Your warnings and admonitions not to rely on the performance of my operas in Italy I pass over.  Whatever can have given you the curious and mistaken notion that my journey to Italy had this ambitious, artistic purpose, I fail to see.  I have selected an Italian town because I hate Paris, and because here in Venice I am certain to be removed from any possible contact with artistic publicity.  This was not the case even at Zurich, which for that reason had long since become disagreeable to me.  That newspaper writers explain my sojourn in Venice as a political manoeuvre in order gradually to open Germany to me, is quite in accordance with the spirit and intellect of such people.  I hope you will soon divest yourself of the idea that anything similar was in my mind.  As an Austrian city, Venice exists for me only in so far as it does not belong to the German Confederacy, and as I may consequently live there in security.  This has proved to be true.  Unfortunately I could not prevent my landlord from trumpeting about my stay here, which in consequence was made public sooner than I desired.  The police which, once more, asked for my passport, has, however, returned it to me with the remark that there is nothing against my undisturbed stay at Venice.  Whether this was the result of the intercession of the Grand Duke, for which I had asked, I cannot tell.

You will be pleased to hear that Venice has not disappointed my expectations.  The melancholy silence of the Grand Canal, on the banks of which I live in a stately palace with large rooms, is sympathetic to me.  Amusement and an agreeable diversion of the mind is afforded by a daily walk in the square of St. Mark, a trip in a gondola to the islands, walks there, etc.  It will be the turn of the art treasures later on.  The entirely new and interesting character of the surroundings is very pleasant to me.  I am waiting for my grand piano, and hope to resume my work without interruption next month.  My only thought is of completing “Tristan”, nothing else.

Farewell; accept my corrections in the benevolent spirit of a true friend.  Pardon the seriousness which pervades me, and all my opinions and judgments.  Let me hear something kind from you, and, before all, answer this letter soon.

Always and ever thine

R. W.

270.

Salzburg, October 9th, 1858.

The news about you, contained in the papers during last month, was so different and so contradictory that I did not know where to write to you.  At last your arrival at Vienna was announced, and when this premature statement was contradicted, some one wrote to me that you had gone to Florence or Paris.  By your last letter, which reached me on the day of my departure from Munich, I see that for the present you intend to remain in Venice, and that the Government does not object to your stay there.  I wish with my whole heart that you may find rest at Venice, and be able to settle comfortably, and to resume and complete