during this fourth performance, Reinike reported the criticisms to Hiller, who sent a warm letter from Düsseldorf acknowledging his mistake in rejecting the author's earlier advice. Hiller indicated it was not too late to revise the opera according to these suggestions, but the author never followed up on this opportunity.

Wagner learned that two performances of his opera *Rienzi* had been staged in Berlin with Conductor Taubert claiming credit for their effective arrangements. Despite this modest success, Wagner remained convinced he could expect no lasting or profitable results from Berlin and decided he must press Lüttichau for a salary increase. His income was insufficient to live on, and his publishing ventures had proven unlucky. He requested only to be placed on equal footing with his colleague Reissiger, a prospect that had been held out to him since the beginning of his appointment.

Lüttichau used the occasion of Wagner's salary request to remind him of his dependence on his goodwill. After Wagner presented his case directly to the King in a personal interview, Lüttichau promised a favorable report. However, when the report returned from the monarch, Wagner was devastated to discover it stated he had "overestimated his talent on account of the foolish praise of various friends in a high position" including Frau v. Konneritz, and had considered himself equally deserving of success as Meyerbeer. The report suggested this had caused such serious offense that dismissal might be advisable. Though the King ultimately granted the requested 900 marks, Wagner left in stunned silence, unable to accept the money given the humiliation.

A visit by the King of Prussia to Dresden provided an unexpected turn. By royal request, a performance of *Tannhäuser* was arranged, and the monarch attended in the company of the Saxon royal family, remaining throughout with apparent interest. He later explained his absence from the Berlin performances of *Rienzi* by stating he had denied himself the pleasure because he knew his own theatre would only provide a poor impression—badly produced. This strange endorsement restored Wagner's self-confidence sufficiently to accept the desperately needed 900 marks. Lüttichau subsequently made efforts to regain Wagner's trust, apparently unaware of the outrage he had caused.

Lüttichau revisited Wagner's earlier suggestions for orchestral concerts, framing the initiative as coming from management rather than the orchestra. Wagner agreed when he learned the profits would benefit the orchestra. He devised a special construction using a sounding board to convert the theatre stage into a first-class concert hall. Six winter performances were planned, though only three subscription concerts could be accommodated in the second half of the current winter season. The first concert featured an unusual program: Mozart's Symphony in D major, followed by Palestrina's *Stabat Mater* (with Wagner's revised adaptation of the original recitative), Bach's eight-voice motet *Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied*, and Beethoven's *Sinfonia Eroica* to conclude.

In early February, Wagner received news of his mother's death and hastened to Leipzig for her funeral. He found profound comfort in seeing the wonderfully calm and sweet expression on her face as she lay in state. She had spent her later years in cheerful ease and peaceful, almost childlike happiness. On her deathbed she had murmured with a bright smile: "Oh! how beautiful! how lovely! how divine! Why do I deserve such favor?" The bitterly cold funeral morning saw the family scattering hard, frozen lumps of earth on the coffin lid, which startled Wagner with their loud noise. His companion Laube expressed concern over Wagner's exhausted appearance, and the journey home reinforced Wagner's sense of complete loneliness, knowing that with his mother gone, every natural bond with his siblings was loosened.

Wagner entered 1848 with reconciled spirits, yet February brought revolutionary upheaval across Europe. He had been among those least expecting political catastrophe, having witnessed the July Revolution in his youth followed by long peaceful reaction. His familiarity with Paris had convinced him that Louis Philippe's defensive fortifications made popular uprising impossible. When news arrived of the Swiss War of Separation and the Sicilian Revolution, Wagner remained uninterested despite others' concerns. He was conducting a rehearsal of *Martha* when Röckel burst in with news of Louis Philippe's flight and the proclamation of the Republic. Wagner received this information with strange astonishment, though still doubting its true significance.

During one of the anxious March days preceding Saxony's political changes, Wagner conducted the third orchestral concert with the King and court present. He opened with Mendelssohn's Symphony in A minor, which he had played at the composer's funeral, noting that its tender melancholy corresponded strangely with the audience's anxiety. His regret at following this minor-key symphony with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in C minor was dispelled when someone patriotic shouted "Long live the King!" from the audience. The cry was repeated with unusual enthusiasm, and orchestra leader Lipinsky comforted Wagner by suggesting they play only the first two movements. The passionate first movement of Beethoven's symphony swelled like a hurricane of rejoicing, producing an effect rarely matched. This proved to be the last orchestral concert Wagner ever conducted in Dresden.

Political changes soon became inevitable. The King dismissed his ministry and elected a new one comprising Liberals and even enthusiastic Democrats who proclaimed democratic constitutional regulations. Wagner was genuinely moved by the heartfelt joy evident among the population. He longed to access the King and confirm his hearty confidence in the people's love. When the town was illuminated that evening and the King rode through the streets in an open carriage, Wagner went out among the dense crowds, running to positions where hearty shouts might reconcile the monarch's heart. He returned home hoarse and exhausted from shouting.

Throughout these momentous events, Wagner maintained his regular working hours. With immense, almost overweening satisfaction, he finished the score of *Lohengrin* in the last days of March 1848, completing the orchestration up to the vanishing of the Knight of the Holy Grail into mystic distance.

About this time, Madame Jessie Laussot, a young Englishwoman married to a Frenchman in Bordeaux, presented herself at Wagner's house accompanied by Karl Ritter, barely eighteen years old. Born in Russia of German parents, Ritter was part of a northern family settled permanently in Dresden for its pleasant artistic atmosphere. Wagner remembered Ritter from after the first *Tannhäuser* performance, when he had requested the composer's autograph for a copy of that opera's score—now discovered to belong to Frau Laussot. Overcome with shyness, Jessie expressed admiration in a way Wagner had never experienced, regretting being called away from Dresden and the devoted Ritter family. Wagner experienced a strange, new sensation—like an echo from some old familiar past. He invited young Ritter to visit and accompany him on walks, though Ritter's shyness limited these contacts.

Hans von Bülow turned up more often than Ritter, knowing him well and having entered Leipzig University as a law student. This well-informed, talkative young man showed warm and hearty devotion to Wagner more openly, and Wagner felt bound to reciprocate his affection. Bülow represented the first person to make Wagner realize the genuine character of the new political enthusiasm. The black, red, and gold cockade was paraded before Wagner's eyes on both Bülow's hat and his father's, symbolizing their German nationalist convictions.

After completing Lohengrin, Wagner found himself drawn into the political ferment surrounding the emergence of German national ideals. Despite his friend Franck's sound political judgment and his own doubts about the usefulness of the German Parliament then assembling, Wagner felt compelled by the undeniable temper of the populace and the widespread belief that return to old conditions was impossible. He yearned for decisive action that would force German princes to break with their detrimental traditions.

Driven by his desire for meaningful political action, Wagner composed a popular appeal in verse urging German princes and peoples to launch a crusade against Russia, which he blamed as the prime instigator of policies that had fatally separated monarchs from their subjects. One verse proclaimed the return of the old fight against the East and the necessity of keeping the people's sword sharp for those who eternally sought freedom. Lacking connections with political journals, Wagner sent the poem to Berthold Auerbach, a staff member at a Mannheim paper, but never heard anything further about it.

While the Frankfurt Parliament continued its deliberations with small men making big speeches, Wagner was deeply impressed by events in Vienna. In May 1848, a reaction attempt that had succeeded in Naples was triumphantly thwarted by the energy of the Viennese people, led by the students' band. This demonstrated to Wagner that in matters concerning the people, only sheer force supported by fanaticism or necessity could be relied upon. The sight of educated youth working alongside laborers filled him with enthusiasm, inspiring him to write another popular appeal that was published in the Oesterreichischen Zeitung with his full signature.

Dresden witnessed the formation of two political unions following the revolutionary changes. The Deutscher Verein (German Union) advocated for a constitutional monarchy on the broadest democratic foundation, with respectable leaders including Eduard Devrient and Professor Rietschel. This union inadvertently created an opposition club called the Vaterlands-Verein (Patriotic Union), where the democratic foundation appeared as the chief basis and constitutional monarchy merely served as a necessary cloak.

Röckel passionately advocated for the Vaterlands-Verein, having apparently lost all confidence in the monarchy. His personal circumstances were desperate—he had abandoned hope of rising in the musical world, his directorship brought minimal and unreliable income, and his growing family pushed him toward debt. Unable to bring himself to teach despite its profitability, he had contemplated emigrating to America to work as a farmer. When the 1848 Revolution arrived, he immediately embraced extreme socialism, claiming to have found his true vocation as an agitator, which shocked everyone who knew him.

The Vaterlands-Verein elected a committee to execute a plan for arming the populace, including Röckel and thoroughgoing democrats alongside military experts. Among these was Hermann Muller, a former lieutenant of the Guards who had once been engaged to Schroder-Devrient, and officer Zichlinsky—the only Saxon army members to join the political movement. Wagner's participation in committee meetings, as in all else, was dictated by artistic motives. Though the plan eventually became a nuisance, it offered sound foundation for genuine popular arming that could not be implemented during the crisis.

Wagner's interest in social and political problems deepened daily, until both public meetings and private conversations revealed the terrible shallowness of the revolutionary movement. The shallow platitudes of contemporary orators convinced him that the excitement surrounding these matters masked a fundamental intellectual emptiness. He observed with regret that even those well-versed in these matters refrained from demonstrations, which only deepened his disillusionment.

Unable to remain silent while witnessing the triviality of public discourse, Wagner wrote an unsigned article for the Dresdener Anzeiger. His special aim was to redirect serious-minded people from preoccupation with external government forms to the intrinsic value of governance. Extending idealistic conclusions about the perfect state and social order, he asked whether all this could be realized with a king at the head. He portrayed the ideal king as even more anxious than anyone else that his state be organized on genuinely republican lines, urging the King of Saxony to lead the way for all German princes.

Röckel urged Wagner to present his ideas publicly at the Vaterlands-Verein, and despite uncertainty about his ability to do so, Wagner attended a meeting where the trivial discussion of "Republic or Monarchy?" featured barrister Blode and master-furrier Klette, whom Dresden inexplicably venerated as Demosthenes and Cleon. Provoked beyond endurance by their balderdash, Wagner dramatically decided to read his article to approximately three thousand assembled persons, delivering what he described as a very spirited reading.

The success of Wagner's reading was simply appalling. The astounded audience remembered only his incidental attack on court sycophants. News spread like wildfire, and when Wagner rehearsed Rienzi the next day, he received congratulations on all sides. However, on performance day, directors changed plans fearing demonstrations at any Rienzi performance. A perfect storm of derision broke loose in the press, and Wagner was besieged from all directions. He had offended the Communal Guard of Saxony and faced challenges from court officials who continuously besought the King to remove him from his position.

Feeling it necessary to defend himself, Wagner wrote personally to the King, explaining that his action should be regarded as thoughtless indiscretion rather than culpable offence. He sent the letter through Herr von Lüttichau, requesting delivery to the monarch and arrangement of brief leave so the disturbance might subside during his absence. Von Lüttichau showed striking kindness, though Wagner later learned this was by the King's own desire—when everyone besieged the King to punish Wagner, the King forbade further talk on the subject, indicating he had understood both the letter and pamphlet better than many others.

In early July, Wagner took advantage of his leave to journey to Vienna, traveling via Breslau where he visited family friend Mosewius, the musical director. They enjoyed lively conversation and discussion of Mosewius's complete collection of Sebastian Bach's cantatas, along with amusing musical anecdotes. Mosewius later visited Wagner in Dresden, expressing genuine astonishment at hearing the first act of Lohengrin played on piano, though Wagner later heard him speak scoffingly about him.

