Nothing shows more instructively the fundamental dualism of his nature than a comparison of these letters to Mathilde with those he was writing at the same time to Minna. Every thought of Mathilde is a dream, an intoxication2; to Minna he is the practical man, discussing the ordinary little things of life in the most prosaic3 fashion. Their parting was not intended to be a permanent one: each of them was to "go his own way for a while in peace and reconciliation4" in order to "win calmness and new strength for life."[194] As is often the case when he is away from her, he sees their relationship in something like its true aspect. He admits that she "has a hard time" with him, on account of his "indifference5 and recklessness towards the outer relations of life." She is to enjoy herself in Dresden, and to try to win self-control and strength to bear her trial. But an understanding was plainly impossible between two people one of whom persisted in regarding his extra-domestic love affairs as special dispensations of Providence7 to assist him in his work as an artist, while the other as persistently8 looked upon them as a selfish seeking of his own gratification at her expense. Wagner sums it all up very appositely in a letter of 25th August 1858: "Your letter showed me that it will probably be always impossible for you to see correctly and clearly. With you, a definite blame must always be attached to a definite person: you do not comprehend the nature of things and Fate, but simply think that if this person or that thing had never been, everything would have happened differently."[195] To his dual1 nature it did not seem in the least an impossible thing for him to retain Mathilde as his "Muse9" and Minna as his housekeeper10—a very competent housekeeper, as he frequently lets us see—if only Minna would be sensible enough to consent to this ménage à trois. On the 3rd September he tells Mathilde that he hopes to get well for her sake. "To save you for me means to save myself for my art. With it,—to live to be your consolation11, that is my mission, this accords with my nature, my fate, my will,—my love. Thus am I yours: you too shall get well through me. Here will Tristan be completed—a defiance12 to all the raging of the world. And with this work, if I may, I will return to see you, to comfort you, to make you happy. This is my holiest, loveliest wish." But while he intends returning to Mathilde he also counts on returning to Minna, to whom he writes on the 14th September, advising her to select carefully her future home; "thither13 I would come to you as often as I needed a home: and for the rest, quite apart from my personal need of habitation, it would be your peaceful retreat to which I also could withdraw when all the storms of life were weathered, there at last to find enduring repose14 beneath your care."
His whole spiritual life is centred in Mathilde: but his physical man also needs caring for, and who is so well qualified15 for this as Minna? A wandering life will not suit him in the long run, he tells his wife; at bottom he loves a permanent abode16. He means to finish Tristan, and has hopes of being amnestied,[196] so that he can return to Germany and settle down in some town of his choice. "You can thus count with certainty on seeing me again next Easter, and—God willing—we shall then have no difficulty in finding the place where you can pitch the abiding17 tent for this wandering life of mine."
"How happy could I be with either," was the sigh of the old poet. "How happy could I be with both," says Wagner in effect. Even more than in most artists the inner and the outer life in him were separate and distinct. Into Mathilde's ear he could pour his dreams and his longings18, while Minna's ear would be open to receive his less spiritual but equally sincere confidences upon the more material things of life. He looks at the stars over the Lido and thinks of Mathilde: "I have absolutely no hope, no future," he writes to her. This is the genuine artist, amorous19 of his own sorrows, lapping luxuriously20 the bitter-sweet water of his dreams. For the real man we have to turn to his letter of the preceding day (28th September) to Minna, from which it appears that although he is absolutely without a future and without hope, he is trying all he can "to use the great success of Rienzi in Dresden" to "get profits out of the work elsewhere"; accordingly he has been inviting21 all the theatres with which he has friendly relations to acquire the opera quickly. He describes the material side of his life in Venice in detail. The world-weary one seems to be enjoying his existence, working each day until four in the afternoon, crossing the canal, walking up the St. Mark Piazza22, dining with Karl Ritter "well but dear (even without wine I can never get off under four to five francs)"; then in a gondola23 to the Public Garden, where he has a promenade24; then a glass of ice at the pavilion on the Molo, and so home to bed. "So I have been living for four weeks now, and am not tired of it yet, even without real absorbing work. The secret of the enduring charm of it all is" so-and-so and so-and-so.
He keeps his dual psychological life going with perfect honesty and absolute unconsciousness. How easy it was for him to adopt a different attitude upon the same question, according to which of his correspondents he was addressing, is shown by his letters of 28th September 1858 to Minna and the 1st October to Mathilde. In each of them he discusses the nature and attributes of joy and grief. He had witnessed the killing25 of a hen at a poulterer's stall a day or two before; the sufferings of the poor creature had stirred his sympathetic soul to its depths, and set him thinking of the general problem of suffering and pity. To Minna he writes thus:
"You are wrong to make light of compassion26. Perhaps it is only because you have a false idea of it. All our relations with others have only one ground,—sympathy or decided27 antipathy28. The essence of love consists in community of grief and of joy: but community of joy is most illusory, for in this world there is little ground for joy, and our sympathy only has real durability29 when it is directed to another's grief."[197]
To Mathilde he sings a different song. For her he can feel nothing but "community of joy, reverence30, worship.... So do not contemn31 my pity where you see me exercise it, for to yourself I can now pour out nothing but community of joy. Oh, this is the sublimest32: it can appear only in conjunction with the fullest sympathy. From the commoner nature to which I gave pity I must quickly turn away as soon as it demands community of joy of me. This was the cause of the last discord33 with my wife. The unhappy woman had understood in her own way my resolve not to enter your house again, and conceived it as a rupture34 with you: and she imagined that on her return, comfort and intimacy35 would necessarily be re-established between us. How fearfully I had to undeceive her!"
