Dear Friend!
You are terribly prompt—that must be admitted! I cannot be so prompt. That I can't make sense of your letter will probably be all right with you, for you laid it out in such a way that one wouldn't make sense of it—which you accordingly succeeded in doing. But I've already explained in my last letters that I'm now in a tight place financially; it shouldn't make any difference that I myself have no money, so long as others—who usually help me out—have some. But I have now completely exploited these, and if opera money doesn't soon arrive from Germany, and I mean in large amounts, my prospects are for a more unpleasant situation than ever.
Let us be frank! To send you the lump sum of 100 francs by the 20th of this month is quite impossible, for I know no one from whom I could borrow it: Minna already has no more household money.
You must set different date limits: you are asking me at the worst time of the whole year.
My difficulty is temporary, however, and in a short time I'll be out of it: my prospects are otherwise good, and my successes are growing steadily—much to your dismay, for you are going to worry about my conceit.
Well, to make it short: as soon as I have money you shall have some too. In any case this will be before the end of January. With this you must content yourself—as far as help from me is concerned.
As for your oriental trip, I'll first have to hear some more about it before I seriously believe it. If you are actually leaving before I can send money, find out where I can forward it to you so that you'll get it.
What nonsense this is! I feel as if I'll have to suffer terribly for my recent Parisian excesses!
Well, I hope to get a more detailed report from you—and also from Lindemann. It will certainly be difficult for him always to have to worry about us: what does he get out of it, after all? But I live in the firm hope of getting him to come to Zürich for a while.
Give him my best! Adieu from both of us! The child is pretty.
Your
R. W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 133