Upon arriving in Vienna, Wagner first called on Professor Fischhof, who guarded important manuscripts including Beethoven's original C minor Sonata, opus 111. Through this somewhat dry new friend, Wagner met Herr Vesque von Puttlingen, composer of an insignificant opera who had adopted only the last two syllables of Beethoven's name as "Haven." Wagner discovered that Puttlingen was a former confidential official of Prince Metternich, now wearing black, red, and gold ribbons and following the currents of the age.

Wagner also encountered Herr von Fonton, Russian state councillor and attaché at the Russian Embassy in Vienna. Meeting him frequently at Fischhof's and on country excursions, Wagner found it deeply interesting to encounter someone who could so strongly profess pessimistic faith that consistent despotism guarantees the only tolerable order. Fonton, educated at Switzerland's most enlightened schools, listened with evident intelligence to Wagner's enthusiastic description of his artistic ideal destined to influence humanity. Unable to dispute that this ideal could not be realized through despotism, Fonton thawed to affable good-nature and wished Wagner success. Wagner later learned that this talented, energetic man was last heard of in great distress.

Wagner arrived in Vienna with the intention of promoting practical theatre reform. Recognizing that the city had five theatres "dragging on a miserable existence," he devised a plan to form them into a cooperative organization under unified administration. He assembled a conference at Fischhof's house with several individuals, including Friedrich Uhl, Herr Franck, Dr. Pacher, and the most significant figure, Dr. Becher—a passionate and cultivated man who seriously engaged with Wagner's plan, though without complete agreement. Uhl proved particularly useful in making introductions. Wagner also approached the renowned poet Grillparzer regarding his reform ideas, finding him friendly but surprised by Wagner's direct approach. After an unsuccessful visit to Herr Bauernfeld, Wagner concluded that Vienna was not yet ready for his peaceful reform schemes.

The political climate in Vienna had undergone marked changes, with a palpable sense of youthful confidence pervading the city. Student bands filled the streets wearing German colors, and even at theatres, attendants served ices in black, red, and gold. Friedrich Uhl took Wagner to an advanced political club where he heard speeches by Herr Sigismund Englander, who would later gain attention in political publications. The audacity with which speakers attacked those in power astounded Wagner, though he found the political views expressed somewhat impoverished. At the Karl Theatre, a new farce by Nestroy actually introduced Prince Metternich as a character who, when asked whether he had poisoned the Duke of Reichstadt, fled behind the wings. These energetic signs of youthful participation would later resurface during the October Insurrection.

On his homeward journey, Wagner stopped in Prague where he found his old friend Kittl, who had grown very corpulent, still trembling from recent riotous events. Kittl believed the Czech revolt against the Austrian Government was directed at him personally and blamed himself for having inflamed tensions through his composition of Wagner's opera text "Die Franzosen vor Nizza," from which a revolutionary air had become popular. Traveling onward, Wagner had the pleasant company of sculptor Hänel, whom he met on a steamer, along with Count Albert Nostitz. The count was in high spirits due to being paid in silver coin at a profit because of the insecure state of Austrian paper money. Nostitz accompanied Wagner from the landing-stage to his house in an open carriage—a considerable distance—despite knowing that Wagner had recently caused a scandal in Dresden.

Wagner discovered that his salary situation was worse than he had believed. A petition for a higher salary had been answered during the preceding winter, but Wagner had left it unread due to modifications that disgusted him. He now learned that there was only a single supplement mentioned, not an annual repeat as he had assumed. Since it was too late to remonstrate, he had to accept this unprecedented insult. His feelings toward Lüttichau changed dramatically when he learned the truth about the orchestra's alleged deputation demanding his dismissal. Lüttichau had claimed the musicians had acted voluntarily and that he had pacified them on Wagner's behalf. However, Wagner discovered the opposite was true—the court officials had pressured and threatened the musicians, who had responded through their principal by declaring they felt no call to meddle in matters not concerning them. This deception destroyed Wagner's favorable opinion of Lüttichau permanently and left him bitter, realizing he could never enlist Lüttichau's influence for theatrical reform. Wagner continued in his post merely as an inevitable circumstance of fate.

Shortly after the March days, and before completing the Lohengrin score, Liszt unexpectedly arrived at Wagner's door. He had experienced the "Barricade Days" in Vienna and was traveling to Weimar, where he intended to settle permanently. That evening at Schumann's, they enjoyed music but then engaged in a discussion about Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer that caused such fundamental disagreement between Liszt and Schumann that the latter stormed off to his bedroom in fury. Despite this awkward incident toward their host, the evening became amusing conversation on the way home. Wagner observed that he had seldom seen Liszt so extravagantly cheerful, even though he was clad only in ordinary evening-dress and accompanied others to their homes in the cold.

Taking advantage of a few days' holiday in August, Wagner made an excursion to Weimar where he found Liszt permanently installed and, as is well known, enjoying intimate intercourse with the Grand Duke. Although Liszt was unable to help materially except with a recommendation that proved useless, his hearty reception was exceedingly stimulating, leaving Wagner profoundly cheered and encouraged.

Back in Dresden, Wagner tried to curtail expenses and live within his means. With all other means of assistance exhausted, he sent a circular letter to his remaining creditors—all of whom were friends—frankly explaining his situation and asking them to relinquish their demands indefinitely until his affairs improved. He emphasized that without this assurance, he would never be able to satisfy them, and that this arrangement would help him oppose his general manager, whom he suspected of evil designs who would exploit any creditor hostility as a pretext for action against him. His friends Pusinelli and Frau Klepperbein even offered to give up all claims to the money they had lent him. With this reassurance and his position regarding Lüttichau improved, Wagner continued fulfilling his conducting duties as patiently as possible while resuming his studies with great zeal.

Röckel drafted an appeal to Saxon soldiers explaining the cause he stood for, had it printed and distributed widely, and was immediately arrested for high treason, spending three days in jail until solicitor Minkwitz posted 3000 marks (equivalent to £150) bail for his release. He was greeted by a public celebration arranged by the Vaterlands-Verein committee, hailed as a champion of the people's cause, but received permanent dismissal from his post as court theatre musical director, which had already temporarily suspended him prior to the arrest. He grew a full beard and launched the weekly popular journal *Volksblatt* as sole editor, renting office space on Brudergasse for the publication. The paper ran short, clear, unverbose articles focused on immediate matters of public interest, laying out arguments calmly before drawing broader conclusions, making it accessible and convincing to both educated and uneducated readers, though its low cover price yielded little profit. Röckel was warned the paper would never be forgiven by reactionaries if they regained power; his visiting younger brother Edward declared he would take a lucrative if uncongenial piano teaching post in England to support Röckel's family if Röckel was imprisoned or executed for his work. Röckel's heavy involvement in various societies limited the pair's time together to increasingly rare walks.

During their walks, the pair engaged in wildly speculative, profound discussions, during which the excitable Röckel remained calmly reflective and clear-headed. Röckel laid out a planned drastic socialist reform of the middle class, aiming to abolish the power of capital by replacing profit-driven middleman labor with immediate productive labor, based on the teachings of Proudhon and other socialists. He argued persuasively enough that the narrator began rebuilding his hopes for realizing his artistic ideals around these socialist principles. Röckel advocated for the total abolition of traditional marriage, arguing that removing financial, class, and coercive institutional pressures would eliminate all immoral incentives in romantic and sexual relationships. When the narrator questioned where great intellectuals and artists would come from if all people were merged into the working class, Röckel replied that shared labor apportioned by individual strength and capacity would turn work from a burden into an artistic occupation, citing the far higher productivity of scientifically managed collective farming compared to labor by a single peasant as proof of this principle. These conversations led the narrator to develop new plans for a human social organization aligned with his highest artistic ideals.

Motivated by both his discussions with Röckel and external political circumstances, the narrator turned his focus to theatre reform. Upcoming Saxony elections under new democratic suffrage laws, paired with radical electoral wins across other regions, indicated sweeping administrative changes were likely. A proposed strict revision of the Civil List threatened to cut court theatre funding entirely, with radicals dismissing the theatre as an unnecessary, immoral entertainment for depraved sections of the public. The narrator drafted a plan to redirect the Civil List funding previously allocated to the court theatre to establish and sustain a national theatre for the Kingdom of Saxony, with detailed, practical provisions designed to guide ministers in presenting the proposal to parliament. He hoped the plan would prevent the theatre from falling to dangerous, lowbrow radical management if state funding was cut, and secure an organizational structure capable of reliably achieving the theatre's highest artistic ideals.

The narrator first sought a meeting with Minister of Education Herr von der Pfordten, a former professor with a reputation as a political turncoat, hoping his academic background would make him open to the project. Von der Pfordten received the narrator politely but his demeanor made clear he would not engage meaningfully with the proposal. The narrator then submitted the plan to the Minister of the Interior, Herr Oberlander, who was straightforward and earnest, and promised a full inquiry into the proposal, but admitted frankly that the King was unlikely to authorize unusual departures from routine for the theatre, as their relationship was strained and Oberlander only met the monarch for strictly necessary official business. Oberlander suggested the plan would have a better chance of success if introduced by the Chamber of Deputies. Fearing radical MPs would mishandle the court theatre funding question during Civil List discussions, the narrator sought out influential newly elected radical MPs to advocate for the project, but found the experience unpleasant, as he was forced to meet them in beer halls thick with tobacco smoke to discuss what they viewed as a fanciful scheme. When radical MP Herr von Trutschler, a serious, handsome man, stated that society would manage art and theatre on its own without the narrator's input, the narrator felt such shame that he abandoned all efforts and hopes for the project. Later, theatre director Herr von Lüttichau's cold attitude made clear he had learned of the episode and held it against the narrator.

During his now solitary walks, the narrator continued to think deeply about socialist and communist efforts to build new social systems, though he felt they only held value for him once they achieved the political revolution they aimed for, as that would allow him to pursue his own art reforms. He also worked on a drama about Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa), planned as a popular rhyme drama in the style of medieval German epic poets, with Lambert of Saint-Omer's *Alexander* as a model. Its five-act outline was: Act 1, Imperial Diet at Roncaglia demonstrating imperial power even over air and water; Act 2, siege and capture of Milan; Act 3, Henry the Lion's revolt and defeat at Legnano; Act 4, Imperial Diet at Augsburg, Henry the Lion's humiliation and punishment; Act 5, Imperial Diet and court at Mainz, peace with the Lombards, reconciliation with the Pope, taking of the cross, and departure for the Crusades. He abandoned the project entirely when he realized its subject matter overlapped with the more compelling Nibelungen and Siegfried myths, and wrote a treatise on the connections between Barbarossa's history and the legends, drawing on stimulating monographs from the royal library. When he later published the extensive essay under the title *Die Nibelungen*, he lost all interest in adapting the historical material into a full drama.

In connection with his Barbarossa research, the narrator began sketching a condensed but detailed version of the original Nibelungen myth integrated with Germanic god legends, which he was able to adapt into the core material for a new musical drama. He hesitated for a long time to fully commit to the project, as the practical challenges of staging such a work on the existing Dresden stage felt overwhelming. He only found the courage to begin work on it due to his despair over having no further opportunities to contribute to the theatre under current circumstances; until then he had drifted listlessly, only hoping for the best possible production of his completed *Lohengrin*.

The narrator had finished the score for *Lohengrin* and notified theatre director Herr von Lüttichau of its completion. Given his difficult circumstances at the time, he left it entirely to von Lüttichau to decide when the work would be staged, with no further input from him.

