Note 3 — Chapter V · King Ludwig and Richard Wagner

It became known that the mutual admiration between her and Wagner had taken the form of a liaison, and the judges of morality on this ground sided vehemently against him. Only at the court did his position appear to be unshaken. Ludwig did not hear the reports which were current with regard to Bülow’s wife and his friend, nor had he more than a slight knowledge of the hostility of which the latter was the object. Articles in the different newspapers which had come to his knowledge had, however, greatly embittered the sensitive youth. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” he wrote, with reference to this, to Wagner. “They do not know that you are everything to me, and will continue to be so until death.” In another letter he exclaims: “Ah, my friend, how difficult they make things for us! But I will not complain. I have him, my friend, the only one.”3