Poor dear Minna,
Once again I entreat you and repeat my appeal a thousand times over, have patience, and above all: have trust! If only you knew how much you torment me by your lack of trust, you would regret it, I am sure. Recently, when you assured me that you did indeed still love me, I implored you to prove as much by avoiding all further scenes and by giving up your demands for an explanation on my part, at least until after your treatment, whereupon I, for my own part, promised to do all that you wished me to do to set your mind at rest. But the old tempter has got the better of you for a second time, and this time you have openly violated your love and faith in me. I forgive you, partly because of your dreadful state of health which has made you almost irresponsible for your actions, but more than that: I forgive you all future lapses. But I now beseech you to summon up all your strength of mind and continue to maintain, firmly and inviolably, your belief in my sincere and lifelong concern for you, in my heartfelt wish to ensure your well-being, and in my firm resolve not to give in to any other, additional hopes for my life. If you are unable to do so, you will make both of us unhappy! It would not be necessary for me to beseech you in this way, if you yourself had had the calmness of mind to judge me fairly from the beginning, and, especially, to form a clear idea of the relationship which, as I now see, continues to fill you with needless anxiety, even after you took the law into your own hands. There is only one reproach I have had to suffer from the other side, and that concerns my failure to inform you at the outset of the purity of these relations, so that it would have been impossible for you to insult the woman in question in the way you did. These reproaches have been made by the woman’s husband, by the man who, having been drawn from the outset into his wife’s confidences, has been able to behave towards me in a way that has always been noble and amicable, precisely because he was convinced of the purity of our relations. The only excuse I could offer him here was that I considered it utterly impossible to convince you of such a thing, - a conviction which, sadly, in spite of all my assurances, now appears to be proving all too true. -
And so I ask you once again, and for the last time (for if you continue as you have done, you will destroy yourself!) - trust me; forget what appears to you to be inexplicable about all that has happened, - (like the familiar expressions I used in that letter), and stick simply to the explanations that I have repeated here today! And I include here the wish that I may soon find in you a really sensible wife, a wish which, I hope, you will no longer take amiss.
I may add simply that I was indeed Wesendonck’s guest on Sunday, but that I went alone. I have spent two days at the Willes. Next week the Wesendoncks are going away for a while. I long to get back to my work again, and plan to take it up again tomorrow. For the moment there is nothing else of note for me to add to this grave and truly well-intentioned letter.
Your recent suffering has again shocked and stirred me deeply; as God is my witness, I pray for your speedy recovery with all honesty and sincerity. Persevere! only when you begin to get better will you see everything in a calmer light, and recognize that the cause of life’s suffering lies not only outside us but, generally, also within us.
And so! Get well soon!
We shall soon be seeing each other again!
Your
faithful husband
Richard.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 210