to Wagner for having written it, and the other operas also, but he no longer saw any reason to be grateful to him for anything else. Besides, if reports were true, he had the von Bülow woman now, and Ludwig did not want to think of that.
Meanwhile, having no one else to turn to, he had turned back almost regretfully to Paul.
Paul of Thurn and Taxis was a cadet princeling of that prolific and serious-minded house. He was the young man whose mere presence had given Wagner the emotional key to that first successful interview.
And he was the first friend Ludwig had ever had, the first to accept his love, and also the first to reject it. Butthat he had accepted it at all, gave Ludwig hope. If he must make do with substitutes, then he must make do with the substitutes he knew. He had no time to seek for others.
He had first met Paul a year ago, in 1863. That was the year the family had finally recognized him as crown prince, and had given him apartments on the top floor of the Residenz. Having done that, they left him there. Along with the apartments, he had also been given two aides-de-camp. He had waited to meet them eagerly, but without much hope. Still, if they could not be friends, at least they would be company.
He did not so much remember people as the rooms and places in which he had met them. To remember the people themselves was too painful, for he had the ugly trick of remembering them clearly as he first saw them, before he managed to pretend that they were what he wished them to be.
When the door opened and Sauer and Prince Paul came into the room, he was so nervous, that at first he saw nothing but their clothes. Yet the hermit crab, foraging under the weight of the sea and almost blind, sometimes finds by accident a fellow scavenger.
Paul had been a slim, manly youth, with a curiously arrogant and withdrawn head. His costume was court military. His features were blurred and indistinct. He had reached his apogee already, as the prototype of the athletic and agreeable young man. There was nothing left for him to do but decline. But when we see a statue or a painting walking around in the flesh, immediately we are curious. We want it. Ludwig forgot all about Sauer. To this day he could not remember the man. But on first seeing Paul he experienced that shock of recognition that is so much more dangerous than love.
And as though this were love, he immediately beganto try to fit him into the private corners of what life he had, to fill up the empty places and to chink the disappointments of the past. That was when the pattern of his life was set. The things he tried to do with Paul, he would after that try to do with everybody else to whom he was attracted.
There was a small hunting lodge up one of the valleys of the Watzmann. He took Paul there, for it was one of the places where he had always wanted to have a friend.
In the mountains of Bavaria the forests are like green fur. In the clear, invisible wind the nap of the tree tops wriggles affectionately. In the mountains he felt free. In the mountains the Wittelsbachs were kings as they were nowhere else. In the cities nowadays the bourgeoisie had a permanent lien against their betters. But in the mountains the peasants were loyal. The Wittelsbachs were men up there, the heads of their clan. In the cities they were merely constitutional monarchs, and a constitution has neither emotions nor loyalties. In the city a king is only a picture in a pie shop or on the palace balcony. In the mountain woods he gets his body back.
He had only had one perfect day with Paul. But he remembered every detail of it clearly, even when the image of Paul himself had faded. For in the days when he had first met Paul, he had felt only the emotion evoked in him, and not its social nature. His first days with Paul were part of that golden past before he had learned that the objects of our desire and of our love are not necessarily the same.
There are certain days in our life whose
Meanwhile, having no one else to turn to, he had turned back almost regretfully to Paul.
Paul of Thurn and Taxis was a cadet princeling of that prolific and serious-minded house. He was the young man whose mere presence had given Wagner the emotional key to that first successful interview.
And he was the first friend Ludwig had ever had, the first to accept his love, and also the first to reject it. Butthat he had accepted it at all, gave Ludwig hope. If he must make do with substitutes, then he must make do with the substitutes he knew. He had no time to seek for others.
He had first met Paul a year ago, in 1863. That was the year the family had finally recognized him as crown prince, and had given him apartments on the top floor of the Residenz. Having done that, they left him there. Along with the apartments, he had also been given two aides-de-camp. He had waited to meet them eagerly, but without much hope. Still, if they could not be friends, at least they would be company.
He did not so much remember people as the rooms and places in which he had met them. To remember the people themselves was too painful, for he had the ugly trick of remembering them clearly as he first saw them, before he managed to pretend that they were what he wished them to be.
When the door opened and Sauer and Prince Paul came into the room, he was so nervous, that at first he saw nothing but their clothes. Yet the hermit crab, foraging under the weight of the sea and almost blind, sometimes finds by accident a fellow scavenger.
Paul had been a slim, manly youth, with a curiously arrogant and withdrawn head. His costume was court military. His features were blurred and indistinct. He had reached his apogee already, as the prototype of the athletic and agreeable young man. There was nothing left for him to do but decline. But when we see a statue or a painting walking around in the flesh, immediately we are curious. We want it. Ludwig forgot all about Sauer. To this day he could not remember the man. But on first seeing Paul he experienced that shock of recognition that is so much more dangerous than love.
And as though this were love, he immediately beganto try to fit him into the private corners of what life he had, to fill up the empty places and to chink the disappointments of the past. That was when the pattern of his life was set. The things he tried to do with Paul, he would after that try to do with everybody else to whom he was attracted.
There was a small hunting lodge up one of the valleys of the Watzmann. He took Paul there, for it was one of the places where he had always wanted to have a friend.
In the mountains of Bavaria the forests are like green fur. In the clear, invisible wind the nap of the tree tops wriggles affectionately. In the mountains he felt free. In the mountains the Wittelsbachs were kings as they were nowhere else. In the cities nowadays the bourgeoisie had a permanent lien against their betters. But in the mountains the peasants were loyal. The Wittelsbachs were men up there, the heads of their clan. In the cities they were merely constitutional monarchs, and a constitution has neither emotions nor loyalties. In the city a king is only a picture in a pie shop or on the palace balcony. In the mountain woods he gets his body back.
He had only had one perfect day with Paul. But he remembered every detail of it clearly, even when the image of Paul himself had faded. For in the days when he had first met Paul, he had felt only the emotion evoked in him, and not its social nature. His first days with Paul were part of that golden past before he had learned that the objects of our desire and of our love are not necessarily the same.
There are certain days in our life whose
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