I had very bad news from Vienna.  Standhartncr, to make sure of the furniture I had left in the house, sold it to a Viennese agent, with the option of re-purchase.  I wrote back in great indignation, particularly as I realised the prejudicial effect of this on my landlord, to whom I had to pay rent within the next few days.  Through Mme. Wille I succeeded in getting placed at my disposal the money required for the rent, which I forwarded at once to Baron Raokowitz.  Unfortunately, however, I found that Standhartner had already cleared up everything with Eduard Liszt, paying the rent with the proceeds from the furniture, and thereby cutting off my return to Vienna, which they both considered would be positive ruin to me.  But when I heard at the same time from Cornelius that Tausig, who was then in Hungary and who had added his signature to one of the bills of exchange, felt himself prevented by me from returning to Vienna as he desired, I was so sensibly wounded that I decided to go back on the spot, however great the danger might be.  I announced my intention to my friends there immediately, but decided first to try and provide myself with enough money to be in a position to suggest a composition with my creditors.  To this end I had written most urgently to Schott at Mayence, and did not refrain from reproaching him bitterly for his behaviour to me.  I now decided to leave Mariafeld for Stuttgart to await the result of these efforts, and to prosecute them from a nearer vantage-ground.  But I was also, as will be seen, moved to carry out this change by other motives.

Dr. Wille had returned, and I could see at once that my stay at Mariafeld alarmed him.  He probably feared I might rely on his help also.  In some confusion, occasioned by the attitude I had adopted in consequence, he made this confession to me in a moment of agitation.  He was, he said, overpowered by a sentiment with regard to me which amounted to this—­that a man wanted, after all, to be something more than a cipher in his own house, where, if anywhere, it is not pleasant to serve as a mere foil to some one else.  This sentiment was merely excusable, he thought, in a man who, though he might reasonably suppose himself of some account among his fellows, had been brought into close contact with another to whom he felt himself in the strangest manner subordinate.  Mme. Wille, foreseeing her husband’s frame of mind, had come to an agreement, with the Wesendonck family by which they were to provide me with one hundred francs a month during my stay at Mariafeld.  When this came to my knowledge, I could do nothing but announce to Frau Wesendonck my immediate departure from Switzerland, and request her in the kindest possible way to consider herself relieved of all anxiety about me, as I had arranged my affairs quite in accordance with my wishes.  I heard later that she had returned this letter—­which, possibly, she considered compromising—­to Mme. Wille unopened.