The Royal Orchestra celebrated its three hundredth anniversary with a grand concert festival featuring compositions from all Saxon orchestral conductors since the institution's founding. The musicians and conductors presented their homage to the King at Pillnitz.

For the first time, a musician was elevated to the rank of Knight of the Civil Order of Merit of Saxony. This honor went to Reissiger, who had previously been treated with scorn by the court and management but had gained favor through his loyalty, particularly to Wagner during critical times.

Reissiger's overture to Yelva received enthusiastic applause unprecedented for him, while the finale of the first act from Lohengrin, presented as the work of the youngest conductor, received only an indifferent reception—unusual for Wagner, who was accustomed to warmer responses from the Dresden public. A festive supper followed, where Wagner expressed his views on the orchestra's future perfection to loud applause.

Marschner, attending as a former musical conductor, warned Wagner that holding too good an opinion of the musicians would cause him harm. He pointed out their uncultivated nature and single-instrument training, questioning whether discussing artistic aspirations would create confusion rather than improvement.

A quiet memorial ceremony united Wagner on the Jubilee Day morning to place wreaths on Weber's grave. When others could find no words, Wagner felt compelled to deliver heartfelt remarks about the memorial.

October events in Vienna awakened lively sympathy in Dresden. Walls blazed with red and black placards calling for marches on Vienna and declaring curses against "Red Monarchy" versus "Red Republic," creating great uneasiness among the populace.

Following Windischgratz's entry into Vienna, Frobel's acquittal, and Blum's execution, Dresden organized a vast mourning demonstration. An endless procession marched with the ministry, including Herr von der Pfordten, whom the people viewed with growing suspicion. Rumors spread that Blum's execution was a favor from Archduchess Sophia to Queen Amalia of Saxony.

Troops of Viennese fugitives, disguised as student band members, began arriving in Dresden, adding to the city's population with ever-increasing street confidence.

During a performance of Rienzi, Wagner was approached by men greeting him as a "brother democrat" and requesting free tickets. Among them was Hafner, a hunchbacked literary dabbler Wagner had met at a Vienna political club. Despite embarrassment, Wagner purchased six tickets for the visitors.

Wagner seemed to have won passionate adherents among theatre-goers, opposing the clique that had been cool at the gala concert. He was greeted with special applause at every performance, whether Tannhäuser or Rienzi, earning a certain amount of awe from management despite concerns about his political tendencies.

Lüttichau proposed performing Lohengrin at an early date. Wagner explained his previous reasons but declared himself ready to proceed, believing the opera company now sufficiently powerful. F. Heine's son, returned from Paris where he studied scene-painting under Desplechin and Dieterle, was tasked with preparing suitable scenery for the opera.

Young Wilhelm Heine informed Wagner that the Lohengrin scenery had been suddenly countermanded, with instructions to prepare for another opera instead. Later, Lüttichau assured Wagner's wife that the court had been vehemently hostile to Wagner, and his attempts to produce the work had met insuperable obstacles.

This mortification proved decisive. Wagner relinquished all hope of reconciliation with the theatre authorities through a splendid Lohengrin production and determined to turn his back on the theatre forever. He expressed not merely indifference to his position but found his artistic ambitions entirely cut off from modern theatrical conditions.

Wagner immediately proceeded with long-cherished plans for Siegfried's Tod, producing something that would free him from irrational subservience. Unable to get more from Röckel, he corresponded exclusively with Eduard Devrient on theatre and dramatic matters.

When Wagner read the completed poem to Devrient, Devrient realized such a production would be commercially unsuccessful but tried to reconcile himself to the work. He pointed out Wagner was demanding too much from the public, requiring them to supply necessary knowledge from hints given in brief suggestions. He suggested showing Siegfried and Brunhilda in their true calmer relationship before their bitter hostility. This directed Wagner to scenes that became the first act of Götterdämmerung's prologue.

Wagner entered into intimate contact with Devrient through these discussions. Devrient invited select circles to dramatic readings at his house where Wagner participated, discovering Devrient's gift for declamation stood out strongly in private despite forsaking him on stage. These gatherings also served as opportunities to express worries about growing unpopularity with the director.

With the court returned to town for winter, signs of dissatisfaction in high quarters manifested. The Queen believed Wagner conducted Norma badly on one occasion and "took the time wrongly" in Robert the Devil on another. Lüttichau had to communicate these reprimands, making their intercourse unsatisfying to both parties.

The court avoided provoking the musicians of the royal orchestra, who had formed a union for debate and protection of their artistic and civic interests. Young violinist Theodor Uhlig, noted for his mild, intelligent face and quiet firm character with extensive musical knowledge, had been particularly active in this movement.

Wagner accompanied Uhlig to a union meeting to form an opinion and encourage the movement. He communicated his rejected memorandum on band reforms and recommended they take the initiative vigorously into their own hands, which they acclaimed with enthusiastic approval.

Lüttichau, informed through spies like a bugler named Lewy, officially summoned Wagner. He delivered a wrathful tirade and revealed knowledge of Wagner's theatre reform memorandum, accusing him of having "made him look ridiculous." Wagner replied he could rely on the King's justice to hear both charges and defense, and that this was the befitting manner to discuss his many complaints. Lüttichau asked how cooperation was possible when Wagner had declared all labor wasted upon him. They parted with mutual shoulder shrugging.

Lüttichau enlisted Eduard Devrient's tact and moderation to facilitate some arrangement. However, after discussing his message, Devrient admitted with a smile that nothing much could be done. Wagner persisted in refusing to meet the director again, leaving Devrient to recognize he would have to rely on his own wisdom out of the difficulty.

The orchestral concerts organized by Wagner in the previous winter were transferred to Reissiger's control and immediately fell to the usual level of ordinary concerts. Public interest rapidly declined, and the enterprise could only be maintained with great difficulty. The ongoing hostility from the court and director made itself felt in all aspects of Wagner's professional life at Dresden.

Wagner was unable to carry out the proposed revival of the Flying Dutchman, for which he had found an ideal exponent in Mitterwurzer's maturer talent. His niece Johanna, destined for the role of Senta, rejected it because it offered little opportunity for splendid costumes. She preferred Zampa and Favorita, partly to please her new protector Tichatschek, and partly for the sake of three brilliant costumes the management would provide. These two figures formed an alliance against Wagner's authority in operatic repertoire matters. Their opposition succeeded when they secured the production of Donizetti's Favorita, an opera whose arrangement Wagner had once been forced to undertake for Schlesinger in Paris. Though his niece's voice suited the principal role admirably, Wagner had initially refused to have anything to do with it. Once his adversaries learned of his feud with the director and his evident disgrace, they considered the opportunity ripe to compel Wagner himself to conduct this work.

Besides these conflicts, Wagner's chief occupation at the royal theatre consisted of conducting Flotow's opera Martha, which, although it failed to attract the public, was nevertheless produced with excessive frequency due to its convenient cast.

Reviewing his seven years of labor in Dresden, Wagner felt humiliated considering the powerful and energetic impetus he knew he had given to the court theatre in many directions. He was forced to confess that if he were to leave Dresden, not the smallest trace of his influence would remain. Various signs indicated that if ever it came to a trial before the King between the director and himself, even with His Majesty in his favor, consideration for the courtier would ensure the verdict went against him.

On Palm Sunday, 1849, Wagner received ample amends for his troubles. To ensure generous receipts, the orchestra decided to produce Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Every member exerted maximum effort to create one of their finest performances, and the public responded with genuine enthusiasm. Michael Bakunin, unknown to the police, attended the public rehearsal. At its close, he approached Wagner in the orchestra and declared that if all the music ever written were lost in the expected world-wide conflagration, they must pledge to rescue this symphony even at the peril of their lives.

Wagner had encountered Bakunin's name in newspapers for years, always under extraordinary circumstances. He turned up in Paris at a Polish gathering where, despite being Russian, he declared it mattered little whether a man was Russian or Pole, so long as he wanted to be a free man. Through George Herwegh, Wagner learned that Bakunin had renounced all income from his influential Russian family, and once, when his entire fortune consisted of two francs, he gave them to a beggar on the boulevard because it irked him to be bound by possession to think of the morrow. Röckel, now a rampant republican, informed Wagner of Bakunin's presence in Dresden and invited Wagner to meet him. Bakunin was being persecuted by the Austrian government for his involvement in Prague's 1848 events and his membership in the Slav Congress. He had sought refuge in Dresden near the Bohemian frontier. His notoriety in Prague arose from urging Czechs to defend themselves with fire and sword against the Russians and any people living under tsarist despotism. When Wagner met him under Röckel's humble roof, he was immediately struck by Bakunin's singular and imposing personality. He was in the full bloom of manhood, between thirty and forty, with a colossal physical presence full of primitive exuberance and strength.

Bakunin revealed his developmental journey on the very first evening of their meeting. He had been a Russian officer of high birth, chafing under narrow martial tyranny. Study of Rousseau's writings led him to escape to Germany under pretense of taking furlough. In Berlin, he threw himself into philosophy with the zest of a barbarian newly awakened to civilization. Hegel's philosophy was then in vogue, and he soon became so expert that he could defeat the master's most famous disciples using strict Hegelian dialectic. After getting philosophy "off his chest," he proceeded to Switzerland where he preached communism, then wandered through France and Germany back to the Slavic borderlands. He looked to the Slavic world for humanity's regeneration because Slavs had been less enervated by civilization. His hopes centered on the Russian peasant class, whose natural hatred of their cruel noble oppressors he believed contained a substratum of simple-minded brotherly love.

Bakunin cited the Russian people's childlike, almost demoniac delight in fire as evidence of their revolutionary potential. He argued that convincing the Russian peasant that burning their lords' castles was righteous and pleasing to God would set in motion a world-wide movement. The destruction of civilization appeared to him the only object worthy of a sensible man's activity. He received people of every revolutionary shade in his retreat, with Slavs nearest to him as convenient weapons against Russian despotism. He thought nothing of the French despite their republicanism and Proudhon's socialism, and never mentioned the Germans. Democracy and republicanism he regarded as unworthy of serious consideration. When a Pole suggested organized state guarantees for cultivated fields, Bakunin retorted that he would not "fence in your field to provide a livelihood for the police again!" His view was that creators of the new order would arise themselves, but their sole business was finding the power to destroy. He considered smug Philistines more obnoxious than so-called tyrants, and declared he would not believe a man had reached full stature until he saw him commit his own parsonage, with wife and child, to the flames.

Despite his dreadful ideas, Bakunin proved genuinely amiable and tender-hearted. He was fully alive to Wagner's anxiety about risking his ideals and hopes for art's future. He declined instruction on artistic schemes and would not even look at Wagner's Nibelungen work. When Wagner conceived a tragedy about Jesus of Nazareth inspired by the Gospels, Bakunin begged to be spared details, wished him luck, but insisted Jesus must appear as a weak character. He advised using only one set of musical phrases: for the tenor "Off with His head!" for the soprano "Hang Him!" and for the basso continuo "Fire! fire!" Yet Wagner felt more sympathetically drawn to him when Wagner played and sang scenes from the Flying Dutchman. After listening with unusual attention, Bakunin exclaimed "That is stupendously fine!" and wanted to hear more. Notably, while preaching his horrible doctrines, Bakunin shielded Wagner's eyes from the naked light for an hour due to Wagner's eye troubles.

