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These spirited and, in many respects, boldly devised scenes I had clothed in suitable language and carefully written verse, which had already been noticed by Laube. The police at first took exception to the title of the work, which, had I not changed it, would have led to the complete failure of my plans for its presentation.
He told me that he wanted to arrange nothing less than Kosziusko into a libretto for grand opera! Once again I had qualms, for I felt at once that Laube had a mistaken idea about the character of a dramatic subject.
My only regret on that occasion was that the hopes my old friend Laube entertained of being summoned to Dresden to fill that post were unrealised. He also had thrown himself enthusiastically into the work of dramatic literature.
As regards my Tannhauser, on the other hand, Laube used to declare it was a misfortune that I had not got an experienced dramatist to supply me with a decent text for my music. For the time being, however, this work of versification had the desired result, and Reissiger kept steadily to the study of Rienzi.
Of course the usual heroine was not missing; she was a Polish girl who had a love affair with a Russian; and in this way some sentimental situations were also to be found in the plot. Without a moment's delay I assured my sister Rosalie that I would not set this story to music: she agreed with me, and begged me only to postpone my answer to Laube.
I engaged a room on the spot, agreed to Don Juan for Sunday, regretted greatly that I had not brought my luggage with me from Leipzig, and hastened to return thither as quickly as possible in order to get back to Lauchstadt all the sooner. The die was cast. The serious side of life at once confronted me in the form of significant experiences. At Leipzig I had to take a furtive leave of Laube.
To this end a fresh engagement had to be negotiated with Director Bethmann for the coming winter season. Unable to await the conclusion of our contract in Leipzig, I availed myself of Laube's presence at the baths in Kosen, near Naumburg, to pay him a visit. Laube had only recently been discharged from the Berlin municipal gaol, after a tormenting inquisition of nearly a year's duration.
On the way home to the house of my brother-in-law, Hermann Brockhaus, where the whole family were to gather together for an hour, Laube, of whom my mother had been very fond, was my only companion.
Reimarus, from Saint Simonism, and from the sentimental tragedy of Charlotte Stieglitz in real life; Menzel's revengeful denunciation of this colorless and tedious novel, as an "outrageous attack upon ethics and the Christian religion"; the resulting verdict of the Mannheim municipal court, punishing Gutzkow by one month's imprisonment, with no allowance for a still longer detention during his trial; the official proscription of all "present and future writings" by Gutzkow, Wienbarg, Laube, Mundt, and Heine; Gutzkow's continued energetic championship of the new literary movement and editorial direction of the Frankfurt Telegraph, from 1835 to 1837, under the very eyes of the Confederate Council; his removal in 1837 to Hamburg and his gradual transformation there from a short story writer and journalist into a successful dramatist; his series of eleven plays, produced within the space of fifteen years, from 1839 to 1854; the success of his tragedy, Uriel Acosta, in 1846, and the resulting appointment of the author in the same year as playwright and critic at the Royal Theatre in Dresden; his temperate participation in the popular movement of 1848 and consequent loss of the Dresden position; the death of his wife, Amalia, in the same-year after an estrangement of seven years, due to his own infatuation for Therese von Bacharacht; his happy marriage in 1849 with Bertha Meidinger, a cousin of his first wife; the publication in 1850-51 of his first great novel of contemporary German life, entitled, Spiritual Knighthood; his continuous editorial work upon the journal, Fireside Conversations, from 1849 until the appearance of his other great contemporary novel, The Magician of Rome, 1858-61; his attack of insanity under the strain of ill health in 1865 and unsuccessful attempt at suicide; and, finally, his rapidly declining health and frequent change of residence from Berlin to Italy, thence to Heidelberg, and from there to Sachsenhausen, near Frankfurt-on-the-Main, and his tragic death there, either intentional or accidental, in the night of December fifteenth, 1878, when under the influence of chloral he upset the candle, by the light of which he had been reading, and perished in the stifling fumes of the burning room.
Laube felt himself compelled to talk seriously to me about my expectations of succeeding in Paris, as he saw that I treated my situation, based on such trivial hopes, with a humour that charmed him even against his better judgment. He tried to think how he could help me without prejudicing my future.
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