Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, vol 2 | Page 6

you thought of Berlin again? Something must be done there if all is not to come to a stop.
Before all, I must have money. The Hartels have been very liberal, but what is the good of hundreds where thousands are needed? If the Berlin purchase had come to something, I might at least have used the offer in order to prove to a man of business here that I possessed "capital," and to induce him to lend me the necessary sum for three years, paying back one-third every year. But this hope also has vanished. No one will undertake such an affair unless he has personal confidence in my future (?) successes. Such a man, dearest Franz, you must find for me. Once more, I want from 3,000 to 4,000 thalers in order to find perfect rest and equipoise. That much my operas may well bring me in in three years IN CASE something real is done for "Lohengrin," so as to save it. I am willing to lease my rights to the lender; my rights in "Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin" shall be secured to him in any way he thinks desirable or necessary. If I am not worthy of such a service, then you must own that I am in a bad way, and all has been a mistake! Help me over this, and I will undertake once more to hold out.
Dear friend, do not be angry. I have a claim on you as on my creator. You are the creator of the person I am now; I live through you: it is no exaggeration. Take care of your creation. I call this a duty which you have towards me.
The only thing I want is money; that at least one ought to be able to get. Love I abandon, and art!
Well, the "Rhinegold" is ready, readier than I ever thought it would be. I went to this music with so much faith, so much joy; and with a true fury of despair I continued, and have at last finished it. Alas! the need of gold held me too in its net. Believe me, no one ever has composed in this manner; my music, it seems to me, must be terrible; it is a slough of horrors and sublimities.
I shall soon make a clean copy, black on white, and that will probably be the end of it; or shall I give permission to have this also performed at Leipzig for twenty louis d'or? I cannot write more to you today. You are the only person to whom I could tell such a thing; no one else has an idea of it, least of all the people near me.
Do not think that the news of Leipzig has made me suddenly desperate. I anticipated this, and knew everything beforehand. I can also imagine that the Leipzig failure may still be repaired, that "it is not as bad as we think," and much more to the same effect. It may be, but let me see evidence. I have no faith, and only one hope: sleep, sleep, so profound, so profound, that all sensation of the pain of living ceases. That sleep at least is within my reach; it is not so difficult to get.
Good heavens, I give you bad blood as well! Why did you ever come across me?
The present of the Princess caused me a smile,--a smile over which I could shed tears. I shall write to her when I have lived through a few more days; then I shall also send you my portrait, with a motto, which might make you feel awkward after all. How are you? Burn this letter: it is godless; but I too am godless. Be you God's saint, for in you alone I still have faith. Yea! yea! and once more yea!
Your
R. W.
January 15th, 1854
Something must be done in London; I will even go to America to satisfy my future creditor; this too I offer, so that I may finish my "Nibelungen."

145.
My dearest Franz,
I write once more to try whether I can ease my heart a little.
Dearest friend, this continual suffering is becoming at last intolerable. Always to submit to things, never, even at the risk of one's own perdition, to give a turn to the wheel of suffering and to determine its direction--that must at last rouse the meekest of men to revolt. I must now act, do something. Again and again the thought comes to me of retiring to some distant corner of the world, although I know full well that this would mean only FLIGHT, not the conquest of a new life, for I am too LONELY. But I must at least begin something that will make my life, such as it is, sufficiently tolerable to enable me to devote myself to the execution