Bakunin's concealed life was very dull, so Wagner occasionally invited him for evenings. His wife Minna served finely cut slices of sausage and meat, which Bakunin devoured wholesale instead of spreading them frugally on bread in Saxon fashion. He laughed and said it was quite enough, only he wished to eat what was set before him in his own way. Wagner was similarly astonished by his drinking from small glasses. Bakunin detested wine, which only satisfied his craving for alcoholic stimulants in such paltry, prolonged, subdivided doses; whereas a stiff glass of brandy swallowed at a gulp produced the same result more efficiently. Above all, he scorned sentiment that seeks to prolong enjoyment by moderation. He argued that a true man should only strive to still the cravings of nature, and that the only real pleasure in life worthy of a man was love.

Wagner describes Bakunin as a remarkable man whose purest impulses of ideal humanity conflicted strangely with savagery inimical to all civilization. During conversations, Wagner attempted to instruct him regarding his artistic aims, but Bakunin dismissed these as premature, insisting instead on destruction of existing institutions. Wagner came to realize that Bakunin's plans rested upon impossible hypotheses and visionary assumptions. Bakunin's practical revolutionary activity proved limited to a scheme for revolutionizing Prague, relying solely on a union formed among a handful of students. He departed for Prague with a passport made out for an English merchant, having submitted his beard and bushy hair to the painful trimming of Röckel using a dull razor. He returned within a week, having found only childish students waiting. These admissions made him the butt of Röckel's chaff, earning him the reputation among Wagner's circle of being a mere revolutionary content with theoretical conspiracy.

Wagner found himself in a state of brooding instability, fully convinced his activity in Dresden as an artist had come to an end. His latest work had been the five-act drama "Jesus of Nazareth," and he waited only for circumstances to free him from the city. An entirely new influence arrived when Liszt wrote announcing an early production of Tannhäuser in Weimar under his own conductorship—the first performance outside Dresden. Liszt modestly presented this as a personal desire, inviting Tichatschek as his guest for the first performances. Upon Tichatschek's return, Wagner learned the production had been a success, and he received a gold snuff-box from the Grand Duke as a keepsake. A cordial letter from Liszt induced Wagner to visit Weimar for a third performance, arranged entirely by native talent for permanent addition to the repertoire. Wagner obtained leave of absence from his management for the second week in May 1849.

The political situation in Saxony and throughout Germany tended inevitably toward catastrophe. On May 1, the Chambers were dissolved by the new Beust ministry, prompting Wagner to help Röckel escape across the Bohemian frontier and arrange for the continuation of his Volksblatt to support his family. On May 3, the crowds in Dresden's thoroughfares plainly showed that decisive conflict was imminent. Wagner attended a committee meeting of the Vaterlands-Verein, observing that events had passed beyond the leaders' control and that they were at a loss dealing with terrorism from the lower classes. While departing with a young painter named Kaufmann near the Postplatz, the tocsin of revolt suddenly sounded from St. Ann's Church tower. Wagner felt a strange satisfaction and an almost extravagant longing to play with something dangerous. A sanguinary conflict had erupted at the Arsenal when the mob seized the opportunity to take possession of the armory during the changing of the watch. Military force was displayed, and the crowd was fired upon with cannon loaded with grape-shot. Wagner witnessed the Dresden Communal Guards caught in this fire, including one man whose leg was dragging helplessly. The cry "To the barricades!" arose, and Wagner followed the stream of people toward the Town Hall, observing a significant group that reminded him of crowds that had once demanded free entrance to his opera Rienzi. On May 4, the Town Hall became the undoubted center of the revolution. The King and court, acting on Beust's advice, had fled by ship to the fortress of Königstein. The town council summoned remaining members of the Saxon Chamber, who sent a deputation to the ministry only to find them nowhere to be found. News arrived that Prussian troops would advance to occupy Dresden, prompting a general outcry for measures to prevent this incursion. Simultaneously came intelligence of the national uprising in Württemberg, where troops had frustrated government intentions through their declaration of fidelity to parliament.

The author organised a demonstration to convince Saxon battalions of the importance of their actions against foreign troops. Large placards bearing the question "Are you on our side against the foreign troops?" were posted on barricades. The demonstration proved futile, as only informers took notice. The Old Town of Dresden with its barricades attracted spectators, and the author observed Bakunin emerging from hiding to wander among the barricades in a black frockcoat.

Bakunin viewed the revolutionary preparations with sharp criticism, recognizing the "childish inefficiency" of all defensive measures. He declared he needed not concern himself with police, since he found no inducement to participate in an insurrection conducted "in such a slovenly fashion." While Bakunin walked about smoking a cigar and mocking the naïveté of the Dresden revolution, the author watched the Communal Guards assembling under arms at the Town Hall.

From the Schützen-Compagnie, Rietschel approached the author, expressing difficulty reconciling his democratic sentiments as a member of the company with his duties as a citizen and Academy professor. Semper responded with a peculiar smile when the author repeated the word "citizen" with emphasis, turning away without further comment.

On Friday, May 5th, the remaining leaders constituted themselves into a provisional government, as no Saxon government existed for negotiations. Professor Kochly proclaimed the new administration from the Town Hall balcony to the Communal Guards and sparse crowd. The Pan-German Constitution was proclaimed and allegiance sworn by armed forces. The author found these proceedings unimposing, and Bakunin's repeated dismissals of their significance became increasingly comprehensible.

Semper, in full citizen guard uniform with national colours on his hat, reported to the author on the faulty construction of barricades in the Wild Strufergasse and Brudergasse. The author directed him to the Military Commission for Defence, where Semper presumably obtained authorisation to oversee strategic defensive works, though the author never saw him again in Dresden.

While the provisional government sought peaceful settlement through moral persuasion, Bakunin foresaw a well-planned Prussian military attack requiring strategic countermeasures. He urgently advocated acquiring experienced Polish officers, as Saxon revolutionaries lacked military tactics. Everyone feared this approach, placing greater hopes in negotiations with the failing Frankfort States Assembly. The atmosphere remained theatrical, with elegant ladies promenading barricaded streets during beautiful spring evenings.

The author's nieces Clara and Ottilie Brockhaus, daughters of his sister Louisa, had lived in Dresden for a year with a governess. They heartily approved of the barricades and desired victory for their defenders. Protected by the truce, optimistic news arrived: Baden and the Palatinate revolting, similar reports from Breslau, and volunteer student corps from Leipzig mustering for Dresden. The Erzgebirge promised armed support, and young Heine joined the defence department at Town Hall.

The day passed in negotiations for a truce with Saxon troops lasting until noon the next day. The author noticed former college friend Marschall von Bieberstein, a lawyer serving as senior officer of the Dresden Communal Guard, distinguishing himself with boundless zeal. A former Greek colonel named Heinz assumed command of armed forces. Despite these preparations, the author strolled home comfortably through barricades, contemplating his drama Achilleus.

Early Saturday, May 6th, Prussian troops marched into the New Town while Saxon troops remained loyal. The truce expired at noon, and troops immediately opened attack on the Neumarkt with artillery support. The author felt the matter would be decided summarily once actual conflict began, lacking evidence of that "passionate seriousness of purpose" required to withstand such severe tests.

Hearing sharp rifle fire but unable to gather information, the author climbed the Kreuz tower. From this elevation, he determined that after an hour of heavy firing, Prussian advance artillery had retired and been silenced, their withdrawal signalled by jubilation from the populace. The author's interest in events intensified as initial attacks exhausted themselves.

From Bakunin at Town Hall, the author learned detailed account of events at the Neumarkt barricade. Marschall von Bieberstein and Leo von Zichlinsky, citizen corps officers, led volunteers to reinforce the position where Kreis-Amtmann Heubner of Freiberg, without weapons and bareheaded, had alone mounted the barricade abandoned by its defenders. Heubner, the sole provisional government member remaining, exhorted volunteers to advance with stirring words. Their success was complete; the barricade was retaken and fierce fire forced troops to retire. Heubner belonged to the moderate Left of the Saxon Chamber.

The example of Heubner determined Bakunin's conduct; he decided to risk his life and ask no further questions. Heubner likewise recognised the necessity for extreme measures and accepted Bakunin's proposals. Experienced Polish officers' military advice was brought to bear, while Bakunin, who confessed ignorance of pure strategy, remained at Heubner's side at Town Hall, offering advice and information with remarkable sangfroid. Sharpshooter skirmishes continued throughout the day.

To reach the Kreuz tower from Town Hall, the author crossed a square under rifle crossfire from troops in the royal palace. Walking slowly to avoid drawing fire, he reached the tower where several people had gathered, including a schoolmaster called Berthold—quiet, gentle, yet full of conviction. The two entered an earnest philosophical discussion on religion while Berthold ingeniously positioned them behind a barricade of straw mattresses to protect against Prussian sharpshooters firing from the distant Frauenkirche tower.

The author could not bear to leave his vantage point at nightfall. He sent the warder's subordinate to Friedrichstadt with a message to his wife requesting provisions. Thus he spent one of the most extraordinary nights of his life, taking turns with Berthold to keep watch and sleep beneath the great bell's terrible groaning clang, with continuous Prussian rifle fire striking the tower walls.

Sunday, May 7th, proved one of the year's most beautiful days. The author was awakened by nightingales from the Schütze garden. A sacred calm lay over Dresden as sunrise brought mist, through which the Marseillaise rang clearly. The mist dispersed to reveal a long column of armed men from the Erzgebirge—mostly miners—marching toward town. Witnessing this procession, the author felt deeply impressed by an element he had long missed in the German people: vital colour and freshness. About a thousand well-armed, organised men arrived, bivouacking on the Altmarkt to joyful welcomes. Reinforcements poured in all day, while Prussian attacks shifted to numerous simultaneous but less concentrated assaults on various positions. Herr Thade von Burgk's four small cannon arrived with the reinforcements—cannon the author had previously met at the Dresden Choral Society anniversary.

Toward eleven o'clock, the author witnessed the old Opera House—where he had conducted the last performance of the Ninth Symphony weeks earlier—burst into flames. This building had long been a subject of terror due to its wooden construction, textile fabrics, and original temporary purpose. The ironic recollection of Burgk's wearisome anniversary speech returned as his cannons now fired upon the enemy from the barricades.

The narrator recounts being told that the Opera House was deliberately set ablaze as a strategic measure to defend against attack on an exposed flank and protect the nearby Semper barricade from being overwhelmed. This event led him to conclude that strategic considerations vastly outweigh aesthetic concerns in human affairs. While art enthusiasts had long campaigned to demolish the supposedly unsightly building that disrupted the elegant proportions of the neighboring Zwinger Gallery, the fire was executed within moments, consuming the large but flammable structure entirely.

When the flames reached the metal roofs of the Zwinger Gallery's adjacent wings, they enveloped them in striking bluish fire, prompting audible expressions of regret among observers. Spectators worried whether the Natural History collection or the Armoury faced danger, with one citizen soldier quipping that burning the "stuffed noblemen" would serve them right. Fortunately, an acute appreciation for artistic value managed to contain the fire's spread, limiting damage to that quarter.

As the narrator's observation post became crowded with armed soldiers ordered to defend the approach from the church to the Altmarkt, he received word that his wife was demanding his return home after enduring prolonged and severe anxiety over his safety.

Upon successfully navigating circuitous routes back to his isolated suburb, cut off by fortified areas and cannon fire from the Zwinger, the narrator discovered his lodgings filled with agitated women gathered around his wife Minna. Among them was Röckel's panic-stricken wife, who feared her husband was in the thick of battle, having presumably returned upon hearing news of Dresden's uprising. His young nieces helped lift his spirits, while the women expressed fury toward sculptor Hänel, who had advocated locking down the house against revolutionaries. They ridiculed his terror at the sight of armed men with scythes in the street. The Sunday passed in an almost festive atmosphere despite the gunfire.

