My dear Minna!
I have experienced a strange fate. Above all, I am happy that I can do something for you again. You got from Pusinelli and Pauline Tichatschek together 200 thalers in my name: now you are getting 100 thalers more. On the 15th of July you are to get 200 thalers again from Berlin royalties, which this time will amount to a great deal. Thus you are provided for the six months' summer season your regular share of money; and you must not give up anything, especially not the bathing cure. Do you hear? If necessary, even more money must be procured.
Greetings to Pusinelli and Pauline. They may still credit their advances to me for a few months. They will get everything back, promptly in October. Be sure not to give them anything from your money: otherwise you would make it more difficult for me to support you now. As for the rest, I suppose it will come from God: at least I see that He doesn't abandon me. Pauline may have informed you about my misfortune. I had counted on the Moscow concert receipts to provide me for a whole year. Suddenly I found myself without an answer—I waited; finally I missed the time, and when it was too late, I learned that my affirmative letters, where I agreed to come, had been delayed there for six weeks. I really lost my head, and at first I didn't know at all how to make up that heavy loss in my receipts, gave up my Penzing apartment, and looked for a work refuge on the Lake of Zurich at the Willes'. There the young King of Bavaria had me searched out and invited me to live near him. He is touchingly devoted to me and my art, and especially wishes me, through his intervention, to perform all my new works quite according to my own intentions. In order to avoid sensation and to ward off envy, I am living quite as a private citizen near him; he pays me a small salary (1,200 gulden) and gives me at any time when I want to make use of it a free apartment near by! By now I am located quite near him in the country, since he lives most of the time in the little Schloss Berg on Lake Starnberg. We meet daily. I behave with great cautiousness, so as not to expose myself to reproach for exploiting the favor of the very young Monarch. So it happens that for the present I can't draw any great advantage from his devotion to me except that I no longer need worry much about my personal needs, that I find rest, and that in the King himself I enjoy a highly inspiring intercourse. All the rest will develop in a good and friendly way.
But you too should be free from worry! Now it will be easy for me to provide you with all you need. Above all, think of your cure and don't forfeit anything to that purpose! Well, courage and patience! Count always on my faithful sympathy. Farewell and now you may sigh with relief!
Tender greetings from your
Richard
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 269