impression upon his friend Liszt, whom he wished to entice back to Weimar at all costs. He was certainly not mistaken in counting on the excellent effect his binding generosity to me would have on our common friend.
I was therefore in a position to go to Dresden for a few days at once, to renew my provision for Minna, and at the same time to honour her with one of the visits deemed necessary to support her in her difficult situation. Minna conducted me from the station to the flat which she had taken and furnished in Walpurgisstrasse, a street which had not been built at the time I left Dresden. She had as usual arranged her home very tastefully, and with the aim evidently of making me comfortable. I was greeted on the threshold by a little mat embroidered with the word Salve, and I recognised our Paris drawing-room at once in the red silk curtains and the furniture. I was to have a majestic bedroom, an exceedingly comfortable study on the other side, as well as the drawing-room at my entire disposal, while she installed herself in one little room with recesses looking on to the yard. The study was adorned by the magnificent mahogany bureau which had originally been made for my house when I was conductor at Dresden. It had been bought in by the Ritter family, after my flight from that city, and presented to Kummer, the son- in-law, from whom Minna had hired it temporarily, leaving me the option of buying it back for one hundred and eighty marks. As I showed no desire to do so her mood became gloomier. Oppressed by the fearful embarrassment which she experienced on being alone with me, she had invited my sister Clara to come on a visit from Chemnitz, and was now sharing the small room at her disposal with Her. Clara proved herself extraordinarily wise and sympathetic on this as on former occasions. She pitied Minna of course, and was anxious to help her at this difficult period, though always with a view to strengthening her in the conviction that our parting was unavoidable. An exact knowledge of my extremely awkward position now seemed called for. My financial difficulties were so crushing that the only excuse for telling Minna was to silence her uneasy suspicions about me. I did, however, succeed in avoiding all explanations with her-the more easily as my meetings with Fritz Brockhaus and his family (including the married daughter Clara Kessinger), the Pusinellis, old Heine, and lastly the two Schnorrs, provided a pretext for our spending most of the time in the society of others.
I filled the mornings by making calls, and it was when I set out to pay my respects and thanks to Minister Bar for my amnesty that I trod the familiar streets of Dresden again. My first impression was one of extraordinary boredom and emptiness, for I had last seen them filled with barricades, in which fantastic condition they had looked so unusually interesting. I did not see a single familiar face on the way. Even the glover, whom I had always patronised and whose shop I now had occasion to revisit, did not seem to know me, until an oldish man rushed across the street to me and greeted me with great excitement and tears in his eyes. It turned out to be Karl Kummer of the court orchestra (looking much older), the most inspired oboist I ever met. I had taken him almost tenderly to my heart on account of his playing, and we embraced joyfully. I asked whether he still played his instrument as beautifully as before, whereupon he assured me that since I had left his oboe had failed to give real satisfaction, and it was now a long time since he had had himself pensioned off. He told me in response to my inquiries that all my old military bandsmen-including Dietz, the tall double-bass player-were either dead or pensioned off. Our manager Luttichau and Conductor Reissiger were among those who had died, Lipinsky had returned to Poland long before, Schubert, the leader, was unfit for work, and everything seemed to me sad and strange. Minister Bar expressed to me the grave qualms he still felt about the amnesty granted me. True, he had ventured to sign it himself, but was still troubled to think that my great popularity as a composer of opera would make it easy for me to raise annoying demonstrations. I comforted him at once by promising only to remain a few days and to refrain from visiting the theatre, upon which he dismissed me with a deep sigh and an exceedingly grave face.
Very different was my reception from Herr von Beust, who with smiling elegance of manner implied by his conversation that I was perhaps not so innocent after all as I now seemed to think myself. He drew my attention to a letter of mine which had been found in Rockel's pocket, at the time. This was new to me, and I willingly gave him to understand that I felt myself bound to look on the amnesty accorded me as a pardon for my incautious behaviour in the past, and we parted with the liveliest manifestations of friendship.
We invited some friends one evening in Minna's drawing-room, where I read out the Meistersinger once more to the people who did not know it. After Minna had been provided with enough money to last some time, she accompanied me back to the station on the fourth day; but she was filled with such fearful presentiments of never seeing me again that her farewell was made in positive anguish.