On Monday morning, May 8th, while crossing a barricade near St. Ann's Church, a member of the Communal Guard addressed the narrator as "conductor" and declared that his "Freude, schöner Götterfunken" (Joy, beautiful divine spark) from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony had indeed ignited events, noting that the unsightly building had been reduced to rubble. The guard proved to be an enthusiastic member of the audience at the narrator's recent Ninth Symphony performance, and this unexpected, poetic greeting filled him with an extraordinary sensation of strength and liberation.

Further along in a solitary alley in the Plauen suburb, the narrator encountered Hiebendahl, the first oboist of the royal orchestra and a musician of considerable reputation, who wore a Communal Guard uniform but carried no weapon while conversing with a fellow citizen. Hiebendahl urgently appealed to the narrator to intervene regarding Röckel, who, accompanied by revolutionary ordnance officers, was searching for guns in that district. When Hiebendahl realized the narrator was making sympathetic inquiries about Röckel, he withdrew in alarm, cautioning that the conductor seemed unconcerned about his position and potential losses. The narrator responded with laughter, expressing that his position warranted no such consideration—his true feelings, long suppressed, now burst forth with near-joyful force.

At that moment, Röckel appeared with two armed citizen soldiers carrying guns. After greeting the narrator warmly, Röckel turned to berate Hiebendahl for idling in uniform instead of performing his duties. When Hiebendahl claimed his weapon had been requisitioned, Röckel dismissively replied, "You're a fine lot of fellows!" Röckel provided a brief account of his experiences since their last meeting, sparing the narrator from delivering his Volksblatt report. Their conversation was interrupted by a substantial column of several hundred well-armed young gymnasium students who had just entered the city seeking safe passage to their muster point. The sight of these disciplined young men proceeding courageously to their duty made a deeply uplifting impression. Röckel offered to escort them safely over the barricades to their destination at the Town Hall, while lamenting the conspicuous lack of genuine spirit he had encountered among the leadership. He had proposed defending the most threatened barricades by igniting them with pitch brands, but the mere suggestion threw the provisional government into panic. The narrator parted ways with Röckel at this point and did not see him again for thirteen years.

At the Town Hall, Bakunin informed the narrator that the provisional government, upon his counsel, had decided to abandon Dresden's position, which had been fundamentally neglected from the outset and could not be held indefinitely. The plan called for an armed retreat to the Erzgebirge mountains, where reinforcements arriving from all directions—particularly Thuringia—could be concentrated strongly enough to launch a German civil war without hesitation. Defending isolated barricaded streets in Dresden, by contrast, would reduce the struggle merely to the character of an urban uprising, however bravely it was fought. The narrator confessedly found this scheme magnificent and pregnant with meaning. Hitherto he had been moved only by sympathy for a cause initially entered with near-ironic disbelief, then pursued with surprising vigor. Now, however, everything previously incomprehensible revealed itself as a grand and hopeful solution. Without feeling coerced or called to a specific role, the narrator abandoned all concern for his personal situation and committed himself to the unfolding developments. Nevertheless, unwilling to leave his wife helpless in Dresden, he hastily devised a way to draw her along without immediately revealing the full extent of his resolve.

Recognizing that Friedrichstadt had been largely severed from the inner city by Prussian troop occupation, the narrator visualized his suburb under military control and contemplated the repulsive consequences of siege. He easily persuaded Minna to accompany him on a visit via the still-open Tharanderstrasse to Chemnitz, where his married sister Clara resided, promising to follow with the parrot within an hour. He departed ahead with his dog Peps to arrange transportation for their journey. It was a bright spring morning as he traversed paths familiar from his solitary walks, knowing he would never walk them again. While larks soared and sang above the fields, artillery thundered continuously through Dresden's streets. The uninterrupted gunfire of several days had seared itself so indelibly into his nerves that it would continue echoing in his mind, much as sea-sickness persisted after a ship's motion. With this terrible music accompanying him, the narrator cast a final farewell toward the city's towers, reflecting that if his entry seven years earlier had occurred under obscure circumstances, his exit was at least conducted with some ceremony.

Traveling toward the Erzgebirge in a one-horse carriage with Minna, the narrator frequently encountered armed reinforcements heading toward Dresden, each sighting kindling involuntary joy—even his wife could not refrain from calling out encouragement. A contrary, somber impression came from silent columns of Prussian regulars marching toward Dresden, who answered questions about their destination with the mechanical response, "To do their duty." Upon reaching his relatives in Chemnitz, the narrator alarmed everyone by announcing his intention to return to Dresden the next day to assess the situation. Despite all attempts at dissuasion, he carried out his plan, driven by a suspicion he would encounter the revolutionary forces retreating. As he drew nearer, rumors confirmed that Dresden showed no sign of surrender; indeed, the struggle appeared highly favorable for the national party. This struck him as one miracle after another. On Tuesday, May 9th, he pressed forward with mounting excitement across increasingly inaccessible terrain. All main roads were avoided; progress was possible only through houses that had been broken through. He finally reached the Altstadt Town Hall as night fell.

A profoundly terrible scene met his eyes. He had crossed sections of the city prepared for desperate house-to-house fighting. The ceaseless groaning of heavy and light artillery reduced all other sounds to an eerie murmur. Armed men continuously shouted to each other across barricades and through gaps they had smashed between houses. Pitch brands burned in places, pale figures lay prostrate around watch posts, utterly exhausted, and any unarmed passerby was sharply challenged. Nothing in his experience compared to the impression created by entering the Town Hall chambers. Here gathered a dark, compact, serious mass of people, every face marked by unspeakable fatigue. No voice retained its natural tone; only a hoarse jumble of conversation conducted at the highest pitch of tension existed. The sole familiar sight was the Town Hall's old servants in their quaint antique uniforms and three-cornered hats. These normally intimidating tall men were now engaged partly in buttering bread and slicing ham and sausage, partly in packing vast quantities of provisions into baskets for messengers sent by barricade defenders. These servants had become the literal nursing mothers of the revolution.

The narrator finds the members of the provisional government at Dresden's Town Hall after a grueling week without sleep. Heubner appears exhausted yet maintains his energy, while Bakunin remains remarkably composed, smoking a cigar despite the chaos. Bakunin describes the military situation: barricade defense had initially succeeded against Prussian reinforcements, but enemy troops adopted house-to-house fighting tactics by breaking through walls, rendering barricades useless. Also present is young Haimberger, a Galician violinist whom Bakunin had hoped to protect from the uprising, but who now carries a musket at the barricades.

Bakunin proposes gathering all powder stores in the Town Hall's lower rooms and destroying them as the enemy approaches. The town council protests vehemently against this plan. Though Bakunin insists on executing the measure, the council outwits him by secretly removing all the powder stores. Heubner, normally supportive of Bakunin, is won over to the opposing side regarding this particular decision.

With the powder stores removed and the enemy's advance inevitable, the provisional government decides to retreat to the Erzgebirge mountains. This retreat, originally intended for the previous day, is now scheduled for the following morning. Young Zichlinsky receives orders to secure the road to Plauen. Röckel's whereabouts remain unknown since the previous evening—he is presumed captured due to his nervous state.

The narrator reports on reinforcements observed during travel to and from Chemnitz, including thousands from the communal guard and four hundred reservists who arrived in Freiberg but were too exhausted to proceed further. The provisional government asks the narrator to return immediately with their message. Marschall von Bieberstein volunteers to accompany him, serving as an officer of the provisional government better suited to communicate orders. They travel together to requisition a carriage and bid farewell to Bieberstein's family.

Bakunin reports that the retreat from Dresden was successfully achieved without loss. Early in the morning, he ordered the felling of trees in the newly planted Maximilian Avenue to create a barricade against potential cavalry flanking attacks. The inhabitants lament the destruction of their "beautiful trees." The provisional government members travel in a hired carriage from Dresden, accompanied by weary National Guard members struggling for seats.

The narrator encounters armed revolutionaries marching away from Dresden and learns that the provisional government is retreating in a carriage behind them. Upon meeting the party, the narrator finds Heubner, Bakunin, and Martin the post-office clerk in a hired carriage. The coach driver desperately implores them not to overload his lightly sprung vehicle, eventually breaking into sobs. Bakunin remains unconcerned, famously declaring that "the tears of a Philistine are nectar for the gods." The narrator and Heubner join rebel contingents along the highway, where Heubner exhorts leaders to maintain faith in their cause and directs all forces to retire to Freiberg.

A German Catholic priest named Menzdorff steps forward seeking the provisional government's protection. The narrator had previously met Menzdorff in Dresden; it was this priest who first induced him to read Feuerbach. Menzdorff had been imprisoned and mistreated by the Chemnitz municipal guard after organizing a demonstration to pressure them into marching to Dresden. He regained freedom only through chance encounters with friendly volunteer corps. The Chemnitz guard later sends representatives to learn the situation from Heubner.

Upon reaching Freiberg, Heubner's friends meet him urgently requesting that the provisional government not establish itself there and plunge the town into desperate street-fighting. Heubner makes no immediate reply but takes Bakunin and the narrator into his house for consultation. A poignant scene occurs between Heubner and his wife, where he briefly explains the gravity of his mission, reminding her he stakes his life for Germany and his country's high destiny. Breakfast follows in a reasonably cheerful atmosphere.

At breakfast, Heubner addresses Bakunin directly, despite their slight prior acquaintance. He demands to know whether Bakunin's political aim is truly the Red Republic. Bakunin replies that he has no attachment to any political form of government and would not risk his life for any of them. He explains that he initially viewed the Dresden rising as foolish until witnessing Heubner's noble and courageous example. From that moment, political considerations became secondary to his sympathy for Heubner's heroic stance. He acknowledges Heubner belongs to the moderate party but cannot predict that party's political future. When Heubner then asks whether it would be conscientious to disband their forces given seemingly hopeless circumstances, Bakunin insists that Heubner, as the first member of the provisional government who issued the call to arms, cannot abandon his post. Hundreds have sacrificed their lives in response to that call; dispersing now would render those sacrifices meaningless. Their lives might be forfeit, but their honor must remain unsullied so future calls to action would not drive everyone to despair.

Heubner immediately issued a summons for elections to establish a representative assembly for Saxony at Chemnitz, intending to hold the town as headquarters for a provisional government. He believed that with popular support and the arrival of insurgent bands from various quarters, he could maintain control until the general situation in Germany stabilized.

Stephan Born arrived to report that he had successfully brought armed bands into Freiberg in good order and without casualties. Though Born, a compositor who had assumed chief command during the previous three days in Dresden, inspired confidence with his straightforward manner, he declined to defend Freiberg against approaching troops, acknowledging this required military expertise he lacked.

Given Born's admission that defending Freiberg was beyond his capabilities, the leaders decided to retreat to the more densely populated town of Chemnitz to gain time. Born immediately departed to make preliminary arrangements for housing the revolutionaries assembled at Freiberg, while Heubner sought brief rest.

The narrator found the Town Hall filled with townspeople entertaining large numbers of excited revolutionaries. Despite his earlier exhaustion, Heubner had abandoned rest to organize a commandant's office, spending his time drafting and signing documents amid the surrounding chaos.

Bakunin appeared at the Town Hall seeking a competent officer for command, though none was available. A Vogtland regiment commander initially raised hopes through impassioned speeches, but the general frenzy made decisive action impossible. Heubner therefore ordered the march to Chemnitz once all revolutionaries had eaten.

