Dear Cosima,
As a change from one of my normally quite wretched days, I have today spent an utterly miserable day, which at least has the advantage of not sending me straight to the medicine bottle, namely my work. And so I shall see whether I may not improve my situation a little by paying back old debts, and lighten my cares by telling of my sadness to one who is happy. - Yes, indeed! all you have to do is tell me the reason for your hostility; I shall not allow it to intimidate me: my misery assures me that no one can seriously hate me except when they are mistaken about me, - which ultimately tickles my sense of humour and thus affords me the only pleasure of which I am capable. I feel as though you, too, have been led somewhat astray by the cheerful good humour which I showed you while you were here; this is the only explanation I can find for a number of things. What a strange time it was! Each morning I put my misery into verse, and spent the rest of the day making fun of it with you. And yet it gave me immeasurable comfort to be able to do so; but I could do so only because I had you there, dear young couple that you are. For only then did I feel the genuine joy which I am still able to feel! And when Hans played me to sleep in the evenings, and you listened so splendidly, I felt I had spent one of the best days of my life. - I am now spending the mornings setting my misery to music, but now I have no one with whom to make fun of it; with my good wife that is simply not possible; - and so I remain hard at it all day, and by the evening my own music is mute; I cannot find even the least pleasure in it. And so I feel miserable throughout the whole day, which puts me out of humour, - but it usually happens then that a wonderful power transforms my wretchedness into the most ineffable joy; I then feel so immeasurably sublime and happy that an incredible sense of pride comes over me, causing the whole world to seem wretched beside me. Well, I then have to atone for this of course, and my old sense of misery then comes flooding back. And it won’t get any better until you and Hans return here; but I do not really believe you will, since you are for ever talking about it; each time that your Papa promised most faithfully to visit me, I could be certain he would not come. I really cannot rely very much on you two either. But time will tell! In the mean time I shall spice the joys of anticipation with a little doubt. - That the Olliviers will come, too, I simply refuse to believe any longer: their “Yes” to the question that I have repeatedly put to them sounded so downright pitiful. - I shall write my next letter to Blandine on the next miserable day that I have. She had a most salutary effect upon me in Paris, and will do so each time that my star guides her to my vicinity. If only you good children had an inkling of how I felt in Paris! Blandine must often have thought of me as very foolish; the only thing that kept up my spirits was noticing this. But I was very amiable at Mme Erard’s, as Blandine can no doubt attest: for it was a question of capturing an “Erard” for myself. It is on this grand piano, which I am shortly expecting here, that I immediately pinned all my hopes of future enjoyment; for it is on this instrument that Hans shall play to me in the evenings when you are next here and when I have again spent the day feeling cheerful. Above all, I hope that skating runs will no longer cause Hans’s fingers to trip over each other.
Well, if you bring Blandine with you, do not forget to bring Ollivier as well; it is true that the French he requires of me is often beyond my means, but I am heartily glad to make an effort for the sake of the first Frenchman to have affected me with such very real sympathy. You could also bring the Herolds; but I hope we already have the pick of the Erards here: at a pinch, you could leave them with the “Dumb Girl”.
And so that you, my dear child, may also come in total trust, I must tell you that, ultimately, I really do like the Herweghs, and that he in particular is my favourite person here of the male sex. I have often — as on a certain recent occasion - been obliged to turn to him as the only person who can understand certain difficult aspects of my character, which the world may perhaps regard as unfathomable. His wife, too, has often been our guest here, and I always offer her a cigar with a great show of courtesy, then look away while she smokes it in her excessively charmless fashion. Between the two of us, she is a thoroughly decent, highly intelligent and very gifted wife, in addition to being an incomparable friend. My God, if only I had a wife who took such care of my money as she does for her husband! - I hope, my dear Cosima, that your feelings are now much less ruffled as a result of this greeting of mine, and although I may perhaps be expecting a good deal if I ask you to remember me with affection, it is not, I trust, more than lies within your power, if you wish to be at all fair to me?
Fare you well, and think of me.
Yours,
Richard Wagner
Hans will shortly be receiving the full score of Tristan for him to arrange.
If he has no particular inclination to work on it, I have temporarily spared him the arrangement for 4 hands: his name - it goes without saying - will also appear on the title page, although he will still receive only 3 thlr. a sheet. Tell him, therefore, to work on both the large vocal score and the piano score for 2 hands at the same time.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 207