My whole attention was now directed to the young Grand Duchess of Baden.  Several years had passed since Eduard Devrient had been transferred to Karlsruhe by the Grand Duke to be manager of the court theatre there.  Since my departure from Dresden I had always kept in touch with Devrient, though our meetings were rare.  Moreover, he had written the most enthusiastic letters in appreciation of my pamphlets, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft and Oper und Drama.  He maintained that the Karlsruhe Theatre was so poorly equipped, that he thought he could not well entertain the idea of a performance of my operas in that house.  All these conditions were suddenly changed when the Grand Duke married, and the Crown Princess’s young daughter, who had been turned into a champion of mine by my old friend Alwine Frommann, thus secured a position of independence in Karlsruhe, and was eager in her demand for the performance of my works.  My operas were now being produced there also, and Devrient in his turn had the pleasure of informing me of the great interest shown in them by the young Princess, who even frequently attended the rehearsals.  This made a very agreeable impression upon me.  On my own initiative I expressed my gratitude in an address which I directed to the Grand Duchess herself, enclosing ‘Wotan’s Abschied’ from the finale of the Walkure as a souvenir for her album.

The 20th April was now drawing near, the day on which I was to leave my lodging in the Zeltweg (which had already been let), although I could not occupy the cottage, where the arrangements were not yet complete.  The bad weather had given us colds in the course of our frequent visits to the little house, in which masons and carpenters had made themselves at home.  In the worst of tempers we spent a week in the inn, and I began to wonder whether it was worth while occupying this new piece of land at all, for I had a sudden foreboding that it would be my fate to wander further afield.  Eventually we moved in at the end of April, in spite of everything.  It was cold and damp, the new heating apparatus did not provide any warmth, and we were both ill, and could hardly leave our beds.  Then came a good omen:  the first letter that reached me was one of reconciliation and love from Frau Julie Ritter, in which she told me that the quarrel, brought about by her son’s conduct, was at last ended.  Beautiful spring weather now set in; on Good Friday I awoke to find the sun shining brightly for the first time in this house:  the little garden was radiant with green, the birds sang, and at last I could sit on the roof and enjoy the long-yearned-for peace with its message of promise.  Full of this sentiment, I suddenly remembered that the day was Good Friday, and I called to mind the significance this omen had already once assumed for me when I was reading Wolfram’s Parsifal.  Since the sojourn in Marienbad, where I had conceived the Meistersinger and Lohengrin, I had never occupied myself again with that poem; now its noble possibilities struck me with overwhelming force, and out of my thoughts about Good Friday I rapidly conceived a whole drama, of which I made a rough sketch with a few dashes of the pen, dividing the whole into three acts.