The narrator chose to travel ahead by coach to Chemnitz but faced repeated delays waiting for revolutionary columns to pass. Despite multiple attempts to rejoin Heubner and Bakunin, he found them departed. After various delays, the coach finally delivered him to Chemnitz late at night, where he learned the next morning that the revolutionary cause had already collapsed.

Heubner, Bakunin, and an associate called Martin had arrived at Chemnitz before the narrator in a hackney-coach, where Heubner announced himself with authority and summoned town councillors to a hotel. Upon the councillors' arrival, all three collapsed from exhaustion. Police then arrested them on behalf of the local government, having been prepared by the Chemnitz municipal guard, which had deliberately lured Heubner into this trap before returning to Dresden.

The narrator's brother-in-law conveyed him by night to Altenburg, whence he continued by coach to Weimar, where he had originally intended to spend his holidays. His brother-in-law noted that Providence had intervened to prevent the narrator from sharing the arrested men's fate, as the town guard had identified him as associated with the revolutionaries.

Upon meeting Liszt again, the narrator immediately discussed the planned Tannhäuser revival at Weimar. Though struggling to explain his irregular departure from Dresden, he found himself unable to clearly understand his legal status. Discussions with Liszt and Princess Caroline of Wittgenstein covered artistic topics including a proposed tragedy about Jesus of Nazareth, which the Princess vigorously opposed. The narrator recognized from his half-hearted defense of his own theories how profoundly shaken he remained.

The Tannhäuser orchestral rehearsal renewed the narrator's artistic inspiration through Liszt's conducting, which demonstrated a deep sympathetic understanding of the music. During a subsequent dinner, however, the narrator observed a disturbing trait: Liszt worked himself into an alarming state of excitement, nearly gnashing his teeth in fury against certain elements of society. The outburst left the narrator bewildered, and Liszt required the night to recover from the resulting nervous attack.

Liszt departed unexpectedly for Karlsruhe, inviting the narrator and Director Stohr to accompany him to Eisenach. There, Lord Chamberlain Beaulieu required the narrator to meet Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Weimar, sister of Emperor Nicholas, who received him with surprising kindness. Liszt later explained that the Grand Duchess had learned of the pending arrest warrant against the narrator and therefore hastened to meet him before the situation became more compromising.

Stohr and musical director Kuhmstedt accompanied the narrator to visit the unrestored Wartburg, filling him with strange musings about his fate. Standing in this castle so meaningful to him, he acknowledged that his remaining time in Germany was now numbered. Upon returning to Weimar, the party received serious news from Dresden.

A letter from the narrator's wife revealed that police had searched his house in Dresden, where she had returned, and warned that an arrest warrant had been issued. Liszt consulted a legal expert to consider options for the narrator's protection. While Minister von Watzdorf suggested quietly submitting to arrest, alarming reports of brutal Prussian conduct under the state of siege in Dresden prompted Liszt and his friends to urge the narrator's immediate departure from Weimar.

The narrator's wife, anxious for his safety, arranged for him to shelter at the village of Magdala, three hours from Weimar, under the protection of a friendly steward. Introducing himself as Professor Werder from Berlin, pursuing financial studies, the narrator spent three days in rural seclusion. There he observed a dispersed revolutionary contingent returning in disorder, whose speeches he found contemptible. Market day brought news that Röckel had been forced to flee Weimar upon the arrival of his arrest warrant from Dresden.

Upon the steward mentioning Röckel's name, his wife confirmed that this was indeed the composer whose opera was being performed in Weimar before his sudden departure due to the warrant. The steward laughingly observed that Röckel would not be foolish enough to let them catch him.

On 22nd May, Wagner's birthday, Minna finally arrived at Magdala. She had traveled from Weimar, where she had received his letter, determined to persuade him to flee immediately. Despite Wagner's efforts to elevate her mood, Minna insisted on viewing him as inconsiderate, having plunged them both into a terrible situation. Her arrival marked the beginning of their final separation.

The couple arranged to meet the following evening at Professor Wolff's house in Jena. Wagner walked approximately six hours from Magdala, arriving at sunset. A conference took place with Professors Wolff and Widmann regarding his escape plans. A warrant had been issued against him for suspected participation in the Dresden uprising, making any German federal state unsafe. While Liszt advocated for Paris, Widmann warned against the direct route through Frankfort and Baden, suggesting Bavaria and Switzerland instead. Widmann generously offered his Tübingen passport for the journey.

The parting from his wife caused Wagner genuine pain. He departed by mail-coach through various towns, including Rudolstadt, to the Bavarian frontier. From there he continued by mail-coach directly to Lindau, where he arrived in a feverish state of excitement, anticipating the border checks at the city gates.

Wagner spent a restless night trying to master the Swabian dialect associated with Professor Widmann's passport, fearing interrogation by Bavarian police. When the policeman arrived in the morning and distributed three passports at random, Wagner successfully claimed his own. Boarding the Lake Constance steamer, he felt immense relief at having reached Swiss territory. The spring morning revealed the Alpine landscape across the broad lake.

Stepping onto Republican soil at Rorschach, Wagner's first act was writing home to announce his safe arrival in Switzerland and deliverance from danger. The coach drive through St. Gall to Zürich lifted his spirits considerably. Arriving in Zürich on the last day of May at six o'clock, he saw the Glarner Alps gleaming in the sunset and resolved, though not fully consciously, to settle there.

Wagner had good reason to choose the Swiss route: his old acquaintance Alexander Müller was in Zürich. Müller, a music teacher who had once studied with him at Würzburg, had received a copy of Tannhäuser from Wagner via pupil Wilhelm Baumgartner. Müller and Baumgartner immediately introduced Wagner to cantonal secretaries Jacob Sulzer and Franz Hagenbuch. These officials received him with respectful curiosity and sympathy, offering him a glimpse of civil life under simple republican values. He felt protected and safe, contrasting sharply with his criminal status in Germany.

To secure the secretaries' full support, Wagner's friends arranged an evening where he would read his poem on the Death of Siegfried. He found the audience extraordinarily attentive. This success led directly to the issuance of a fully valid federal passport, enabling him to continue his journey to Paris with confidence.

Wagner read his poem on the Death of Siegfried to his new Swiss friends. Among men, he claimed never to have had more attentive listeners. This artistic presentation proved instrumental in gaining the official assistance needed for his federal passport.

After a short stay in Zürich, Wagner departed joyfully for Paris. From Strasbourg, where he admired the famous minster, he traveled by malle-poste. The rhythm of the wheels seemed to cast a spell, replacing the persistent echoes of Dresden cannon-fire with the melody of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. His spirits rose progressively as he traveled through Switzerland toward Paris.

Arriving in Paris in early June, Wagner visited Schlesinger's music shop, where Meyerbeer happened to be hiding behind the desk. Upon hearing Wagner's voice, Meyerbeer had concealed himself for over ten minutes. Their awkward encounter revealed lingering tensions from past dealings in Berlin. Meyerbeer expressed surprise that Wagner seemed uninterested in capitalizing on Liszt's brilliant article about him in the Journal des Débats. Wagner responded that a friend's devoted enthusiasm should not be treated as a commercial speculation. When Meyerbeer questioned what Wagner expected from the revolution, Wagner declared he had no intention of writing scores for barricades. Moritz Schlesinger also approached him assuming he sought fame in Paris, but Wagner declined, having no funds and no interest in such pursuits.

Paris in June was gripped by a cholera epidemic. Funeral processions passed the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette every hour, announced by muffled drums of the National Guard. Wagner was forbidden to touch water and had to observe strict dietary precautions. The motto "liberté, égalité, fraternité" remained visible everywhere, yet capitalist bankers with money-sacks seemed to be regaining power after suppressing socialist movements. Wagner spent bright hours with fellow refugee Semper, who had escaped Dresden after observing a famous barricade as an architect. Young Heine, who had wished to paint Lohengrin scenery, also joined them, employed by Desplechins. Wagner alone felt aimlessly stranded in the cholera-stricken capital.

Belloni invited Wagner to join his family at a country place near La Fère-sous-Jouarre for fresh air and quiet. After another week in Paris, Wagner journeyed to Rueil and took lodging with Monsieur Raphaël, a wine merchant, near the village mairie. During the period of news blackout from Germany, he read Proudhon's writings and Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins. When news arrived of the failed 13th June Republican uprising against the provisional government, Wagner remained preoccupied with events on the Rhine, particularly the provisional government in Baden.

Word reached Wagner that the Prussian forces had successfully suppressed the Baden movement, which had initially seemed hopeful. This news profoundly depressed him. Meanwhile, his Weimar friends wrote curtly about his recent behavior, advising that nothing could be done for him in Dresden or at the grand-ducal court. The Princess von Wittgenstein's phrase "on ne frappe pas à des portes enfoncées" captured their stance. They did send financial assistance, prompting Wagner to decide on returning to Zürich to seek shelter with Alex Müller. His thoughts remained fixed on the failing revolutionary movements along the Rhine.

Wagner's saddest moment came with Minna's final letter after a long silence. She declared she could not dream of living with him again, stating that after he had so unscrupulously thrown away a connection and position that would never come again, no woman could reasonably be expected to take further interest in his future. Wagner appreciated her difficult position and could only advise her to sell their Dresden furniture and appeal to his relatives in Leipzig for her support.

Realizing that Minna comprehends him no better than the general public does, and judges his conduct merely as reckless rather than understanding his artistic and political agitation, Wagner becomes deeply disillusioned. This severing of emotional intimacy marks the effective end of his hope for her sympathy during his struggles.

In response to Minna's announcement that she will cease writing to him, Wagner resolves to end all communication to spare her further anxiety about his doubtful fate. He critically surveys their entire association from their sorrowful early married years onward, recognizing the irrevocable breach between them.

Wagner perceives a fundamental incompatibility of character and education between himself and Minna that has grown increasingly apparent since their reconciliation. She attributes his artistic deviations from the commercially profitable path to the influence of unscrupulous persons like Röckel rather than his evolving artistic convictions.

The marriage is plagued by frequent violent quarrels from its earliest years. After these outbursts, Minna never admits fault or seeks reconciliation, instead retreating from the close fellowship she once enjoyed as Wagner moves further from the path she deems wise.

To restore domestic peace, Wagner habitually assumes complete blame for disputes and mollifies Minna through apology. This practice costs him all authority over her affections and character, and he recognizes he can no longer employ such tactics without abandoning his own artistic views and integrity.

Wagner sees the Dresden catastrophe—his ruinous political involvement—as confirmation of his wife's warnings, though he attributes his downfall to broader circumstances. He realizes their domestic discord contributed significantly to his professional ruin, finding no support at home but instead unwitting opposition from Minna alongside his external enemies.

Seeking refuge in Zürich, Wagner arrives with only twenty francs to his name and takes lodging with his friend Muller, surrendering a large room with a grand piano for a modest bedroom. Despite indigestible meals at Muller's house, he enjoys generous hospitality from young locals who value his personality over his musical reputation.

In Zürich, Wagner forms a profound friendship with Jakob Sulzer, a young man of exceptional moral character and maturity beyond his years. Wagner later recalls Sulzer as the beau-ideal of uprightness and real character, superior to any other man he has encountered.

Jakob Sulzer holds the significant government post of Cantonal Secretary (Staatsschreiber), appointed by the liberal party led by Alfred Escher due to his extraordinary promise following studies at Berlin and Bonn. He rises rapidly to become Minister of Finance and later serves with distinction on the School Federation.

