Brendel must have surprised you. (Bosh!) God bless you.

162.

Dearest Franz,

You are just the person whom I wanted to be in Leipzig at this moment, and I look upon your passage through that town as a hint of fate that there may be help for me after all.  In my great trouble I wrote to Brendel some time ago, asking him whether he could get me amongst my Leipzig “admirers” 1,000 thalers on a bill at four or five months’ date.  Answer:  “No, but perhaps A. might manage it through one person or another.”  As A. had recently paid me a visit, I wrote to him also.  Answer:  “No.”  In the course of the next three months I expect this year’s receipts from my operas, and to all appearance they will be good and help me once for all out of this last difficulty.  The very least I may expect is this sum of 1,000 thalers.  I may therefore, with a good conscience, give a bill payable after three months (end of October) to any one who will lend it to me.  Hartel must do it.  If he should prefer to advance me 1,000 thalers on account of my receipts, it will suit me equally well.  He can control those receipts, and I will give orders that all payments of honorarium are to be made to X. till the money has been returned.  Whichever way he likes will suit me, only let me get out of this miserable condition, which makes me feel like a galley-slave.

A. wrote to me about certain possibilities of Germany being opened to me for the special purpose of a short journey.  I do not believe it, and at this moment do not care much about it; I certainly will not take the least trouble in the matter.  Concerning the Berlin affair, be assured that I am only too glad to leave it entirely in your hands.  I should be a nice fool if I withdrew it from them as long as you are not tired of it yourself.  X. will take good care not to apply to me.  All this is idle gossip.

From the Musical Festival at Sitten I ran away.  It appeared to me like a great village fair, and I did not care to take part in the music-making.  I simply bolted.  No “musical festivals” of any kind for me!  I feel quite jealous because you have gone to Rotterdam.  I hope you will find time for Zurich as well.  Come if you can in the latter half of August, for then I think the Wesendoncks will be back.

Good Lord, my head is a waste.  Yesterday early I left the lake of Geneva.  Last night I spent in the stage-coach from Berne to Lucerne.  At present I am afloat on the lake of Lucerne, from the shore of which I shall fetch my wife, who is going through a cure of curds and whey.  After that I return to Zurich, which I dare do only in the hope that your attack on the Hartels has succeeded.  No one can help me here; I exhausted everything to secure my existence from last winter till now.  If all goes well, I shall continue the composition of the “Valkyrie” after August 1st.  Work, this work, is the only thing that makes life bearable.  With the copying of the “Rhinegold” I go on in the intervals; in the late autumn you will, I hope, have the score.