This mania3 for reading to his friends increased as he grew older; in the last years at Bayreuth he would read not only his own works, but anything he was interested in at the moment. But at Wahnfried he had a carefully selected audience of worshippers, who indulged him to the full in his little vanities and weaknesses. The Erinnerungen of Hans von Wolzogen and the sixth volume of Glasenapp are full of his obiter dicta on these occasions. Like the bulk of the philosophising in his prose works, they do not strike us as showing any particular insight into the problems he is handling; but he dearly loved the sound of his own voice. In 1879 he makes everyone listen night after night to a reading of the thirty-years-old Opera and Drama; while to his little daughters he reads, on successive evenings, the Pilgrimage to Beethoven and The End of a Musician in Paris.[275] Only the most devoted4 admirers could have stood this kind of thing night after night; did any one of them dare to rebel, he no doubt met with the same fate as the audacious and irreverent Kellermann.[276]
His nature was all extremes; he either loved intensely or hated furiously, was either delirious5 with happiness, or in the darkest depths of woe6. His chequered life, so full of dazzling fortunes and incredible misfortunes, of dramatic changes from intoxicating7 hope to blind despair, had bred in him the conviction that he was born under a peculiarly powerful and maleficent star. "Each man has his d?mon," he said to Edouard Schuré one day in 1865, when he was still crushed by the news of the tragic8 death of his great singer Schnorr von Carolsfeld, "and mine is a frightful9 monster. When he is hovering10 about me a catastrophe11 is in the air. The only time I have been on the sea I was very nearly shipwrecked; and if I were to go to America, I am certain that the Atlantic would greet me with a cyclone13."[277] He himself was either all cyclone or all zephyr14: intermediate weathers were impossible for him. In 1865 he spent the happiest days of his life rehearsing Tristan in Munich. "He would listen with closed eyes to the artists singing to Bülow's pianoforte accompaniment. If a difficult passage went particularly well, he would spring up, embrace or kiss the singer warmly, or out of pure joy stand on his head on the sofa, creep under the piano, jump up on to it, run into the garden and scramble15 joyously16 up a tree, or make caricatures, or recite, with improvised18 disfigurements, a poem that had been dedicated19 to him."[278]
Edouard Schuré also saw something of him in those Tristan days. To him too Wagner exhibited both poles of his temperament20. "To look at him was to see turn by turn in the same visage the front face of Faust and the profile of Mephistopheles.... His manner was no less surprising then his physiognomy. It varied21 between absolute reserve, absolute coldness, and complete familiarity and sans-gêne.... When he showed himself he broke out as a whole, like a torrent22 bursting its dikes. One stood dazzled before that exuberant23 and protean24 nature, ardent25, personal, excessive in everything, yet marvellously equilibrated by the predominance of a devouring27 intellect. The frankness and extreme audacity28 with which he showed his nature, the qualities and defects of which were exhibited without concealment29, acted on some people like a charm, while others were repelled30 by it.... His gaiety flowed over in a joyous17 foam31 of facetious32 fancies and extravagant33 pleasantries; but the least contradiction provoked him to incredible anger. Then he would leap like a tiger, roar like a stag. He paced the room like a caged lion, his voice became hoarse34 and the words came out like screams; his speech slashed35 about at random36. He seemed at these times like some elemental force unchained, like a volcano in eruption37. Everything in him was gigantic, excessive."[279]
Liszt describes him thus to the Princess Wittgenstein in 1853: "Wagner has sometimes in his voice a sort of shriek38 of a young eagle. When he saw me he wept, laughed and ranted39 for joy for at least a quarter of an hour.... A great and overwhelming nature, a sort of Vesuvius, which, when it is in eruption, scatters40 sheaves of fire and at the same time bunches of rose and elder.... It is his habit to look down on people from the heights, even on those who are eager to show themselves submissive to him. He decidedly has the style and the ways of a ruler, and he has no consideration for anyone, or at least only the most obvious. He makes a complete exception, however, in my case."[280]
Turn where we will we find the same testimony41. "He talked incredibly much and rapidly," says Hanslick.... "He talked continuously, and always of himself, of his works, his reforms, his plans. If he happened to mention the name of another composer, it was certain to be in a tone of disdain42."[281] And again: "He was egoism personified, restlessly energetic for himself, unsympathetic towards and regardless of others."[282]
He apparently43 could not even accommodate himself to such small courtesies of life as a sympathetic interest in other men's music. We have seen how chilled Cornelius was by his attitude towards the Cid. Weissheimer tells us that Bülow once played a composition of his own to Wagner, and was much hurt by the older man's reception of it. He said to Weissheimer afterwards: "It is really astonishing how little interest he takes in other people; I shall never play him anything of my own again."[283]
