In the midst of arranging the house, a never-ending task, at which I set to work with all my might, I felt an inner compulsion to work:  I took up Siegfried again, and began to compose the second act.  I had not made up my mind what name to give to my new place of refuge.  As the introductory part of this act turned out very well, thanks to my favourable frame of mind, I burst out laughing at the thought that I ought to call my new home ‘Fafner’s Ruhe,’ to correspond with the first piece of work done in it.  It was not destined to be so, however.  The property continued to be called simply ‘Asyl,’ and I have designated it under this title in the chart of dates to my works.

The miscarriage of my prospects of support for the Nibelungen from the Grand Duke of Weimar fostered in me a continued depression of spirits; for I saw before me a burden of which I knew not how to rid myself.  At the same time a romantic message was conveyed to me:  a man who rejoiced in the name of Ferreiro introduced himself to me as the Brazilian consul in Leipzig, and told me that the Emperor of Brazil was greatly attracted by my music.  The man was an adept in meeting my doubts about this strange phenomenon in the letters which he wrote; the Emperor loved everything German, and wanted me very much to come to him in Rio Janeiro, so that I might conduct my operas in person.  As only Italian was sung in that country, it would be necessary to translate my libretto, which the Emperor regarded as a very easy matter, and actually an improvement to the libretto itself.  Strange to say, these proposals exercised a very agreeable influence on me.  I felt I could easily produce a passionate musical poem which would turn out quite excellent in Italian, and I turned my thoughts once more, with an ever-reviving preference, towards Tristan und Isolde.  In order in some way to test the intensity of that generous affection for my works protested by the Emperor of Brazil, I promptly sent to Senor Ferreiro the expensively bound volumes containing the pianoforte versions of my three earlier operas, and for a long time I indulged in the hope of some very handsome return from their gracious and splendid reception in Rio Janeiro.  But of these pianoforte versions, and the Emperor of Brazil and his consul Ferreiro, I never heard a single syllable again as long as I lived.  Semper, it is true, involved himself in an architectonic entanglement with this tropical country:  a competition was invited for the building of a new opera house in Rio; Semper had announced that he would take part in it, and completed some splendid plans which afforded us great entertainment, and appeared to be of special interest, among others, to Dr. Wille, who thought that it must be a new problem for an architect to sketch an opera house for a black public.  I have not learned whether the results of Semper’s negotiations with Brazil were much more satisfactory than mine; at all events, I know that he did not build the theatre.