《我的生平——第一卷》

I did find two lifelong friends in Dresden, however. August Röckel, the musical director assigned to me, was a Bavarian musician whose father had sung Florestan in Fidelio’s premiere, known Beethoven personally, and brought German opera to Paris, giving Schroder-Devrient her debut there. Röckel came to Dresden full of ambition to write popular operas, but after I played him my Rienzi and Fliegender Holländer, he was so overwhelmed he gave up his own mediocre Farinelli opera entirely, declaring his vocation was to be my helper, shield me from the unpleasantness of my official position, not compose his own works while living in my friendship. I tried to get him to write operas, gave him a detailed plot for Cromwell’s Daughter, but his desperate poverty, his wife and growing children wore down his creative talent. He remained my most intimate friend, the only person who ever truly understood the impossible position I was trapped in. Dr. Anton Pusinelli, a young physician who lived near me, became my family doctor, and his own wealth let him give me substantial, life-saving financial support when times were hardest. I also made a small, ultimately meaningless connection to high society through the von Konneritz family, who invited me to their salons, where I met the famous soprano Sontag, but found I had nothing in common with the aristocracy, their empty, frivolous lives a waste of my time. The only high-society woman who ever touched my soul was Ida von Lüttichau, the director’s cultured, gentle, desperately ill wife, the first person to appreciate my Fliegender Holländer when all of Dresden was puzzled by it; I dedicated the opera to her, but our rare, awkward meetings never moved beyond small talk, no real intimacy to change the course of my days.