About this time the Wesendoncks moved into their villa, which had now been embellished by stucco-workers and upholsterers from Paris.  At this point a new phase began in my relations with this family, which was not really important, but nevertheless exercised considerable influence on the outward conduct of my life.  We had become so intimate, through being such near neighbours in a country place, that it was impossible to avoid a marked increase in our intimacy if only through meeting one another daily.  I had often noticed that Wesendonck, in his straightforward open manner, had shown uneasiness at the way in which I made myself at home in his house.  In many things, in the matter of heating and lighting the rooms, and also in the hours appointed for meals, consideration was shown me which seemed to encroach upon his rights as master of the house.  It needed a few confidential discussions on the subject to establish an agreement which was half implied and half expressed.  This understanding had a tendency, as time wore on, to assume a doubtful significance in the eyes of other people, and necessitated a certain measure of precaution in an intimacy which had now become exceedingly close.  These precautions were occasionally the source of great amusement to the two parties who were in the secret.  Curiously enough, this closer association with my neighbour coincided with the time when I began to work out my libretto, Tristan und Isolde.

Robert Franz now arrived in Zurich on a visit.  I was delighted by his agreeable personality, and his visit reassured me that no deep significance need be attached to the somewhat strained relations which had sprung up between us since the time when he took up the cudgels for me on the occasion of the production of Lohengrin.  The misunderstanding had been chiefly due to the intermeddling of his brother-in-law Heinrich (who had written a pamphlet about me).  We played and sang together; he accompanied me in some of his songs, and my compositions for the Nibelungen seemed to please him.  But one day, when the Wesendoncks asked him to dinner to meet me, he begged that he might be alone with the family without any other guests, because if I were there he would not attain the importance by which he set so much store.  We laughed over this, and I did so the more heartily because I was sometimes quite grateful to be saved the trouble of talking to people so curiously uncommunicative as I found Franz to be.  After he left us, he never sent us a word of himself or his doings again.

When I had almost finished the first act of Tristan, a newly married couple arrived in Zurich, who certainly had a prominent claim on my interest.  It was about the beginning of September that Hans von Bulow arrived with his young wife Cosima (a daughter of Liszt’s) at the Raben Hotel.  I invited them to my little house, so that they might spend the whole time of their stay in Zurich with me, as their visit was mainly on my account.