And then the music stops. The spring has dried up. Wolf in great anguish
wrote despairing letters to his friends. To Oskar Grohe, on 2 May, 1891,
he wrote:
"I have given up all idea of composing. Heaven knows how things
will finish. Pray for my poor soul."
And to Wette, on 13 August, 1891, he says:
"For the last four months I have been suffering from a sort of
mental consumption, which makes me very seriously think of quitting
this world for ever.... Only those who truly live should live at
all. I have been for some time like one who is dead. I only wish it
were an apparent death; but I am really dead and buried; though the
power to control my body gives me a seeming life. It is my inmost,
my only desire, that the flesh may quickly follow the spirit that
has already passed. For the last fifteen days I have been living at
Traunkirchen, the pearl of Traunsee.... All the comforts that a man
could wish for are here to make my life happy--peace, solitude,
beautiful scenery, invigorating air, and everything that could suit
the tastes of a hermit like myself.
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