Sulzer's official residence becomes the venue for unique cultural gatherings attracted by Wagner's presence, occurring with perhaps excessive frequency for a civil servant in the conservative canton. The musician Baumgartner is particularly drawn by the liberal supply of wine from Sulzer's Winterthur vineyards, and Wagner's extreme views on art often receive responses influenced more by drink than genuine conviction.

During one exuberant evening at Sulzer's residence, Wagner conceives the absurd idea of removing all the doors from their hinges. With the help of Herr Hagenbuch's great strength, they succeed in laying aside every door; Sulzer smiles benignly but spends the entire night replacing them before the sergeant arrives in the morning.

The extraordinary freedom of his Zürich existence stimulates Wagner's artistic productivity. He begins writing down ideas developed through private experience and the political unrest of the day, hoping to earn money through his pen by propounding revolutionary views on modern art's relation to society.

After Albert Franck rejects his articles as unpublishable in Paris, Wagner sends the manuscript titled *Kunst und Revolution* to Otto Wigand in Leipzig. Wigand publishes it as a pamphlet and pays Wagner five louis d'or, marking his first earnings from published work.

Wigand eagerly accepts Wagner's subsequent pamphlet on the Nibelungen legend for another five louis d'or, hoping to profit from scandal surrounding the notorious "royal conductor" turned refugee. This success prompts Wagner to plan a series of public lectures in Zürich for the coming winter to sustain himself financially.

Facing destitution with no other means of support, Wagner resolves to give public lectures in Zürich on topics related to his recent writings. He hopes this precarious arrangement will sustain him through the winter without requiring him to resume musical employment.

Witnessing the fragments of the defeated Baden army scattered across Swiss territory leaves a painful impression on Wagner. The news of Görgey's surrender near Villagos destroys his last hopes regarding the outcome of the European struggle for liberty, causing him to withdraw his gaze from external events and turn inward.

Wagner frequents the café littéraire, taking coffee after his heavy midday meal amid a smoky atmosphere of men playing dominoes. The common wallpaper there, depicting antique subjects, recalls to his mind Genelli's watercolour "The Education of Dionysos by the Muses," which had impressed him in his youth.

In the café littéraire, Wagner conceives the first ideas for *Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft* (The Art-Work of the Future), roused from post-prandial dreams by the unexpected news that the actress Schröder-Devrient is staying in Zürich. He immediately resolves to visit her at the nearby hotel.

Upon arriving at the hotel Zum Schwerte, Wagner is dismayed to learn that Schröder-Devrient has just departed by steamer; he never sees her again. He only hears of her painful death years later through his wife, who had become acquainted with her in Dresden during a later period.

After two months apart, Wagner receives reassuring news that Minna, despite a harsh parting, desires reunion. She arrives at Rorschach in September with her dog Peps, parrot Papo, and so-called sister Nathalie. Wagner is emotionally moved by her arrival, though Minna immediately threatens to return to Dresden if he misbehaves. Observing her aged appearance, he feels pity and all bitterness fades.

Minna is deeply dissatisfied with Zürich, constantly comparing it unfavorably to the grandeur of Dresden. She scorns Wagner's local acquaintances, dismissing Cantonal Secretary Sulzer as a mere town clerk and expressing disgust at the wife of his host Muller. She longs for Dresden's superior orchestra and appreciative public.

Minna brings several belongings from Dresden, including a Breitkopf and Hartel grand-piano and a framed title-page of the *Nibelungen* by Cornelius. These items become the nucleus of their new household in Zürich.

Using proceeds from the sale of Dresden furniture, Minna brings three hundred marks to Zürich. The couple decides to take small lodgings in the ‘hinteren Escherhausern’ in the Zeltweg, beginning their new home with these modest resources.

Minna had entrusted Wagner’s small but select library to publisher Heinrich Brockhaus for safekeeping. However, Brockhaus claims the books as security for a debt of fifteen hundred marks and refuses to release them. Despite years passing, Wagner cannot repay the debt, and the library is lost to him forever.

Through the help of friend Sulzer, the Cantonal Secretary, they succeed in making their small lodgings cosy. Minna’s ingenuity is evident when she converts the box that held Wagner’s music and manuscripts into a what-not, adding a personal touch to their home.

To earn a living, Wagner considers giving public lectures, but Minna rejects the idea as an insult to her pride. She insists on the plan suggested by Liszt: Wagner must write an opera for Paris. Wagner reopens negotiations with Liszt’s secretary Belloni and accepts an invitation to conduct Beethoven’s Symphony in A major with the Zürich musical society, earning five napoleons, though Minna remains unhappy with this compromise.

While uncertain about the Paris project, Wagner plunges into his philosophical study of art. In November and December, he writes the entire *Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft* in a chilly, sunless ground‑floor room. Minna does not object, encouraged by the success of his first pamphlet and the hope of better pay for this larger work.

Despite relative peace, Wagner feels an inner unrest as he becomes increasingly acquainted with Feuerbach’s works. This marks a significant philosophical turn in his thinking, opening new intellectual horizons.

Wagner recounts his early attempts at philosophy, finding Hegel’s *Philosophy of History* compelling but eventually drawn to Feuerbach’s radical ideas. Feuerbach’s emphasis on sensory reality and his critique of authoritarian dogma resonate deeply with Wagner, leading him to dedicate *Kunstwerk der Zukunft* to Feuerbach. Wagner’s friend Sulzer, a Hegelian, disapproves but acknowledges Feuerbach’s role in awakening Wagner’s own ideas.

To satisfy Minna’s ambition for a Paris career, Wagner drafts a complete scenario for an opera based on the legend of Wieland der Schmied. He sketches three acts with precise dialogue, intending a French poet to versify it. Liszt arranges for the *Tannhäuser* Overture to be performed in Paris under Seghers, prompting Wagner to travel there despite his lack of funds and reservations.

Wagner’s appeals for financial help are rejected by his brother Albert’s family. In contrast, the Ritter family in Dresden, moved by a letter from Wagner’s old friend Heine, provides fifteen hundred marks through Frau Julie Ritter. Mme. Laussot also offers her continued sympathy. This generosity finally makes the Paris undertaking feasible.

The financial aid from the Ritter family marks a new phase in Wagner’s life. He resolves to regard outward circumstances as subservient to his will, freeing himself from the narrow constraints of his home life and embracing a more independent existence.

Financial assistance offered to Wagner proved distasteful, as it seemed to silence his objections to the Paris plans his wife demanded. When he suggested they remain in Zürich, she flew into a violent rage, accusing him of weakness and declaring she would lose all faith in him if he failed to achieve something in Paris. She refused to witness his misery as a "wretched literary man" conducting local concerts, forcing his hand despite his reservations.

Having decided to go to Paris for peace, Wagner's journey was postponed due to illness. The reaction from recent turbulent times had exhausted his nerves, and continual colds in his unhealthy room produced alarming symptoms. A doctor (a political refugee) treated apparent chest weakness with pitch plasters, which irritating his nerves caused temporary loss of voice. Advised to travel for his health, he nearly abandoned the journey when purchasing his ticket left him weak and drenched in perspiration, but his wife insisted his condition was largely imaginary and he would recover once in Paris.

An inexpressible bitterness stimulated Wagner's nerves as he departed in anger and despair, purchasing his ticket and starting toward Paris in early February. He experienced extraordinary feelings during the journey, though the spark of hope kindled in his breast had nothing to do with external expectations of operatic success in Paris.

Desperate for peace, Wagner searched the most isolated quarters of Paris for quiet rooms, even accusing his cabman of keeping to the most animated parts of the city. The cabman protested that one did not come to Paris to live in a convent. Eventually Wagner found suitable rooms in the Cite de Provence, a quarter where no vehicles seemed to travel.

Immediately upon arriving, Wagner called on Herr Seghers regarding the Tannhäuser Overture performance, only to discover that despite his late arrival, nothing had progressed—the committee was still struggling to procure the necessary orchestral parts.

Wagner had to write to Liszt requesting copies of the orchestral parts and wait for their arrival. With Belloni absent from town, arrangements remained at a standstill. Wagner had ample time to contemplate the purpose of his Paris visit, accompanied by the endless barrel-organs that infested the Parisian cites.

A government agent visited Wagner shortly after his arrival, and he struggled to convince him that his presence in Paris stemmed from artistic reasons rather than his dubious status as a political refugee. The agent was impressed by the score Wagner showed him and by Liszt's article on the Tannhäuser Overture published the previous year in the Journal des Debats. The agent departed politely, assuring Wagner he could continue his work undisturbed.

At the hospitable house of Desplechins, Wagner reunited with Semper, who was enduring his exile by writing inferior artistic works. Semper had left his family in Dresden, from which alarming news soon arrived—the prisons were filling with victims of the recent Saxon movement, including Röckel, Bakunin, and Heubner, who faced charges of high treason and awaited death sentences. Continual reports of brutal treatment of prisoners made Wagner and his companions consider their own lot comparatively fortunate.

Wagner's frequent intercourse with Semper was marked by occasionally risky gaiety; Semper intended to rejoin his family in London where various appointments awaited. They were joined by Kietz, whom Wagner found in the same position as years before—making no progress in painting and hoping the revolution might provide cover to escape his landlord. Kietz produced a good pastel portrait of Wagner but unfortunately discussed *Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft*, creating troubles for Kietz as he tried to introduce Wagner's ideas to Parisian bourgeois circles where he had been a welcome guest. Despite this, Kietz remained a good, obliging fellow whom even Semper cheerfully tolerated.

Wagner sought out his friend Anders, a difficult task given his peculiar schedule—sleeping most hours, closeted in libraries during the day, taking music lessons with bourgeois families. Anders had aged considerably but enjoyed better health than expected, his recovery aided by treatment following a broken leg at a hydrotherapy facility. Anders eagerly anticipated Wagner's Paris success and wished to reserve a seat for the first opera performance, expressing concern about finding space amid the expected crowds.

Despite Liszt's zealous efforts in obtaining and forwarding orchestral parts, Herr Seghers informed Wagner that the performance would not occur. His orchestra functioned as a "republican democracy" where each instrument had equal voice, and they had unanimously decided the overture could be dispensed with for the remainder of the winter season. Wagner realized the precariousness of his position.

Wagner's literary work fared no better. The Wigand edition of *Kunstwerk der Zukunft* arrived full of horrible misprints, and instead of the expected twenty louis d'or, his publisher offered only ten, explaining that while *Kunst und Revolution* had sold rapidly, *Die Nibelungen* found no demand, revealing his overestimate of the commercial value of Wagner's writings.

Adolph Kolatschek, another refugee launching a German monthly journal for the progressive party, offered Wagner paid work. In response, Wagner wrote a lengthy essay on "Kunst und Klima" (Art and Climate), supplementing ideas from *Kunstwerk der Zukunft*. He also sketched a more complete plan for *Wieland der Schmied*. Yet these works held no value, and Wagner anxiously wondered what to tell his wife as the last remittance had been sacrificed. Returning to Zürich was as distasteful as remaining in Paris.

Meyerbeer's opera *The Prophet*, newly produced, profoundly depressed Wagner. Rising on the ruins of hopes for noble artistic endeavor that had animated the previous year's better works—the only result of the provisional French republic's art encouragement—Meyerbeer's work appeared to Wagner as a dawn heralding "this day of disgraceful desolation." When the Prophet's mother finally expressed grief through ridiculous roulades, Wagner's rage and despair drove him to leave the theatre mid-performance, despite his center-stalls position. He never again paid the slightest heed to this opera.

The narrator expresses a deep longing to escape to the East, where he could live away from the modern world in a manner worthy of a human being. This desire follows his earlier experience of misery in Paris.

