Schnorr had left us after a fortnight’s stay, and now the time had also come for the Bulows to depart.  I accompanied them as far as Frankfort, where we spent two more days together to see a performance of Goethe’s Tasso.  Liszt’s symphonic poem Tasso was to precede the play.  It was with odd feelings that we witnessed this performance.  Friederike Meyer as the Princess and Herr Schneider as Tasso appealed to us greatly, but Hans could not get over the shameful execution of Liszt’s work by the conductor, Ignaz Lachner.  Before going to the theatre Friedrike gave us a luncheon at the restaurant in the Botanical Gardens.  In the end the mysterious Herr von Guaita also joined us there.  We now noticed with astonishment that all further conversation was carried on between them as a duologue which was quite unintelligible to us.  All that we could make out was the furious jealousy of Herr von Guaita and Friederike’s witty, scornful defence.  But the excited man became more composed when he suggested I should arrange for a performance of Lohengrin in Frankfort under my own direction.  I was favourably disposed to the suggestion, as I saw in it an opportunity for another meeting with the Bulows and the Schnorrs.  The Bulows promised to come, and I invited the Schnorrs to be in the cast.  This time we could take leave of one another cheerfully, although the increasing and often excessive ill-humour of poor Hans had drawn many an involuntary sigh from me.  He seemed to be in perpetual torment.  On the other hand, Cosima appeared to have lost the shyness she had evinced towards me when I visited Reichenhall in the previous year, and a very friendly manner had taken its place.  While I was singing ‘Wotan’s Abschied’ to my friends I noticed the same expression on Cosima’s face as I had seen on it, to my astonishment, in Zurich on a similar occasion, only the ecstasy of it was transfigured into something higher.  Everything connected with this was shrouded in silence and mystery, but the belief that she belonged to me grew to such certainty in my mind, that when I was under the influence of more than ordinary excitement my conduct betrayed the most reckless gaiety.  As I was accompanying Cosima to the hotel across a public square, I suddenly suggested she should sit in an empty wheelbarrow which stood in the street, so that I might wheel her to the hotel.  She assented in an instant.  My astonishment was so great that I felt all my courage desert me, and was unable to carry out my mad project.

On returning to Biebrich I was at once confronted with grave difficulties, for Schott, after keeping me some time in suspense, now definitely refused to pay me any further subsidies.  The advances I had already received from my publisher had, it is true, until quite recently, served to defray all my expenses since leaving Vienna, including my wife’s removal to Dresden and my own migration to Biebrich by way of Paris, where I had to satisfy more than one lurking creditor.  But in spite of these initial