Luttichau’s altered attitude towards me was such that for some time our intercourse on matters of business assumed an almost confidential tone.  But, unfortunately, in course of time things changed for the worse, so that our relationship became one of open enmity; nevertheless, a certain peculiar tenderness towards me on the part of this singular man was always clearly perceptible.  Indeed, I might almost say that much of his subsequent abuse of me sounded more like the strangely perverted plaints of a love that met with no response.

For my holiday this year I went, early in September, to Fischer’s vineyard, near Loschwitz, not far from the famous Firidlater vineyard, where, somewhat late in the year, I rented a summer residence.  Where under the kindly and strengthening stimulus of six week of open-air life, I composed my music for the second act of Tannhauser, which I completed by the 15th of October.  During this period a performance of Rienzi was given before an audience of no ordinary importance.  For this event I went up to town.  Spontini, Meyerbeer, and General Lwoff, the composer of the Russian National Anthem, were seated together in a stage box.  I sought no opportunity of learning the impression made by my opera upon these learned judges and magnates of the musical world.  It was enough for me to have the complacent satisfaction of knowing that they had heard my oft-repeated work performed before a crowded house and amid overwhelming applause.  I was delighted at the close of the opera to have my little dog Peps, which had run after me all the way from the country, brought to me; and without waiting to greet the European celebrities, I drove off with it at once to our quiet vineyard, where Minna was greatly relieved to recover her little pet, which for hours she had believed to be lost.

Here I also received a visit from Werder, the man whose friendship I had made in Berlin under such dramatic circumstances.  But this time he appeared in ordinary human guise, beneath the kindly light of heaven, by which we disputed in a friendly way concerning the true worth of the Fliegender Hollander, my mind having somewhat turned against this work since Tannhauser had got into my head.  It certainly seemed odd to find myself contradicted on this point by my friend, and to receive instruction from him on the significance of my own work.

When we returned to our winter quarters I tried to avoid allowing so lengthy an interval to elapse between the composition of the second and third acts as had separated that of the first and second.  In spite of many absorbing engagements I succeeded in my aim.  By carefully cultivating a habit of taking solitary walks, and thanks to their soothing influence over me, I managed to finish the music of Act iii. by the 29th of December, that is to say, before the end of the year.

During this period my time was otherwise very seriously occupied by a visit paid us by Spontini with reference to a proposed presentation of his Vestalin, the preparation for which had just begun.  The singular episodes and characteristic features of the intercourse which I thus gained with this eminent and hoary-headed master are still so vividly imprinted on my memory that they seem worthy of a place in this record.