Dear Otto!
Dear Julie!
How to begin? I feel as if I had to speak before a public meeting. Well! Today I had set out to write to both of you (by "you" alone, you might have thought that the letter was addressed to one of you only), but unluckily I have just had a very bad night and am out of sorts. What can I do? I'll write all the same! But—what? I don't know yet. About the weather. Don't imagine you alone have beautiful weather. Even here it's so warm and bright that we almost should have liked to go to the Rinderknecht. A few times we were in the country and planted potatoes there. I then took occasion, too, to finish my Nibelungen. Now I feel uncertain whether to shoot myself or not. My wife thinks I'd better not, for everything is all right. What is your opinion? In the Reich they perform Tannhäuser now and then. People write about it to me (but not Emilie). In Breslau, Schwerin, and Weimar they're even going to give The Flying Dutchman very shortly. Here I "give" nothing but myself, and nobody wants him—not even myself. The cock no longer crows here—he is now changing Tiefenau to a paradise. Frau Wesendonck has returned ill from Lyons; he has grown still more blond.
In January I plan to read the Nibelungen in four evenings. Would you like to be invited? We haven't yet exchanged presents, though I have paid many bills. It shall be done at New Year's—I am anxious to know whether I'll get a silk nightshirt. But I've some heavy forebodings. O God, if I only had plenty of champagne, what more would I need to be happy? For I am your "fatherly" friend, I know you are well cared for, as I am myself. Is Ottoschka to marry soon?
Tomorrow I'll write to "your" mother too. But then I shall be serious, and hope I shall have had a good sleep. That news about Uhlig's illness is true, but he is said to be better. Mama Julie promptly and elaborately answered my anxious inquiry. I would say Mama is better than all of you! I hope to see Karl in that world where it is to be hoped we'll both wear some laurels upon our brows. Since Emilie will visit you in the spring, I assume that you will all arrange to return without passing through Zurich—maybe I won't be in Zurich any longer myself. Probably I'll accept a Napoleonic job as Kapellmeister. I trust you have had enough of my news by now. You would be amazed to hear how much can happen to me here in Zurich. Every day I have joy, profit, and delightful stimulation, in spite of the fact that the Fräuleins Welcker are not here to coax some pensioned-off fiddler to play. All I miss is Herr Kuenzi from Berne. I don't know him at all and have had no chance yet to inquire about him. Give him my best regards. Minna embroiders, Natalie sews, Peps snorts—everybody is all right and sends greetings. If you were here on New Year's Eve you would get some presents, but as you are not you'll get nothing. I wish you a happy New Year, to Otto marvelous health, to Julie a quantity of Bayer-Devrient in Dresden, to Ottoschka an efficient housewife. May God the infinitely kind and powerful guard and protect you. Amen! I can say no more.
Your most devoted
Richard W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 125