[...] I entreat you now with the greatest decisiveness and determination: prevail upon the Weimar Court to take the definitive step of finding out once and for all whether I have any real prospect of seeing Germany open her borders to me again in the near future. I must find this out for certain, and soon. Be brutally frank with me! Tell me whether the Weimar Court is prepared to take this step? and - if they take it, and take it quickly - what is their answer? - I am not disposed to compromise myself in the slightest for the sake of this wish: I can assure you that I shall remain totally uninvolved in politics, and anyone who is not a fool must see for himself that I am no “demagogue” in need of police supervision. (But if they want to, they can have me kept under police surveillance as much as they like!) I ask only that people do not try to shame me into making some confession or other of my remorse. If I may be permitted in this way to return temporarily, well, I do not deny that it would certainly be of use to me to do so! But if it is not possible, if the answer is a definitive refusal, - tell me so at once and without further ado: then I shall know where I stand. Then - I shall begin a new life. Then I shall set out to make money, how and where I can: I shall borrow and - steal - if need be, in order to be able to travel. The real Italy, with all its natural beauty, is closed to me (even if I am not amnestied); and so I shall go to Spain, Andalusia, look for travelling companions - and try to live again, as best I can. I should like to go round the world! If I fail to raise the money - or - if travel does not help me recover my love of life - well then - that will be the end of it, and I would rather kill myself than live on like this!
In truth, my dear friend, it was not until I reached my 35th year that I realized that I have still not lived. It was my art which was bound to reveal to me the secret of how wretched, joyless and loveless a life I have been leading until now. What will you say when I tell you that I have never enjoyed the true happiness of love? I now spend my life poised between privation and a resigned regard for the limitations of my immediate environment, which is less and less able to understand and comprehend me as each day passes! I cannot and will not cause open offence here (since my own heart would suffer as a result - habit is an undeniably great force!) but I must at least be able to acquire the means to withdraw from this desolation from time to time in order to unfold my wings unhindered and unchecked. Do you understand me? - Only too well, I am certain! -
I must forge for myself a pair of artificial wings, since everything around us is artificial, and nature is everywhere stricken and blighted! -
Hear my prayer, then, and answer it! Let me know very soon, let me know quickly and for certain whether I may be allowed to return to Germany or not! I must now reach a decision on the basis of that information. —
[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 160