My Theodor,
Although I am on the point of coming to Leipzig myself & shall be seeing & speaking to you in person, I can no longer ignore the feelings of pain & fear which clamour incessantly for expression, - I must write to you today, - this very hour. Tears are flowing freely down my cheeks, as they once did during my childhood when I had sinned against someone I loved & had to beg his forgiveness. - My Theodor, what has become of me? Where now is that free & noble courage to face life with which we once inspired each other? Where is that future to which we once aspired, proud in the certainty of victory? - Perhaps you have retained it all, - even developed and improved it; - I do not know, - since we have had no contact with each other for half a year now, - but I assume - & hope - & wish that that is so; - you have found a better friend, - a friend for whom you can feel more respect, - more esteem, - who must needs mean more to you than your old Richard! - Oh, my tears prevent me from going on; - why this soft-heartedness in addition to everything else? —
I was in Teplitz again, Theodor, & celebrated a sad anniversary; - I was also in Prague where I spoke with the mistresses of Count Baar & Baron Bethman, - whom we once knew as Jenni and Auguste; - I was also in Carlsbad; - ah, and I was also in Würzburg; - my girl has been delivered of a child in the mean time, a boorish farmhand was my fortunate rival. Theodor, Theodor, - how is it that good fortune has abandoned me the moment that you abandoned me! Oh, if only fortune were to give me some sign that she still favours me, I would try to conceive an affection for life once again. Everything, but everything has disappeared, - all sense of poetry flees before me, and a worthlessly naked truth spreads out endlessly in front of me! - My God, I feel as though the flower of my youth has withered, as though the cold reality of life has settled on my brow like frost, depriving me of all warmth & love! Oh, have I already enjoyed all that fate has decreed for my enjoyment? Was that my life? - Yes, - I have sinned; - and yet not! Can one sin if one is mad? - I have fallen out with my family & am bound to regard our relationship as being at an end; - it was I myself who brought things to that pass! I no longer know Leipzig: I shall not go near the town again for a long time to come! A mother who loves me dearly is all I have left, - nothing else! - Theodor, - do I still have your friendship? Do I still possess your love, your trust? - Oh tell me, tell me, - what are your feelings towards me? To have lost so noble & splendid a mind as yours means a great deal to me, - it means I have lost everything! If you, too, were capable of misjudging me - & God knows, Theodor, it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility - for it requires infinite perseverance on your part & from your point of view not to misunderstand me! - Ah, to feel like that, & yet be dependent upon you! — If you, too, part company with me, it’s goodbye to the world! -
Ah, how much better that feels - to have wept openly; I have not been able to do so for such a long time; the tears flowed freely, like some magnificent, refreshing storm after a long & persistent drought & heatwave. I now feel somewhat calmer & shall try to write more calmly to you. - My life until now has been squandered away; - my dearest of friends, I was not wicked, - I was insane; that is the only expression I have to describe my actions, - it was a conventional form of madness! I now see only too well that money is not a chimera, not some contemptible & worthless trifle of little account; - I have now come to the conclusion that money has taken on flesh & blood just like the society to which men are subjected. I was insane, I tell you, since I did not understand either myself or my position in the world; - I knew I had not the least solid support & nothing to fall back on, & yet I behaved like a madman, living beyond my means in every conceivable respect, in addition to showing the uncertainty & inexperience of a man who has no justifiable claim to money; other people, & especially rich people, do not squander their money as I do. The result was a whirlpool of chaos & misery whose complexities I can look on only with horror. Not even I can reconstruct all the individual details, - it is scandalous & inexplicable into what an abyss I have fallen. Your immense & persistent efforts to help me out of it only emboldened me, & led me to believe in some blind force which I could not account for but which struck my eyes with increasing blindness. My life in Leipzig, the wretched position I held there, were an intolerable burden; I felt the urge to indulge in what people call independent shows of strength; I went on various jaunts & gave myself up to excesses which, taken together with the lasting effects of my earlier follies, led me to cut myself off completely from my family, & a total breakdown of all my other relationships. What my better nature, my artistic genius, suffered throughout all this is indescribable! This is my standpoint; I see it clearly. I could be satisfied with this newly acquired insight & strive for something better. - If I were now free of the consequences of my continued foolishness, I could now look my fate calmly in the eyes; - I have managed to acquire a secure & decent position at least for the immediate future, & on the basis of my recent experiences & the conviction I have now gained that from now on I am thrown back on my own resources if I want to make everything good again, I may well be justified in hoping to be able to set out on a new course. But I cannot set foot in Magdeburg again until I have shifted a debt of 400 thalers. That is how I stand, - abandoned & cut off from everything, everything I once counted on, accompanied only by the anxious, fearful worries of my mother; - she can give me nothing. You are the only person to whom I can still turn, & I have the courage to say so without feeling that in doing so I may anger & alienate you from me; - every other support, every other hope has disappointed me, & it is precisely this sense of disappointment which I have now finally become aware of & which drives me to the extremity of appealing to you once again. Perhaps I have now reached the point where I shall finally sink without trace; - perhaps you will turn coldly away from me, pained by the self-delusion under which I continue to labour in my friendship towards you; it may be that I have now stretched to the limit your faith in my honesty, & that your patience is finally exhausted; - if this were to be the case, then my misery would drive me to the stage where I could no longer consider myself worthy of you. - But, first of all, I turn to you with the words: - do not regard our present standpoint as one of life’s mere accidents; see it as an event of the greatest import in both our lives - & indeed that is what it is, - it is my rebirth. Believe me, - if my spirit is again to unfold in profusion & beauty, - which at present I doubt, - the whole world shall learn who was its saviour. Consider, Theodor, what is at stake! I should add that I am not forcing you to act against your own conviction; - a swift end is better than a slow one. - That would be this year’s profit! -
I began this letter suffering the most violent mental turmoil, - & more tears flowed from my eyes than words from my pen; - it has brought comfort to me: - I now feel at peace with myself; - I have confessed my sins, my absolution is in your hands. -
I hope to be able to leave here tomorrow; & I shall reach you a day later than this letter; - what sort of a welcome will you give me? - I am expected in Magdeburg on the 28th inst.; - whether I can be there depends on you! My God, my God, what a state have I been reduced to! - But if you turn away from me now, I shall not be able to sink any lower! -
Farewell, farewell! Remember me!
Your
Richard.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 13