God be praised, my dear wife! I am given new life by a decision I finally made after three of the most agonizing days! I have found myself again and now I know what will be best for me. Listen, my own dear wife: We may hope to see each other in fourteen days at the latest, and it will be a long time before we are separated again. Does that startle you? Well, think it over, and you will find that there is nothing hasty in it, but that my plan is the most natural thing I could hit upon, when I thoroughly consider every angle and look calmly and without exaggeration into the future. I beg you to listen and help me with all the love for me you are capable of.
I can't stay here in Paris any longer—for the present I can get nowhere at all. Some necessary connections have been made, especially with a poet with whom I could collaborate—even from a distance—in my opera text for Paris. Just now everything else lies in the future, and until the winter nothing can be done here. Everyone has left Paris, principally on account of the cholera. I need only refer to my strong disgust with Parisian mismanagement to make you understand that only a very definite purpose could induce me to remain in this great, atrocious, noisy, and expensive prison. That purpose has been attained for the present; for at least a half-year nothing further is to be done about it: therefore—away from Paris where the atmosphere oppresses me. Shall I go to London? I have made thorough inquiries, and if I don't mind spending a lot of money—perhaps to no purpose—I certainly may go to London, though I have nothing to expect there. Their season is already half over; all the musicians of Europe have congregated there and are offering themselves like sour beer without avail—but there is no English opera there at all right now, only a bad German one which would be of no use to me whatsoever. I am convinced that I should not go to London without long advance preparation. I can do this just as well from a distance, and my plan cannot be realized before the summer of next year: should I now throw away 100 thaler for this without result? No, I shall see to everything that is needed without going to London; that is the sensible thing. What shall I do now? My dearest thought and wish in all the world is to join my dear wife for good, to set up house with her in one of the most splendid spots on earth! Listen now: I can't yet return to Weimar, which we once considered, but I offer you now a place where body and soul may recover—splendid Zürich in Switzerland, a highly appealing, wealthy, and friendly city, whose situation is hardly rivaled by any other. We'll live there in a simple house quite near the city, on Lake Zürich, with a view over the snow-covered Alps. Teplitz will not help you, but the lake baths at Zürich, the most healthful in the world, will strengthen and refresh you, giving you power and a new zest for life. There in German Switzerland we will feel at home: a dear friend together with his family and his companions are quite devoted to me; they will do everything they can, and gladly, just to keep me there and have me do my writing there. For see, dear Minna, if you are with me, and Nette, Peps, and Papo too, I'll be able at last to follow my true calling—and write an opera. Everything urges me to a new creation; but I must have tranquillity of spirit, and that is possible only when I am near you!
See, dear wife, in Zürich I am in every respect—mark it well—in every respect, assured, calm, and free. Nobody can bother me there in the least. There we shall draw the small income from the Grand Duchess of Weimar, and I am taking the steps necessary to double this income through the cooperation of some other art patrons. You will receive 50 thaler from me every month, and so we can lead there a most pleasant and independent life. For the present, dear Minna, let's assume that we are to stay there at least a year. In the autumn the railway from Paris to Switzerland will be ready; and the only real interruption would be if I should have to go to Paris sometime for a week to conclude my affairs there, if they should reach that point. In any case I would keep writing new works with joy and love, and those works would at last some day come forth and would bring me success in the future; but if success should fail to come, I would still be happy in the process of writing them, having you always at my side. There we could also calmly wait and see how things would develop; and what we don't know now, we would find out later. But anyhow we are united, and this is for me not only the greatest happiness but the first need for my life and creative work. This I feel with the strongest emotion!
If I had to stay like this in Paris a week longer, I would die; that is certain! You can't imagine my nostalgia: whenever I am alone, I sit weeping and can't take hold of anything. Nothing in the world can arouse me but your nearness. Oh, this Paris! Even today I shall escape into the country five miles from here, where Liszt's secretary Belloni has his summer place: there, my dear wife, I shall await your decision. May God fill your heart with love for me sufficient to bring you to it. So listen again to what I shall propose. What furniture you still possess you could store somewhere safely. Father and Mother will have to make out at Riedel's for the present, or somewhere else, until it has been decided about the house in Weimar: we'll provide for them what money we can. With all your movable things, and accompanied by Natalie (who must take care of Papo, while you look after Peps), you will board the train at Leipzig for Nürnberg and go on directly by way of Donauwörth, Augsburg, Kaufbeuren, to Lindau, which will take you two days and one night; from Lindau you go by boat across the Bodensee to Rorschach in two hours, and there in Rorschach I would meet you and go on with you to Zürich. There everything will be modest but cozy, ready to receive you. O Minna, my eyes are dimmed with tears when I think of it; when I imagine the happiness of holding you—you, my old true, dear wife in my arms, never again to be separated from you for more than the shortest time! My good Minna, never before have I implored you so urgently for anything; never has my happiness, my health, my existence so depended on the granting of an entreaty such as I make to you now: say Yes! And come! Come as quickly as possible, Minna, I beg you, for the sake of all you hold dear; say Yes! And come. You shall fare well here; you shall, you shall! I have friends; of that I am now sure! Come and stay with me! You and Natalie won't need more than 50 thaler, at the most, until you reach Rorschach, where I shall meet you with money. Scrape together all you can, or borrow it; I'll return it right away. Or if you can't possibly raise the money, write by return mail and I'll try to send it from here, for I'm expecting to get some money any day. I'm arranging to get some, and some more should be coming from Frankfort: it was offered to me too. In short, I'm not worrying about anything if only I can have my dear Minna again; in that case all, all is well! and never again will our heaven be clouded, for now we have come through everything, even the hardest experiences.
Tonight I'm going into the country to escape Paris and—the cholera. This disease is raging here horribly! Yesterday 1,300 people died of it. It's awful! Oh, for purer air! Minna, Minna, give me good news; say that you will come. Then I'll write you everything in detail and in Switzerland, on the Bodensee, we shall meet! Farewell! Oh, be kind to me! Farewell and forgive all the evil deeds of your ever devoted
Richard W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 75