My good, dear, dear Minna!
It is a year now since I sat in a Berlin hotel in my lonely back room and thought of you in pain and longing. How much things have changed since then; you have become my wife and you flee me again! Minna, another serious word before I return to you. You became my wife when I was in the greatest distress of my life; you bore misfortune and painful privation with me, and that was splendid and beautiful of you. Now you blame me for harsh and cruel behavior toward you and unfortunately you are right, since I have to confess that under these circumstances I ought to have treated you not only not harshly, but even in a particularly tender way. You are right, my wife, and God knows that I heartily repent it. But you punished me cruelly for this, and consider whether your behavior has not offset a great part of my guilt. Stop now, my dear wife, and work no longer toward destruction of my love; consider how great this love must be that with all your exertions you have not yet succeeded in extinguishing it. If you charge me to "Be a man," I answer, "Be a wife." See, my Minna, you ask for a temporary separation; what a disastrous thought! How little do you know the true nature of an honest love, if you expect it to subsist on a separation. We must either separate completely, or not at all. Minna, do you realize what is implied in those words? This agonizing state of affairs of which your last farewell was one more proof must be brought to an end.
Minna, I saw Holtei; all is arranged, we are agreed, and tomorrow we shall make a contract. Riga is described to me as the most pleasant place in the world, especially for earning money; Dorn has sent me word that he could leave to me many lessons in first-class families, since he has no more time for them. I may expect there an income of 1,000 silver rubles. So at last I shall be in a position to offer you a pleasant and carefree life, which will be good for you after so much worry and distress. Do you still condemn me? Do you really believe me so mean as to abuse my independence by anything less than the most reasonable behavior? Minna, if so, then you never have loved me. Our recent troubles are the sort that one goes through only once in life. Minna, become my wife again, cast away all your evil thoughts, be entirely mine once more! But not halfway, my Minna! If you don't feel the power within yourself to banish all memories of the past, to grant me your fullest confidence, your heartfelt love again, and to give yourself to me again body and soul, this would be bad indeed. How then could I treat you with the tenderness and love which is due you, and which is the only thing to make a marriage happy? You have already seen how it is. Could I, or anyone, have remained undisturbed by your continued hard and repellent behavior in Dresden, to meet it only with tenderness and never with bitterness? You sought to trample down my love—you failed, but would you not have succeeded in the end? Dear wife, conquer yourself once more; become a wife again. Tear all your gloomy grief out of your heart; devote it to me again; conceal nothing from me, for this has been the source of much trouble between us. See, Minna, this is my only way to make you happy again. By continuing in your old way you make it quite impossible for me, and rather than this I would say: Better a separation forever. We must choose between them.
My sweet wife, when you receive this letter, consider quietly what I have said, and ask your heart whether you can trust me and love me completely again. If you cannot, then close the door upon me on the morning that I come to see you. Then I do not wish to become your misfortune, but I will part with you for ever and always! But if God makes your heart kind and fills it once more with love for me, then rise early, put on your wedding ring again, and when I arrive let me know by your eyes alone whether we are to be joined again, and this time for ever and always. Then let there be no more words about what has happened, no reproach, no blame; we shall belong to each other again, new and fresh. Goodbye, God be with you, my dear wife—
Your
Richard W.
On Friday morning I shall be back.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 19