The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎616r] (122/239)

RICHARD AND MINNA WAGNER.
91
Luckily that was the last attempt at reconcilement of two such
hopelessly disparate beings, though Wagner did make his promised
visit de convenance to his wife’s abode the following November.
Yet why had he endured this purgatory for a quarter of a century ;
why had he dropped that petition for divorce which he lodged
scarce seven months after marriage? Ten years before this last
catastrophe, he describes the world as a place “ where the Strong
brims full the sacrifice demanded of it by the Weak ” ; and that
is the only answer. But what an addle-pate the woman was !
The tiniest grain of mother-wit might have shown her that this
was the psychologic moment for displaying herself in the most
attractive light : one word of human sympathy would have brought
her husband to her feet for good and all. An impenetrable barrier
had been raised between him and her fancied rival—on a very
different plane—as the merest glance at the correspondence with
Mathilde Wesendonck about this date reveals to us at once; was
Minna so childishly blind that she could not see it too? Empty
heart, empty head.
But Minna had not come to Biebrich with the remotest thought
of making up for past dissensions by a kindly self-effacement.
With a recollection of pne-nuptial plaudits, she had come to play
the “ leading lady,” and perhaps her effort at light comedy is the
most dismal incident in all this scene. In the document we have
just perused it is merely hinted : ” who cannot so much as follow
me if I take up a book ’ ’; but we happen to have another testi
mony. Wendelin Weissheimer, the young man mentioned
towards our letter’s close, published a book of Erlebnisse mit
Richard Wagner, dc., in 1898, and this is what he tells us of
Minna’s surprise visit to her husband’s barely-furnished retreat : —
“ It was entertaining to see how he pulled himself together, and
did his best to play the loving husband and attentive host. He
sent for cold viands from the hotel, brewed tea himself, and boiled
us half-a-dozen eggs; for I, also, was to share their meal and stop
for the recital of the Meistersinger poem, which his wife did not
know as yet. Then he slipped into one of his famous velvet
dressing-coats, put on a cap to match, and the reading commenced.
The first act passed without mishap, though Frau Minna inter
jected questions here and there which forced him to superfluous
explanations. Ere beginning the second, he gave her a description
of the mise-en-scene: ‘ To the right Hans Sachs’s cobbler-stall, to
the left the house of Pogner, with a crooked alley leading to the
background ’—‘ And here sits the public,’ put in Minna, while a
pellet of bread, which she had been kneading, rolled over
Wagner’s manuscript,—the recital was at end. An awkward pause
ensued ; I deemed it time to start on my return to Mayence, but