As a sequel to the Wartburg poem, I also found in the same copy a critical study, ‘Lohengrin,’ which gave in full detail the main contents of that widespread epic.

Thus a whole new world was opened to me, and though as yet I had not found the form in which I might cope with Lohengrin, yet this image also lived imperishably within me.  When, therefore, I afterwards made a close acquaintance with the intricacies of this legend, I could visualise the figure of the hero with a distinctness equal to that of my conception of Tannhauser at this time.

Under these influences my longing for a speedy return to Germany grew ever more intense, for there I hoped to earn a new home for myself where I could enjoy leisure for creative work.  But it was not yet possible even to think of occupying myself with such grateful tasks.  The sordid necessities of life still bound me to Paris.  While thus employed, I found an opportunity of exerting myself in a way more congenial to my desires.  When I was a young man at Prague, I had made the acquaintance of a Jewish musician and composer called Dessauer—­a man who was not devoid of talent, who in fact achieved a certain reputation, but was chiefly known among his intimates on account of his hypochondria.  This man, who was now in flourishing circumstances, was so far patronised by Schlesinger that the latter seriously proposed to help him to a commission for Grand Opera.  Dessauer had come across my poem of the Fliegender Hollander, and now insisted that I should draft a similar plot for him, as M. Leon Pillet’s Vaisseau Fantome had already been given to M. Dietsch, the letter’s musical conductor, to set to music.  From this same conductor Dessauer obtained the promise of a like commission, and he now offered me two hundred francs to provide him with a similar plot, and one congenial to his hypochondriacal temperament.

To meet this wish I ransacked my brain for recollections of Hoffmann, and quickly decided to work up his Bergwerke von Falun.  The moulding of this fascinating and marvellous material succeeded as admirably as I could wish.  Dessauer also felt convinced that the topic was worth his while to set to music.  His dismay was accordingly all the greater when Pillet rejected our plot on the ground that the staging would be too difficult, and that the second act especially would entail insurmountable obstacles for the ballet, which had to be given each time.  In place of this Dessauer wished me to compose him an oratorio on ‘Mary Magdalene.’  As on the day that he expressed this wish he appeared to be suffering from acute melancholia, so much so that he declared he had that morning seen his own head lying beside his bed, I thought well not to refuse his request.  I asked him, therefore, to give me time, and I regret to say that ever since that day I have continued to take it..

It was amid such distractions as these that this winter at length drew to an end, while my prospects of getting to Germany gradually grew more hopeful, though with a slowness that sorely tried my patience.  I had kept up a continuous correspondence with Dresden respecting Rienzi, and in the worthy chorus-master Fischer I at last found an honest man who was favourably disposed to me.  He sent me reliable and reassuring reports as to the state of my affairs.