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Updated: May 2, 2025
This gentleman, with whom amongst other things I discussed Friederike Meyer's talents, informed me that she was supposed to be the mistress of Herr von Guaita, a man who was held in great respect in the town on account of his noble rank, and that he had presented her with a house in which she was now living.
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.
I heard that she was then living in complete retirement both from the stage and from society on a tiny estate on the Rhine with her two children, being, it was believed, secretly married to Herr von Guaita. But my careful and elaborate preparations for a quiet spell of work had not yet been successful.
As the short drive to Frankfort often helped to entertain me and distract my thoughts, I gladly fulfilled her wishes, and found her in a state of convalescence but still weak, and obviously preoccupied with the effort to fortify my mind against all disagreeable surmises about herself. She said that Herr von Guaita was like an anxious, almost hypersensitive father to her.
He died at the beginning of the twentieth century, complaining of having been cruelly slandered, especially by Stanislas de Guaita, who in his Temple of Satan had accused Boullan of being a priest of Lucifer, of making use of spells and charms, and worst of all of celebrating the Black Mass. The founder of the Religion of Humanity had a tragic and troublous career.
He took Friederike at once under his protection, and treated her with the greatest care, thus relieving me from the pangs of anxiety aroused by this strange case. I spent some time with Herr von Guaita, talking with him about the possibility of producing one of my operas in Frankfort.
Not until many years later was the secret of her position certainly a very difficult one revealed to me, and from the facts then stated I could only conclude that she shrank from telling me the truth concerning her connection with Herr von Guaita.
On the second day I was present when the sick lady was conveyed to the railway station by Guaita, who evinced towards her what appeared to me the most tender paternal solicitude.
She told me that she was very young when she left her family, and that with her sister Luise in particular she had severed all connection. She had thus come quite friendless to Frankfort, where the chance protection of Herr von Guaita, a man of mature age, had been very welcome to her.
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.
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