s she was more than a friend, for
one of his letters to her is superscribed "Precious."

But all the while he suffered much from erysipelas and dyspepsia, and
was occasionally moved with violent despair to the edge of suicide, for
he was exiled from his Fatherland, and he was an outlaw from the world
of music, which he longed to enlarge and beautify. He compared himself
to Beethoven:

"Strange that my fate should be like Beethoven's! he could not hear his
music because he was deaf.... I cannot hear mine because I am more than
deaf, because I do not live in my time at all, because I move among you
as one who is dead.... Oh, that I should not arise from my bed
to-morrow, awake no more to this loathsome life!"

Financial troubles and the discouragement of his wife were still among
the most faithful torments. His letters to Liszt are abundant with
alternations of artistic ecstasy and material misery. It is worth
recording that, "my wife has not scolded me once, although yesterday I
had the spleen badly enough." To add to his misery, Minna became
addicted to opium. In 1858 he wrote Liszt:

"My wife will return in a fortnight, after having finished her cure,
which will have lasted three months. My anxiety about her was terrible,
and for two months I had to expect the news of her death from day to
day. Her health was ruined, especially by the immoderate use of opium,
taken nominally as a remedy for sleeplessness. Latterly the cure she
uses has proved highly beneficial; the great weakness and want of
appetite have disappeared, and the recovery of the chief functions (she
used to perspire continually) and a certain abatement of her incessant
excitement, have become noticeable. The great enlargement of her heart
will be bearable to her if only she keeps perfectly calm and avoids all
excitement to her dying day. A thing of this kind can never be got rid
of entirely. Thus I have to undertake new duties, over which I must try
to forget my own sufferings."

The young pianist, Tausig, visits him, and he thinks of him as his son,
saying, "My childless marriage is suddenly blest with an interesting
phenomenon." But the young Tausig gives him unlimited cares, and
"devours my biscuits, which my wife doles out grudgingly even to me."
His allusions to Minna are always full of tender solicitude, though it
is evident that she wears upon him. His temper, peculiarly violent at
the slightest opposition, must have been a serious problem unde