Kietz! Kietz! Kietz!
What a . . . you are!
So you are offended again!
You dig up a lot of unholy nonsense about me in your letter: I am a poor, public-coddled, applause-seeking man, and on top of this, I have the mania of fancying that I am misunderstood by you, whereas you judge so correctly that I, puffed up by my successes, am contemptuous of your fewer successes. And then one shouldn't say—shame on you for again taking offense! Kietz, what kind of fleas have you got in your head!!
If I have often been running you down, it has always been almost entirely due to your unreliability in the matter of favors, your dawdling, etc., with which you have really spoiled our days together. Shouldn't one then be sorry to see that this dilly-dallying is the only cause of your deterioration? Am I conceited when I say that?
Otherwise you are completely agreeable and lovable to me as you are, as long as you don't want to be something entirely different. But unfortunately, you hear wrong every time: that stuff I'm supposed to have said about your charge against me you've completely misunderstood. God, what a rumor monger you are!!
Admit this one thing—that you are simply proving to me again how one must have great patience with you! If I lose it at times, you really must not be offended.
Now stop this nonsense, you old hypochondriac! As proof of how immaterial you are to me, I assure you that I shall make every effort to have you here with me next summer: Liszt and his women are also coming for a longer time!
Listen—for God's sake finish that picture for the Wesendoncks and send it here as soon as possible: otherwise you'll see me getting rough!
As soon as I can I'll send money: right now I'm hard pressed.
Hurry up!
Your over-eager public figure
R. W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 131