Weissheimer tells us of an experience of his own of the same kind. "Once when I began to play my opera to Bülow alone at his wish (without Wagner), the servant came immediately to say that we were to stop our music, as the Meister wanted to sleep! It was then eleven in the morning! Bülow banged the lid of the piano down, and sprang up in agitation44 with the words, "It is a high honour for me to live with the great Master,—but it is often beyond bearing."[284]
So he goes through life, luxuriant, petulant45, egoistic, improvident46, extreme in everything, roaring, shrieking47, weeping, laughing, never doubting himself, never doubting that whoever opposed him, or did not do all for him that he expected, was a monster of iniquity—Wagner contra mundum, he always right, the world always wrong. He ended his stormy course with hardly a single friend of the old type; followers48 he had in the last days, parasites49 he had in plenty; but no friends whose names rang through Europe as the old names had done. One by one he had used them all for his own purposes, one by one he had lost them by his unreasonableness50 and his egoism. Even where they maintained the semblance51 of friendship with him, as Liszt did, the old bloom had vanished, the old fire had died out. Yet it is impossible not to be thrilled by this life, by the superb vitality52 that radiates from that little body at every stage of its career, by the dazzling light that emanates53 from him and gives a noontide glory to the smallest person who comes within its range. There was not one of his friends who did not sorrowfully recognise, at some time or other, how much there was of clay in this idol54 to which they all had made sacrifice after sacrifice. Turn by turn they left him or were driven away from him, hopelessly disillusioned55. Yet none of them could escape the magnetic attraction of the man, even after he had wounded and disappointed them. Bülow, as we have seen, worked nobly for him and for Bayreuth after the cruel Munich experiences. Nietzsche, after pouring out his sparkling malice56 upon the man and the musician who had once been for him a very beacon57 light of civilisation58 and culture, sings his praises in the end in a passage that is full of a strange lyrism and a strange pathos59. "As I am speaking here of the recreations of my life, I feel I must express a word or two of gratitude60 for that which has refreshed me by far the most heartily61 and most profoundly. This, without the slightest doubt, was my relationship with Richard Wagner. All my other relationships with men I treat quite lightly; but I would not have the days I spent at Tribschen—those days of confidence, of cheerfulness, of sublime62 flashes, and of profound moments—blotted from my life at any price. I know not what Wagner may have been for others; but no cloud ever darkened our sky." And again: "I suppose I know better than anyone the prodigious63 feats64 of which Wagner was capable, the fifty worlds of strange ecstasies65 to which no one else had wings to soar; and as I am alive to-day and strong enough to turn even the most suspicious and most dangerous things to my own advantage, and thus to grow stronger, I declare Wagner to have been the greatest benefactor66 of my life. The bond which unites us is the fact that we have suffered greater agony, even at each other's hands, than most men are able to bear nowadays, and this will always keep our names associated in the minds of men." "I have loved Wagner," he says in another place; and in another he speaks of "the hallowed hour when Richard Wagner gave up the ghost in Venice."[285]
There is something titanic67 in the man who can inspire such hatred68 and such love, and such love to overpower the hatred in the end. Into whatever man's life he came, he rang through it for ever after like a strain of great music. With his passionate69 need for feeling himself always in the right it was hard for him to bow that proud and obstinate70 head of his even when he must have felt, in his inmost heart, that some at least of the blame of parting lay with him. But when he did unbend, how graciously and nobly human he could be! There is no finer letter in the whole of his correspondence than the one he wrote to Liszt to beg his old friend and benefactor to end their long estrangement71 by coming to him at Bayreuth in the hour of his triumph, for the laying of the foundation stone of the new theatre on his fifty-ninth birthday.
"MY GREAT AND DEAR FRIEND,—Cosima maintains that you would not come even if I were to invite you. We should have to endure that, as we have had to endure so many things! But I cannot forbear to invite you. And what is it I cry to you when I say 'Come'? You came into my life as the greatest man whom I could ever address as an intimate friend; you went apart from me for long, perhaps because I had become less close to you than you were to me. In place of you there came to me your deepest new-born being, and completed my longing72 to know you very close to me. So you live in full beauty before me and in me, and we are one beyond the grave itself. You were the first to ennoble me by your love; to a second, higher life am I now wedded73 in her, and can accomplish what I should never have been able to accomplish alone. Thus you could become everything to me, while I could remain so little to you: how immeasurably greater is my gain!
"If now I say to you 'Come,' I thereby74 say to you 'Come to yourself'! For it is yourself that you will find. Blessings75 and love to you, whatever decision you may come to!—Your old friend,
"RICHARD."[286]
The old egoistic note is there—it is he of course who has borne most and suffered most and is prepared to be most forgiving—but his heart must have been more than usually full when he wrote this. It must have cost his proud soul many an inward struggle to bring himself to take this first step towards a rapprochement.
