Richard Wagner | Page 7

very far away indeed from
the cabotin. Good-natured and sociable as he seemed, he must have
held to his purpose with iron determination and stuck to his work; and
whatever Richard and his brothers and sisters may have seen going on
around them, we may be sure they saw none of it in their own home.

When in 1817 Weber arrived at Dresden to set up a real German opera,
it seemed he must have landed in exactly the wrong place to carry out
his plans. Only by a series of miracles did they get partially carried out;
and here, as we know, he composed two works, _Der Freischütz_ and
Euryanthe, destined in after years to exert greater power over Richard's
genius than any other music save Beethoven's--a power not inferior to
that of Beethoven's music in some respects. Weber inevitably became a
friend of the Geyers, and before Richard was much older he knew the
great person to speak to and set him up in his heart as a demi-god. But
as yet Richard was only picking up a little knowledge and trying, very
faintly trying, to play the piano.
Meanwhile, Geyer's health was failing, though no one then foresaw
what was to come. He acted, he painted, he wrote plays, he saw to the
debuts of Albert and Rosalie; he tried a cure here and a cure there. In
1821 he moved to a larger house at the corner of the Jüdenhof and the
Frauengasse, and rejoiced to have a larger studio for his picture-work.
In July he went to Breslau and returned ill, tried Pillnitz and came back
appearing a little better, and promptly got worse. On the evening of
September 29 he heard Richard strumming the "Jungfernkranz," and
asked his wife whether it was possible the boy had any gift for music;
the following evening he died. The next morning Richard was told by
his mother that his father would fain have made something of him; and,
like young Teufelsdröckh, Wagner for long fancied something would
be made of him.
IV
So, less than eight years after, Ludwig Geyer followed his friend Carl
Friedrich Wagner to the grave, like him to a premature grave. He left
only one child of his own, Augusta Cäcilie (born February 26, 1815);
but he made Friedrich's widow his wife and her children were as his
children; and he toiled hard for their comfort and planned unceasingly
for their welfare; and when on an October morning he was left in his
last peaceful home to rest, it must have seemed to his widow as though
happiness was to be denied her until she joined him. The winter of
1813 had been black enough, but at once she had Geyer; in 1821 there

was no second Geyer. Adolph Wagner may have seen in the tragedy a
marked instance of the folly of having anything to do with the stage or
actors. Possibly he did not realize that precisely through Geyer's
connection with the theatre, and only to a comparatively small extent
by means of his reputation as an artist, his sister-in-law and nephews
and nieces suffered less than might have been anticipated. For on the
morning following Geyer's death Rosalie swore to take his place as
provider for the family, and that promise she kept.
When Richard was six months old, fate, as we have seen, struck her
first blow, placed the first obstacle in the path of a successful infantile
career, and swiftly sent Geyer to his aid. Now, when he was just turned
eight, she snatched away Geyer, and had already Rosalie in readiness to
help him. And, in fact, throughout Wagner's life fate seemed never to
tire of delivering staggering blows with one hand, and with the other
hand, at the same moment or a moment later, giving him compensation,
often ample, sometimes on a scale of lordly generosity. From the
beginning to the end of his seventy years no man ever had worse or
better luck than Wagner. It is perfectly clear that fate meant him to
write the Mastersingers and Tristan, and at times she was cruel to him
only to be kind to humanity. It is true she seems to have made a
mistake when she allowed him to complete _Parsifal_--but that matter
lies as yet many chapters ahead.
It would appear that Frau Geyer had a pension of some sort; since May
1 Rosalie had been engaged with the Royal Court players of Dresden;
Albert and Louise both had engagements at Breslau--one of Geyer's last
acts had been to see Albert safely fixed there; it is probable, if not
certain, that Adolph Wagner--who, after all, was fairly well off--lent a
helpful hand: and the family, if not in the modest affluent
circumstances they enjoyed while Geyer lived,