In May 1850, Minna wrote to her friend Mathilde Schiffner in Dresden:

“He goes slightly crazy every few years”—had Richard already strayed before in matters of the heart? To be sure, he found it easy to get along with the opposite sex, and his music did its part to stimulate feminine enthusiasm for him. Or was Minna alluding to Richard’s repeated urge to move from one apartment to the next, to travel, to venture into new territory? In fact, he was by no means in Greece. So what had happened?

Richard had gone to Paris at Liszt’s urging, albeit unwillingly. His stay there proved unhappy, however, and he found himself at an emotional low point. The year before, he had tried to paint a rosy picture of the future for Minna by assuring her that he had plans for a new opera in the French capital. So she was already expecting him to set off for Paris. But once he got there, he found himself powerless to organize any opera performances. He asked Franz Liszt again for money, telling him that he needed 500 francs to get by. He also needed to go to a tailor’s and get new clothes made. The noise in Paris bothered him too—highly sensitive as he was—and he wrote to Minna to assure her of his homesickness: “Even if I were ill, I would get well again all by myself when I pack my things to return to you, to my friends, and to our dear critters in cozy Zurich.”

Just two months later, he would break with his wife and describe their hitherto life together as a failure. So it seems his own words could hardly be trusted.