they were married at
Koenigsberg, on November 24, 1836.

The theatre soon followed the example of that at Magdeburg and went
into bankruptcy. During the honeymoon year, Wagner had composed only
one work, an overture, based on "Rule Britannia." At that time "The Old
Oaken Bucket" had not been written. He then drifted to Riga, where he
became music-director and his wife a singer. Now his relentless
ambition seized him and he determined to consecrate the rest of his
life to glory. His wife found herself consecrated to poverty and the
fanatic ideals of a husband, to whom starvation was only a detail in
the scheme of his life,--a scheme and a life for which she had neither
inclination nor understanding.

Wilhelmine, or Minna, as she was called, is described as pretty by some
and as of a "pleasing appearance," by others. The painter Pecht called
her very pretty, but blamed her for a sober, unimaginative soul.
Richard Pohl calls her a prosaic domestic woman, who never understood
her husband, and who might have been an impediment to his far-reaching
ideas, if Richard Wagner could have been impeded in his career by
anything. Wagner himself seems to have been genuinely fond of her,
though never, perhaps, deeply in love with her. He called her an
"excellent housewife," who lovingly and faithfully shared much sorrow
and little joy with him.

The young couple lived at Riga in an expensive suburb, whence it was
said they could reach the theatre only by means of a cab, though
Glasenapp denies this story. Minna brought to her husband not a penny
of dowry, and he brought to her a number of debts, and a hopeless lack
of economy. The first year he tried to get an advance of salary, and
offered to do anything, "except bootblacking and water-carrying, which
latter my chest could not endure at present." Then he decided that fame
and fortune awaited him, as they usually do, just over the horizon. The
only trouble with the horizon, as with to-morrow and the
will-o'-the-wisp, is that it is always just ahead.

When the Wagners applied for a passport, to leave Riga, they did so in
the face of certain suits for debt. They were told that they could have
the passport as soon as they showed receipts for their bills. That was
too ridiculous a condition to consider, so Minna disguised as a peasant
woman, and a friendly lumberman took her across the border as his wife.
The friends of Wagner took up a purse for him, and by elaborate
manoeuvres got