8.30 a.m.
Minna, I cannot begin to describe the state I’m reduced to, you have left me, and my heart is broken; I am sitting here, scarcely in possession of my senses, weeping & sobbing like a child. Dear God, what am I to do; how & where shall I ever find consolation & peace of mind! - When I saw you leaving, every feeling & every emotion broke forth painfully within me; the morning mist which swallowed you up shimmered before me as my eyes filled with tears; Minna, Minna, - the dreadful certainty dawned upon me all at once that the carriage you were travelling in was tearing you away from me for ever & ever. Minna, my child, you are making a terrible mistake if that is what you really intend. I am attached to you by a hundred thousand chains, but I feel as though you have thrown them all round my neck & that you are strangling me with them. - Minna, Minna, what have you done to me! - I am at present sitting in my room, with my thoughts buzzing round in my head; - an emptiness which is hideous, - nothing but tears, grief & misery. - How are you feeling yourself? - A large beautiful city, - oh - I can’t go on! -
And yet I must continue, my heart is full to overflowing; what has shaken me so deeply & what is eating away at my innermost soul is the fact that you have so totally misunderstood how important is the present turning point in our lives. Minna, you must realize that we are now going through a very sensitive phase in our love; the slightest disturbance that gets in the way of our amorous moods irritates us both beyond measure. I feel stirred to the very depths of my soul by the thought of being separated from you for even the space of 12 days, - and, - merciful God! - you consider a six-month separation as of little account, but instead slip insensitively away; - you did not even use it as the basis for some agreement between us! - Well, all right, - but I would remind you once again of something I have already urged upon you: - in May of this year I left Magdeburg, cherishing in my heart my deep love for you. I no longer felt free, I felt myself to be chained to you; - our brief separation made it clear to me that I could not live without you; - how could I gain possession of you? By marrying you. In order to achieve that aim it was necessary for me to change the entire course of my life, which I had by then already sketched out with a view to making my name as a composer; - bearing in mind my circumstances, I had planned this career as follows; I intended remaining in Leipzig for the time being in order to complete my new opera, which I intended should be performed there this winter; had I been successful in that, I should then have gone on to visit Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Prague, Frankfurt etc., in order to have my opera performed there, too. In the event of being successful in all this, I should have visited Paris next summer, & from there would have hurried off to Italy with Apel the winter after next. This was firmly fixed in my mind as my artistic career; - but this is a course which could never, ever have allowed me to marry you; - one person could no doubt make good his escape along this route; - two require a more settled existence. In order to achieve this, I had to revoke my earlier decisions & take up a practical career, since only this can lead me to my goal. Accordingly, I threw everything aside & got myself re-engaged in Magdeburg, for two reasons, partly to set myself up on my intended course, partly so as to be near you all the time. How happy I was, Minna! Only now did I believe I could explain myself fully to you, & to make our marriage the sole aim of our existence together. We have a whole six months ahead of us to prepare for it; by then I shall either have succeeded alone in achieving a sufficiently secure position for myself, or, in the event of my being less fortunate, we shall together have saved enough to be able to justify our getting married. - Minna, this is a splendid thought to which I am sacrificing a good many other splendid things; - I am young, & if fortune favours me, my future as a composer will not be inglorious - I am abandoning a colourful & attractive lifestyle in order to be able to possess you, since I can achieve this only by a totally different course; - and you?? - Minna, my faith fails me utterly; - a wretched & inevitably short-lived theatrical intrigue is sufficient grounds for you to destroy our life together, which I have bought at the price of so many sacrifices. Do you feel no grief, no pain, at the prospect of so long a separation, which must necessarily separate us for ever? Minna, did I not entreat you: “grant me these six months, do not leave me, & I swear to you that I shall regard this period as a sacrifice on your part which will bind me to you irrevocably & leave me for ever in your debt; - offer up this small sacrifice to me & to my self-conceit, & in return I shall sacrifice my entire life to you!” - And you said nothing, & answered coldly, “I have no choice - I must have my parts!” - Does a human heart not beat within your breast? Have you but one sense of noble love & loyalty? Minna, Minna, - does this voice of mine not find its way to your heart? - My God, my God, what else should I say, - my heart is breaking! - Once more: - I sacrifice to you all the other relationships in my life, - & you cannot even give up two of your roles for my sake? - I am beside myself - Once again I have poured out my heart to you: - if you choose to ignore it, it will be the last time I address you with such warmth of feeling. In future I shall write only when I am calm. - I cannot go on!
Your
Richard.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 16