After a night spent in fever and sleeplessness, I forced myself to take a long tramp the next day through the hilly country, which was covered with pine woods.  It all looked dreary and desolate, and I could not think what I should do there.  Returning in the afternoon, I stretched myself, dead tired, on a hard couch, awaiting the long-desired hour of sleep.  It did not come; but I fell into a kind of somnolent state, in which I suddenly felt as though I were sinking in swiftly flowing water.  The rushing sound formed itself in my brain into a musical sound, the chord of E flat major, which continually re-echoed in broken forms; these broken chords seemed to be melodic passages of increasing motion, yet the pure triad of E flat major never changed, but seemed by its continuance to impart infinite significance to the element in which I was sinking.  I awoke in sudden terror from my doze, feeling as though the waves were rushing high above my head.  I at once recognised that the orchestral overture to the Rheingold, which must long have lain latent within me, though it had been unable to find definite form, had at last been revealed to me.  I then quickly realised my own nature; the stream of life was not to flow to me from without, but from within.  I decided to return to Zurich immediately, and begin the composition of my great poem.  I telegraphed to my wife to let her know my decision, and to have my study in readiness.

The same evening I took my place on the coach going to Genoa along the Riviera di Levante.  I again had the opportunity of getting exquisite impressions of the country during this journey, which lasted over the whole of the following day.  It was, above all, the colouring of the wonders that presented themselves to my eyes which gave me such delight—­the redness of the rocks, the blue of the sky and the sea, the pale green of the pines; even the dazzling white of a herd of cattle worked upon me so powerfully that I murmured to myself with a sigh, ’How sad it is that I cannot remain to enjoy all this, and thus gratify my sensuous nature.’

At Genoa I again felt so agreeably stimulated that I suddenly thought I had only yielded to some foolish weakness, and resolved to carry out my original plan.  I was already making arrangements for travelling to Nice along the celebrated Riviera di Ponente, of which I had heard so much, but I had scarcely decided on my former plans, when I realised that the fact which refreshed and invigorated me was not the renewal of my delight over Italy, but the resolve to take up my work again.  And indeed, as soon as I made up my mind to alter this plan, the old condition set in once more, with all the symptoms of dysentery.  I thereupon understood myself, and giving up the journey to Nice, I returned direct by the nearest route via Alessandria and Novara.

This time I passed the Borromean Islands with supreme indifference, and got back to Zurich over the St. Gotthard.