《我的生平——第一卷》

Hoffmann offered Wagner a one-year contract extension, and the people of Riga offered him teaching positions and concert series to make up for lost salary, but Wagner was determined to cut all ties with the small theatrical world he had come to despise, and to pursue composition full-time in Paris. He played on Minna’s anger at Dorn’s betrayal to convince her to agree to the move. They had barely any money, their passports impounded by creditors, so old friend Abraham Möller offered to drive them in a special coach across the Russian frontier without papers, to a Prussian port where they could sail to London then Paris. They brought their huge Newfoundland dog Robber, fiercely devoted to Wagner, and set out secretly in summer 1839.

The frontier crossing was perilous: they sneaked through a smugglers’ drinking den, ran past Cossack sentinels through the shallow frontier ditch under cover of darkness, and made it to the Prussian side, where a panicking Möller greeted them, overjoyed they had avoided being shot or arrested. They traveled to the coastal town of Pillau, but their wagon overturned in a farmyard, injuring Minna and forcing a days-long delay for her to recover. They snuck past the harbour watch before dawn in a small boat to the merchant ship Thetis, hauled Robber up the ship’s side secretly, and hid below deck to avoid port officials. The ship set sail for London, but a prolonged calm in the Baltic stranded them for days, then a violent storm hit in the Cattegat, forcing them to take refuge in a Norwegian fjord, where the sharp rhythm of the crew’s anchor call inspired the theme for the seamen’s song in Der Fliegende Holländer, an opera Wagner had already been dreaming of. Another storm hit, they nearly crashed on a Dutch sandbank, but made it to the English coast off Southwold, where a pilot brought them up the Thames to London Bridge on August 12, after three terrifying weeks at sea.

In London, they were overwhelmed by the city’s bustle, stayed in a boarding house in Old Compton Street, and Robber ran off one day but miraculously found his way back after wandering to Oxford Street. Wagner tried to track down Sir John Smart about his Rule Britannia overture, but Smart was out of town; he also accidentally gained entry to the House of Lords when he tried to find Bulwer Lytton to discuss his Rienzi libretto, and watched a debate on the Anti-Slavery Bill. After a week of sightseeing, they sailed to Boulogne-sur-mer, where Wagner met Meyerbeer, who was kind, listened to his Rienzi libretto, and promised letters of recommendation to the Paris Opera’s manager Duponchel and conductor Habeneck.