I have not yet got back to the mood for writing to the kind Princess and the good Child.  I am annoyed at being always in a state of lamentation, and must therefore wait for a favourable hour, for I do not like absolutely to deceive you.  You yourself are used to my laments, and expect nothing else.  My health, too, is once more so bad, that for ten days, after I had finished the sketch for the first act of “Siegfried,” I was literally not able to write a single bar without being driven away from my work by a most alarming headache.  Every morning I sit down, stare at the paper, and am glad enough when I get as far as reading Walter Scott.  The fact is, I have once more over-taxed myself, and how am I to recover my strength?  With “Rhinegold” I got on well enough, considering my circumstances, but the “Valkyrie” caused me much pain.  At present my nervous system resembles a pianoforte very much out of tune, and on that instrument I am expected to produce “Siegfried.”  Well, I fancy the strings will break at last, and then there will be an end.  We cannot alter it; this is a life fit for a dog.

I hope you are out of bed again.  I wish I were a little more like you.  Can you not let me have the “Mountain Symphony?” Do not forget to send it to me.

Adieu, my good, dear Franz.  You are my only comfort.

A thousand greetings to all at Altenburg.

235.

January 27th, 1857.

Your sympathy with me makes me hope that you are at present employed in giving the necessary helpful turn to my affairs, and I therefore think it advisable to describe to you, in a few words, my situation as it has lately shaped itself, so that you may know accurately upon what I reckon, and may take steps accordingly.

W. has bought the little country house after all, and offers me a perpetual lease of it.

As I have given up the allowance of the R.’s, it is important for me to settle my income on an independent basis.  It would be foolish if I tried to arrange my future definitely at this moment, which will probably bring my provisional position to a close.  I am certain that my amnesty will be granted in the course of 1858 at the latest, and I hope that this will suddenly change my situation, to the extent, at least, that it will depend upon myself to find a solid basis for my social existence.  All I can rationally care for, considering that I have no chance of success in any other direction, must be to secure for myself a free, unencumbered, and not too limited income for the next few years, until my great work is completed and produced.  Nothing appears more adapted to the achievement of this purpose than the sale of my “Nibelungen” to Hartel, whom I have asked to settle with me according to his own judgment.  It is most important to me that this should come to pass, and I hope, in any case, that if Hartel accepts the offer I shall receive all that is required.  I think they ought to pay me 1,000 thalers for each