But the stupendous power and the inexhaustible vitality of the man are shown in nothing more clearly than in the sacrifices every one made for him and the tyrannies they endured from him. Even those who rebelled against him were none the less conscious of a unique quality in him that made it inevitable76 that he should rule and others obey. "He exercised," says his enemy Hanslick, "an incomprehensible magic in order to make friends, and to retain them; friends who sacrificed themselves for him, and, three times offended, came three times back to him again. The more ingratitude77 they received from Wagner, the more zealously78 they thought it their duty to work for him. The hypnotic power that he everywhere exerted, not merely by his music but by his personality, overbearing all opposition79 and bending every one to his will, is enough to stamp him as one of the most remarkable80 of phenomena81, a marvel26 of energy and endowment."[287]
A remark of Draeseke's to Weissheimer gives us another hint of the same imperious fascination82: "At present it is not exactly agreeable to have relations with him. Later, however, in another thirty or forty years, we [who knew him] shall be envied by all the world, for a phenomenon like him is something so gigantic that after his death it will become ever greater and greater, particularly as then the great image of the man will no longer be disfigured by any unpleasant traits [durch nichts Widerhaariges]."[288]
He was indeed, in the mixture of elements he contained, like nothing else that has been seen on earth. His life itself is a romance. In constant danger of shipwreck12 as he was, it seems to us now as if some ironic83 but kindly84 Fate were deliberately85 putting him to every kind of trial, but with the certain promise of haven86 at the end. The most wonderful thing in all his career, to me, is not his rescue by King Ludwig, not even the creation of Bayreuth, but his ceasing work upon the second Act of Siegfried in 1857, and not resuming it till 1869. Here was a gigantic drama upon which he had been engaged since 1848; no theatre in Europe, he knew, was fit to produce it,—for that he would have to realise his dream of a theatre of his own. After incredible vicissitudes87 he had completed two of the great sections of the work and half of the third. The writing of the remainder, and the production of it, one would have thought, would have been sufficient for the further life energies of any man. To any one else, the thought of dying with such a work unfinished would have been an intolerable, maddening agony. It would have been to him, had the possibility of such a happening ever seriously occurred to him. But he knew it was impossible—impossible that he, Richard Wagner, ill and poor and homeless and disappointed as he was, should die before his time, before his whole work was done. He gambled superbly with life, and he won. In those twelve hazardous88 years he wrote two of the world's masterpieces in music. He played for great stakes in city after city, losing ruinously time after time, but in the end winning beyond his wildest dreams. He saw Tristan and the Meistersingers produced; he dictated89 his memoirs90. And then he turns calmly again to the great work that had been so long put aside, takes it up as if only a day, instead of twelve years, had gone by since he locked it in his drawer, thinks himself back in a moment into that world from which he had been so long banished91, and, still without haste, adds stone upon stone till the whole mighty92 building is complete. What a man! one says in amazement93. What belief in himself, in his strength, in his destiny, in his ability to wait! And then, after that, the toil94 of the creation of Bayreuth, and the bringing to birth of the masterpiece, twenty-eight years after the vision of it had first dawned upon the eager young spirit that had just completed Lohengrin! Was there ever anything like it outside a fairy tale?
wagner-tristan
WAGNER IN THE TRISTAN PERIOD.
He lived, indeed, to see himself victor everywhere, in possession of everything for which he had struggled his whole feverish95 life through. He completed, and saw upon the stage, every one of the great works he had planned. He found the one woman in the world who was fitted to share his throne with him when alive and to govern his kingdom after his death with something of his own overbearing, inconsiderate strength. He achieved the miracle of building in a tiny Bavarian town a theatre to which, for more than a generation after his death, musicians still flock from all the ends of the earth. After all its dangers and its buffetings, the great ship at last sailed into haven with every timber sound, and with what a store of incomparable merchandise within!
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1
consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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shipwreck
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| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
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cyclone
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| n.旋风，龙卷风 | |
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zephyr
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| n.和风，微风 | |
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scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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protean
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| adj.反复无常的；变化自如的 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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eruption
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| n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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ranted
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| v.夸夸其谈( rant的过去式和过去分词 )；大叫大嚷地以…说教；气愤地)大叫大嚷；不停地大声抱怨 | |
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scatters
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| v.（使）散开， （使）分散，驱散( scatter的第三人称单数 )；撒 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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petulant
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| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
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improvident
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| adj.不顾将来的，不节俭的，无远见的 | |
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shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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unreasonableness
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| 无理性； 横逆 | |
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semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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emanates
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| v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的第三人称单数 )；产生，表现，显示 | |
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idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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disillusioned
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| a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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beacon
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| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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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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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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zealously
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| adv.热心地；热情地；积极地；狂热地 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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