I didn't really intend to write you again so soon, until I'd received a letter from you to answer. I almost feared to tire you, my good Minna: with all my suffering I am too soft. You have a new sphere of action, a new public. You act on the stage and spend many an hour with no time to think of your Richard; with me it is different, I have no other interest than you, you alone, no other thought can rise in my mind than the thought of you. I have become a pitiful specimen for any social purposes. Among people I fall into deep musing and ponder how to remove the distance between you and me; I tell you it has come to the point where I will decide to stop mingling with people entirely. I will shut myself off from everyone to whom I am burdensome, flee them, and wait until you bring me release, my angel! Ah, my Minna, soon everything may be over with me. You also write that nobody must know anything about our relationship until the time comes. This was not your wish before. But how can you hasten my release except by using our relationship as a threat, on the basis that you will leave if we cannot be soon united in Königsberg? Was this not also your opinion before? See, I have so much idle time for brooding. So, you want to conceal our relation? You are afraid of losing the attraction that you have as an unattached person for the public and even for the director. Do you believe that you still need that attraction? Do you feel the need of making yourself interesting in this way to hold people in suspense? I know well enough that you will continue to be pestered by young people and troublesome gallants; I know those cursed attentions an actress has to encounter; people wouldn't refrain from molesting you even if you should declare yourself to be my betrothed; it is all the worse now when you conceal it and each holds some hope. Will you not tell them that you love me? If the director remains in doubt will he not strive to the utmost to prevent our union while you remain vague and fail to declare: "Either I am leaving your theater in two months or you offer me the chance of being united here with my fiancé"? Minna, why do you still hesitate now, when at last you can put a stop to our suffering? Write to me often and much, that I may breathe again; my heart chokes me, I must perish, for I love you too much to be able to breathe and live except in you, who are the breath of my life!
The 4th of June—I have your letter, my sweet child, it was the only thing left for me to hope for in this dreary moment, and I read every bit of it a hundred times. Well, it is not to be; I am to remain separated from you. I was indeed prepared for it; when I was in Leipzig I resolutely gave up everything which could separate us, so that without you I stood quite alone. I believed that I had secured this way the good fortune never to be parted from you again, and this was the comfort of my isolation. If I had even suspected that I might have to live a whole summer without you! Minna, I am inexpressibly unhappy; our love is under an evil star—it is a blessing for you that you don't sense our misfortune as much as I. This is no indictment against you, my child; you could never have based everything on me, all the hopes of your life, all the happiness of your youth, as I have based mine on you. It is unthinkable that you could love me as much as I love you. And this is not even a reproach, it is the conviction only, impressed upon me by my overwhelming feeling for you, that I can't believe that such a feeling could ever be reciprocated. You always appear to me lovely, noble, and kind, but how often have you seen me in the most disagreeable light—with my whims, my unhappiness, my excessive susceptibility, and all the hardships. No, no, you can't possibly love me so much! But I make no complaint about this; if you could feel for me half as much as I feel for you, I would be richly, richly rewarded.
I must confess to you, my angel, that I had hoped until the last moment that it could be arranged for me to come soon; I hoped for it as the poor sinner taken to the scaffold hopes for pardon until the death blow; and may I confess my weakness to you? I am now still, now still, hoping, quite secretly in my heart, that perhaps something will suddenly happen to release me. What am I to do with myself until Gläser leaves? He doesn't leave before the end of July, and only then will my work begin. If it weren't so terribly far away, I would take the coach, visit you, see to my affairs myself, sign a contract from September on; then I would go back to Berlin, finish my affairs here and return to you in the fall. Perhaps, perhaps! I knew well enough that Königsberg offers no great opportunity. However, it is there that we must join, and if it can be done no other way I entreat you to arrange for a contract from September. Schuberth is to go to Riga, that is certain, so there is no reason why you couldn't make a definite move; but I believe you are afraid of betraying our relationship. This is painful to me and I'd rather have everything else break down than have you disown me. We won't make a contract for more than a year, this is sure, my child, for I plan to return to Berlin with my dear young wife in the Easter season of 1837—until then Königsberg must suffice! When this unfortunate period is once over you won't have a bad time with me, and I will try to repay all your love a thousandfold. I don't doubt that Cerf will engage me with a good salary, for he wants to have two first conductors as in the largest theaters, where they counterbalance each other. He declared not only to me but to others that he wouldn't ask for Gläser's consent; he could even engage five more conductors without Gläser's right to object. It's true I am on very good terms with him, for I judge not only by what he tells me to my face, but by what he says behind my back, and both statements always agree. When the new opera personnel assembles, I am supposed to conduct the first performance. Well, I shall do my job. I'll conclude the contract with him from next Easter on in any case, and he must give me 1,000 to 1,200 thaler. If he wishes to engage you along with me, well, I would leave it to you, but I don't like the idea, not at all! For I would be better off through my compositions, which I could perform in Berlin for the first time, and if you are not engaged in the theater we won't need so much. I will do what I can now, but you must secure my September engagement at Königsberg. Then the future is cared for. In October, at the latest, we must have our wedding. Minna, my angel, my God, my delight and joy. The wedding—we shall be husband and wife, and no bad luck can part us after that moment. But—until then—the present!! All my limbs become lifeless when I measure the eternity until then!
I ought to have pity on you, my poor girl. How can I believe that you can be happy now if you love me too? O Minna, let's always live together in spirit, let's write each other every day; do as I do. You certainly can find an idle quarter of an hour each day to devote to your poor Richard. Always keep a diary, and when one of us receives a letter we'll mail our diaries to each other; the postage costs will be managed. So, listen, my good sweet girl, every day each will write a few lines and on receiving a letter, mail them. Swear it to me. This way we will overcome the distance by our faithfulness and give an example of loving trust, even in separation. Minna, you surely do not doubt my fidelity for a moment? Come, come, you are lying, you never thought of such a thing, even in your dreams you couldn't think of your Richard as faithless. Now look, I don't doubt you in the least, either, and when two love each other as we do, it is ridiculous even to think of infidelity. But all the same, be on your guard! Where you are there are said to be some handsome men. Be careful, Minnachen, do you hear? Don't look at them! Do you hear? It's silly, how can we think of such a thing! Can you conceive the slightest possibility that we could—become unfaithful! Pfui, Pfui, that horrible word—how bad it already looks in a letter. We'll never mention it again, never think of it again, do you hear?
My poor traveling child, what will you not have to endure and suffer! It's too hard, it's terrible. Why should we spoil our fair youth like this? I will be very industrious now, it is my only means of somehow subduing my grief. But see, from each note, each syllable I write or read, your image is looking at me, your dear sparkling eyes kindling me with a longing which only he who suffers as I do may know. In such moments tears are my only comfort, my only relief, and my only delight is to know also that you are weeping for me. Well—with those beautiful tears we are bound to become happy.
Your
Richard
P.S. I have written to the Gottschalks and asked for an extension; if those people have a trace of heart in their breasts, they won't bother you with anything, I made this my main point.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 16