Do not think that the news of Leipzig has made me suddenly desperate.  I anticipated this, and knew everything beforehand.  I can also imagine that the Leipzig failure may still be repaired, that “it is not as bad as we think,” and much more to the same effect.  It may be, but let me see evidence.  I have no faith, and only one hope:  sleep, sleep, so profound, so profound, that all sensation of the pain of living ceases.  That sleep at least is within my reach; it is not so difficult to get.

Good heavens, I give you bad blood as well!  Why did you ever come across me?

The present of the Princess caused me a smile,—­a smile over which I could shed tears.  I shall write to her when I have lived through a few more days; then I shall also send you my portrait, with a motto, which might make you feel awkward after all.  How are you?  Burn this letter:  it is godless; but I too am godless.  Be you God’s saint, for in you alone I still have faith.  Yea! yea! and once more yea!

Your

R. W.

January 15th, 1854

Something must be done in London; I will even go to America to satisfy my future creditor; this too I offer, so that I may finish my “Nibelungen.”

145.

My dearest Franz,

I write once more to try whether I can ease my heart a little.

Dearest friend, this continual suffering is becoming at last intolerable.  Always to submit to things, never, even at the risk of one’s own perdition, to give a turn to the wheel of suffering and to determine its direction—­that must at last rouse the meekest of men to revolt.  I must now act, do something.  Again and again the thought comes to me of retiring to some distant corner of the world, although I know full well that this would mean only flight, not the conquest of a new life, for I am too lonely.  But I must at least begin something that will make my life, such as it is, sufficiently tolerable to enable me to devote myself to the execution and completion of my work, which alone can divert my thoughts and give me comfort.  While here I chew a beggar’s crust, I hear from Boston that “Wagner nights” are given there.  Every one persuades me to come over; they are occupying themselves with me with increasing interest; I might make much money there by concert performances, etc.  “Make much money!” Heavens!  I don’t want to make money if I can go the way shown to me by my longing.  But if I really were to undertake something of this kind, I should even then not know how to get with decency out of my new arrangements here in order to go where I could make money.  And how should I feel there?

Alas! this is so impossible that the impossibility is equalled only by the ridiculous position into which I sink when I commence brooding over the possibility of the plan.  My work, my “Nibelungen,” would then of course be out of the question.