Yet it is to this "commoner nature" that he desires to return and settle down in some quiet corner of Germany for the rest of his life. "Only keep up your courage, my dear good Minna," he writes to her from Venice on 14th November 1858. "Overcome, and believe firmly in the perfect sincerity36 with which I now aspire37 to nothing—nothing on this earth—but to make up for what has been inflicted38 on you, to support and guard you, preserve you in loyalty39 and love, so that your suffering state may also improve, that you may once more feel joy in your life, and we may enjoy the evening of our days together as cheerfully and uncloudedly as possible,"—with a break, presumably, to permit of his dying in Mathilde's arms. And again in a second letter on the evening of the same day: "Think of nothing but our reunion: and to make that thoroughly40 good and enduring and beneficial for both of us, simply attend to nothing now but your health. For this you can do nothing, nothing in the world, but—cultivate tranquillity41 of mind." To do this she is to forget the Wesendonck episode; he insists on her never saying a word about it again to anyone. At Zürich "we were far too buried and thrown too much on our own resources; that was bound in time to be injurious and to set us bickering42. When once we are in a large town again, where I can have performances to look after, and you can tend me when I am exhausted43, and rejoice with me over their success,—it will be to you a dream that we were ever packed into a little den6 like that.... Well, well! All that will be altered, and a quite new life will begin, full of fame, honours and recognition, as much as I shall desire; so get in good trim to enjoy that harvest with me after a long and painful seed-time."
Thirteen days previously44 he had written thus to Mathilde:
"Help me to tend the unfortunate woman.[198] Probably I can do it only from a distance, for I myself must regard remoteness from her as most apt for this purpose. When I am near her I become incapable45 of it: only from a distance can I tranquillise her, as then I can choose the time and the mood for my communications, so as to be always mindful of my task towards her.[199] But I cannot do even that unless—you help me. I must not know that your heart is bleeding," &c., &c. "You know that I am yours, and that only you dispose of my actions, deeds, thoughts and resolutions." The night before he had stood on the balcony of his house, and looking into the black waters of the canal below him the thought of suicide had flashed upon him. But he withdrew his hand from the rail as he thought of Mathilde: "Now I know that it still is granted to me to die in your arms."
He talked to Minna, on his own showing, much as one talks to a child, without meaning all one says, one's only object being to comfort it in its grief. He meant to be kind, for Minna's sufferings undoubtedly46 rent his heart. He could be sympathetic with her at a distance. The difficulties always arose when they set up house again together, for then the impossibility of his giving up anything he really desired, even for an ailing47 wife's sake, became manifest. He was, as usual, hypnotised by his own eloquence48. On paper he could easily settle every question that arose between Minna and himself: it was merely in practical domestic matters that he was a failure. It probably never occurred to him to ask how he was going to square the problem of living for the remainder of his days with Minna with the problem of dying in Mathilde's arms, or indeed the general problem of maintaining his passionate49 intercourse50 with his "Muse" and at the same time of resuming relations with the commonplace wife he had quarrelled with so desperately51 over this very "Muse."
With this dualism of soul and this blindness in the face of facts it was inevitable52 that the catastrophe53 of 1858 should have befallen him,—inevitable also that any renewal54 of his relations with Mathilde should lead to another catastrophe of the same kind. The renewal took place in April 1859, Wesendonck having once more invited Wagner to visit him, apparently55 in order to give a démenti to Zürich gossip. Later on Wagner seems to have realised that Minna's stay in Dresden was doing her little good, either bodily or mentally: so he resolved to set up house with her once more in Paris.[200]
In Mein Leben he tells us that "under these circumstances [i.e. the difficulties he was finding in the way of his giving some concerts in Paris] I could only regard it as a most singular intervention56 of fate that Minna should announce her readiness to join me in Paris and that I was to expect her arrival shortly." But it is clear from letters of his to Minna of 19th and 25th September 1859, and to Dr. Anton Pusinelli of 3rd October,[201] that it was his own suggestion that she should come to Paris to take charge of his new household. He needed her, and he argued eagerly against the objections which Pusinelli had evidently put forward. He was going to live very quietly: Minna would be in ideal surroundings for her health of body and peace of mind; and all would again be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. "So I beg you not to advance any objections against her coming to Paris: have faith in my reasons!... A decided medical treatment was indispensable for my wife: finally, however, notwithstanding all the art and care of the physician, moral influences are the weightiest with patients of this kind; and in this respect—I know it—the life and death of my wife depend solely57 upon myself. I can destroy her or preserve her: consequently, since I know her fate to be given into my hands, my future conduct towards her is prescribed with the greatest certainty. Trust me!"
No doubt he meant it all,—on paper.
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1
dual
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| adj.双的；二重的，二元的 | |
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intoxication
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| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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luxuriously
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| adv.奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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gondola
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| n.威尼斯的平底轻舟；飞船的吊船 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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durability
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| n.经久性，耐用性 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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contemn
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| v.蔑视 | |
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sublimest
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| 伟大的( sublime的最高级 )； 令人赞叹的； 极端的； 不顾后果的 | |
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discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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rupture
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| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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bickering
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| v.争吵( bicker的现在分词 )；口角；（水等）作潺潺声；闪烁 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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49
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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56
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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