While in this frame of mind, he received an inquiry about his health from Mme. Laussot in Bordeaux. His response prompted her to send a kind and pressing invitation for him to stay at her house to rest and forget his troubles.

He accepted the invitation and traveled by coach through Orléans, Tours, and Angoulême to Bordeaux. He was received warmly by the young wine merchant Eugène Laussot and introduced to his sympathetic young wife, Jessie.

Jessie Laussot had become very intimate with the Ritter family during a lengthy stay in Dresden, and this connection was the principal reason for their interest in him. After his flight from Dresden, the Ritters had corresponded with the Laussots about how best to assist him.

Jessie's mother, Mrs. Taylor (a wealthy English widow), combined with the Ritters to offer him three thousand francs per year until better times returned.

He felt it necessary to clarify the exact conditions of accepting such assistance, concerned about keeping himself free from any disgrace that might reflect upon his whole life if he used these means to secure success.

Jessie, then about twenty-two, proved to be a remarkable intellectual companion. She had learned German as a child, was thoroughly acquainted with German, English, and French poetry, and possessed astonishing comprehension. She read music at sight with great facility and played beautifully, though her singing voice shocked him. She understood even his most extraordinary essays and was moved by his Siegfried's Tod poem, preferring his sketch of Wieland der Schmied.

He discovered a complete lack of harmony between the young couple, particularly intellectually. Eugene Laussot one day complained bitterly that his wife would not love even a child of his, revealing that he was aware of her dislike for him. The narrator saw an abyss hidden beneath the appearance of a tolerably happy marriage.

His wife wrote demanding he return to Paris to secure the production of his overture, threatening that she would fail to understand him otherwise.

A newspaper notice announced that Röckel, Bakunin, and Heubner had been sentenced to death, and the date of execution was fixed. The narrator wrote a farewell letter to Röckel and Bakunin and sent it to Frau von Lüttichau, who later burned it.

The narrator determined to break with everyone and use the small income to travel to Greece or Asia Minor, dividing it between himself and his wife.

He wrote a long letter to his wife kindly but frankly retracing their entire married life, explaining his determination to set her free from participation in his fate, promising her half of whatever means he had.

Feeling exhausted and upset, he sought retirement at Montmorency, a small town he had heard agreeable accounts of.

He discovered the Hotel Homo, where he took an extraordinarily small room with a rough table and two chairs. He arranged his books, writing materials, and the Lohengrin score there, feeling a sigh of content despite cramped accommodation.

His artistic instinct awoke. He reviewed his Lohengrin score and decided to send it to Liszt. He invited Kietz to visit, who came and cheerfully slept on an improvised bed while promising to keep the world in touch with him.

When news arrived that his wife had come to Paris looking for him, he fled, instructing Kietz to tell her he had left Paris. That night he left by train for Clermont-Tonnerre and on to Geneva.

He retired to Villeneuve at the other end of Lake Geneva, where Karl Ritter joined him at the Hotel Byron. Ritter showed absolute devotion and quick comprehension of his position.

Ritter's enthusiasm for his literary efforts prompted him to spend his remaining days preparing his Siegfried's Tod poem for publication.

Wagner wrote a short preface dedicating a poem to his friends as a relic of the time when he had hoped to devote himself entirely to art, especially music composition. He sent the manuscript to Herr Wigand in Leipzig, who returned it with the remark that if it were printed in Latin characters he would not sell a single copy. Wagner later discovered that Wigand deliberately refused to pay him the ten louis d'or due for *Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft*, which Wagner had directed him to send to his wife.

Only a few days after Karl's arrival, Wagner received a wildly excited letter from Mme. Laussot informing him that she had told her mother of her intentions, immediately arousing suspicion that Wagner was to blame. Her disclosure had been communicated to M. Laussot, who vowed he would search everywhere to put a bullet through Wagner's body. Wagner decided to go to Bordeaux immediately to come to an understanding with his opponent. He wrote fully to M. Eugene, declaring he could not understand how a man could keep a woman by force when she no longer wished to remain. He announced his imminent arrival and offered to remain at a hotel where M. Laussot could find him, while writing a few lines to Mme. Laussot urging her to be calm. He took leave of Karl to set out next morning from Geneva, though he was so exhausted he thought he was going to die. He wrote to Frau Ritter in Dresden giving an account of the incredible difficulties he had been drawn into.

Wagner travelled by Lyons through Auvergne by stage-coach for three days and two nights until he reached Bordeaux in the middle of May. Surveying the town from a height at early dawn, he saw it lit up by a fire. He alighted at the Hotel Quatre Soeurs and sent a note to M. Laussot informing him he was at his disposal and would remain in all day to receive him. He waited in vain for an answer until late in the afternoon when he received a summons from the police-station.

At the police station, Wagner was asked whether his passport was in order. He acknowledged the difficulty and explained that family matters had necessitated his placing himself in this position. He was informed that precisely this family matter was the cause of their having to deny him permission to remain in Bordeaux, and that these proceedings were being carried out at the express wish of the family concerned. The police inspector readily granted Wagner a couple of days' rest before returning, informing him that the family had already left Bordeaux at mid-day. Wagner used these two days to recover and wrote to Jessie expressing his contempt at her husband's behavior in denouncing his wife's honor to the police, declaring their friendship could not continue until she had released herself from so humiliating a position. He went to their house and placed his letter in Jessie's work-basket, but received no reply.

Wagner set out upon his return journey as soon as his term of rest expired. The fine May weather cheered him, and the clear water and agreeable name of the Dordogne, along whose banks the post-chaise travelled, gave him great pleasure. Two fellow-travellers, a priest and an officer, entertained him with conversation about the necessity of putting an end to the French Republic. The priest showed himself much more humane and broad-minded than the officer, who could only repeat, "Il faut en finir." Wagner had a look at Lyons and tried to recall scenes from Lamartine's *Histoire des Girondins*, which vividly describes the siege and surrender of the town during the Convention Nationale. He arrived at Geneva and returned to the Byron hotel, where Karl Ritter was awaiting him.

During Wagner's absence, Karl had heard from his family, who wrote very kindly concerning him. His mother had reassured him as to Wagner's condition, pointing out that with people suffering from nervous disorders the idea of approaching death was a frequent symptom and there was no occasion to feel anxious. She announced her intention of coming to visit them in Villeneuve with her daughter Emilie in a few days. Both ladies arrived in time to celebrate Wagner's thirty-seventh birthday on the twenty-second of May. Frau Julie made a deep impression on Wagner; he had only met her once before in Dresden at a quartette performance of Karl's composition given at her house, where the respect and devotion shown him by each family member had delighted him. She and her daughter remained about a week, seeking diversion in excursions to the beautiful Valais, but Frau Ritter's sadness of heart, caused by knowledge of recent events and anxiety at the course of Wagner's life, could not be dispelled. When Wagner urged her to leave her house and settle in Switzerland with her family, she pointed out that in proposing what seemed to her such an eccentric undertaking, he was counting upon a strength and energy she no longer possessed. For the present she commended her son to Wagner's care and gave him the necessary means to keep them both for the time being. Regarding her fortune, she told him her income was limited and now that it was impossible to accept any help from the Laussots, she did not know how she would be able to come to his assistance sufficiently to assure his independence. Deeply moved, they took leave of this venerable woman at the end of a week, and Wagner never saw her again.

Still bent upon discovering a means of disappearing from the world, Wagner thought of choosing a wild mountain spot where he could retire with Karl. They sought the lonely Visper Thal in the canton Valais and made their way along the impracticable roads to Zermatt. There, at the foot of the colossal and beautiful Matterhorn, they could indeed consider themselves cut off from the outer world. Wagner tried to make things as comfortable as he could in this primitive wilderness, but discovered only too soon that Karl could not reconcile himself to his surroundings. Even on the second day he owned that he thought it horrid and suggested that it would be more pleasant in the neighbourhood of one of the lakes.

Studying the map of Switzerland, Wagner and Karl chose Thun for their next destination. Wagner again found himself reduced to a state of extreme nervous fatigue, in which the slightest effort produced a profuse and weakening perspiration. Only by the greatest strength of will was he able to make his way out of the valley, but at last they reached Thun and engaged a couple of modest but cheerful rooms looking out onto the road. Despite the reserve which still betrayed Karl's shyness, Wagner found conversation with his young friend always pleasant and enlivening. He realized the pitch of fluent and overflowing vivacity to which the young man could attain, particularly at night before retiring to rest, when he would squat down beside Wagner's bed and in the agreeable, pure dialect of the German Baltic provinces give free expression to whatever had excited his interest. Wagner was exceedingly cheered during these days by the perusal of the *Odyssey*, which he had not read for so long and which had fallen into his hands by chance. Homer's long-suffering hero, always homesick yet condemned to perpetual wandering, and always valiantly overcoming all difficulties, was strangely sympathetic to him.

The peaceful state was suddenly disturbed by a letter which Karl received from Mme. Laussot. He did not know whether he ought to show it to Wagner, as he thought Jessie had gone mad. Wagner tore it out of his hand and found she had written to say that she felt obliged to drop his acquaintance entirely, having been sufficiently enlightened about him.

Wagner later discovered, chiefly through the help of Frau Ritter, that in consequence of his letter and his arrival in Bordeaux, M. Laussot together with Mrs. Taylor had immediately taken Jessie to the country, intending to remain there until news was received of his departure. They had applied to the police authorities to accelerate his removal. While they were away, and without telling Jessie of his letter and journey, they had obtained a promise from her to remain quiet for a year, give up her visit to Dresden, and above all drop all correspondence with him; since under these conditions she was promised her entire freedom at the end of that time, she had thought it better to give her word. Not content with this, the two conspirators had immediately set about calumniating Wagner on all sides, including to Mme. Laussot herself, saying that he was the initiator of the plan of elopement. Mrs. Taylor had written to Wagner's wife complaining of his intention to commit adultery while expressing pity for her and offering support. A playful conversation about Jessie's father's membership in a sect that did not baptize according to Protestant or Catholic ritual had been strangely misinterpreted; Wagner had comforted her by mentioning he had learned that his own marriage in Königsberg had been solemnized by a hypocrite. This innocent remark was twisted and told to Mrs. Taylor as Wagner saying he was "not legally married" to his wife, which poisoned Jessie's mind against him. Wagner felt most indignant at the way his wife had been treated.

Wagner immediately accepted Karl's offer to go to Zürich and give his wife the explanation necessary to her peace of mind. While awaiting his return, Wagner received a letter from Liszt telling of the deep impression made upon him by the Lohengrin score, which had caused him to make up his mind as to the future in store for Wagner. Liszt announced his intention, as Wagner had given permission, of doing all in his power to bring about the production of his opera at the forthcoming Herder festival in Weimar. Wagner also heard from Frau Ritter, who thought herself called upon to beg him not to take the matter too much to heart. Karl returned from Zürich speaking with great warmth of Wagner's wife's attitude. Not having found Wagner in Paris, she had pulled herself together with remarkable energy, and in pursuance of an earlier wish of his, had rented a house on the lake of Zürich, installed herself comfortably, and remained there in the hope of at last hearing from him again. Karl had much to tell of Sulzer's good sense and friendliness, the latter having stood by Wagner's wife and shown her great sympathy. Karl exclaimed that these could be called sensible people, but with such a mad Englishwoman nothing could be done.

Wagner asked Karl with a smile whether he would like to go over to Zürich. Karl sprang up exclaiming, "Yes, and as soon as possible." Wagner replied, "You shall have your way; let us pack. I can see no sense in anything either here or there." Without breathing another syllable about all that had happened, they left the next day for Zürich.