At Leipzig I put up at an inn for one day. There I met Alexander Ritter, and we spent a pleasant evening together over our punch. The reason that had induced me to make this short stay was the assurance given me that if I gave a concert of my own it would not be one of the regular series. I had weighed this information with reference to the much-needed money it might bring in, but I now realised that the undertaking rested on no security. I returned in haste to Biebrich, where I had to get my household affairs into order. To my great annoyance I found my landlord in a more impossible temper than ever. He seemed unable to forget my having blamed him for his treatment of the dog, and also of my servant, whom I had been obliged to protect against him when she had had a love-affair with a tailor. In spite of receiving payment and promises he remained peevish, and insisted that he would have to move into my part of the house on account of his health in the coming spring. So while I forced him, by paying advance, to leave my household goods untouched until Easter at least, I went about trying to find a suitable house for the following year, visiting various places in the Rheingau under the guidance of Dr. Schuler and Mathilde Maier. I had no success, however, the time being so short, but my friends promised to search untiringly for what I wanted.
At Mayence I met Friederike Meyer again. Her situation in Frankfort seemed to have grown more and more difficult. When she heard that I had turned away Herr von Guaita's manager, who had been sent to Biebrich with instructions to pay me fifteen louis d'or for conducting Lohengrin, she upheld my action strongly. As for herself, she had broken with that gentleman entirely, insisting on being released from her contract, and was now about to enter upon a special engagement at the Burgtheater. She won my sympathy once more by her conduct and determination, which I had to consider as a powerful refutation of the calumnies brought up against her. As I too was in the act of starting for Vienna, she was glad to be able to make part of the journey in my company. She proposed to stop a day at Nuremberg, where I could pick her up for the next stage of the journey. This we did and arrived in Vienna together, where my friend went to Hotel Munsch, while I chose the Kaiserin Elizabeth, where I now felt at home. This was on the 15th of November. I went to see Conductor Esser at once, and heard from him that Tristan was really being studied vigorously. With Frau Dustmann, on the other hand, I became immediately involved in very unpleasant disagreements through my relation to her sister Friederike, which it was easy to misunderstand. It was impossible to make her see how things really stood. In her eyes her sister was involved in a liaison, and had been cast off by her family, so that her arrival in Vienna was compromising to them. In addition to this Friederike's own condition soon caused me the greatest anxiety. She had made an engagement to appear three times at the Burgtheater without considering that just then she was not likely to make a good appearance on the stage, particularly before the Viennese public. Her serious illness, the recovery from which had been attended by the most exciting circumstances, had disfigured her and made her very thin. She had also gone almost entirely bald, but nevertheless persisted in her great objection to wearing a wig. Her sister's hostility had estranged her colleagues at the theatre, and as a result of all this, and also on account of her unfortunate choice of a role, her appearance was a failure. There could be no question of her being taken on at that theatre. Although her weakness increased, and she suffered from constant insomnia, she still tried, in her magnanimity and her shame, to hide from me the awkwardness of her situation. She went to a cheaper inn, the 'Stadt Frankfurt,' where she intended to wait and see the result of sparing her nerves as far as possible. She seemed to be in no embarrassment as far as money was concerned, but at my request consulted Standhartner, who did not seem to know how to help her much. As open-air exercise had been strongly recommended, and as the weather was at present bitterly cold (from the end of November to the beginning of December), I hit on the idea of advising her to go to Venice for a prolonged stay. Once again there seemed no lack of means, and she followed my advice. One icy morning I accompanied her to the station, and there for the present I left her, as I hoped, to a kinder fate. She had a faithful maid with her, and I soon had the satisfaction of receiving reassuring accounts-of her health especially-from Venice.
While my relations with her had brought me troublesome complications, I still kept up my old Viennese acquaintances. A curious incident occurred at the very beginning of my visit. I had to read the Meistersinger aloud to the Standhartner family, as I had done everywhere else. As Dr. Hanslick was now supposed to be well disposed towards me, it was considered the right thing to invite him too. We noticed that as the reading proceeded the dangerous critic became more and more pale and depressed, and it was remarked by everyone that it was impossible to persuade him to stay on at the close, but that he took his leave there and then in an unmistakably
