My dear and honoured friend,
I discovered to my regret that during my absence yesterday you favoured us with your kind visit. At the same time I heard that you still wish to go ahead with the musical soiree which we discussed on one occasion. I must ask you to give up this plan, at least insofar as I myself was to have been involved. I can regard my continuing presence here only as a form of damnation from which I long every day to be released. All the shame and torment that I have suffered during the last three months arose from the fact that, immediately after that first catastrophe, I did not then carry out the resolve which I have now, finally and irrevocably, taken. If I vacillated, I may perhaps be forgiven for doing so by that same woman who had reduced me to a state of not knowing any longer what she wanted. I am bound in turn to forgive her for her refusal to understand that all the consideration that I showed my wife derived principally and decisively from my consideration for her, since I can see to what extent she labours under her own mistaken ideas. But that, only a few days after our recent farewell, she was able to bring herself to torment me by her childish and senseless reproaches concerning my alleged relationship with my wife, reproaches which she conveyed to my friend by way of remonstration, this makes me painfully aware that she can scarcely be capable of appreciating what I suffer for her sake.
Enough, I feel that I can no longer be of any comfort to her by remaining here (a closeness which has probably been made possible only by dint of unspeakable sacrifices), and so I am reverting to my original resolve, in which I was shaken for a time by her alone. I am separating from her, in order to withdraw henceforth into the strictest seclusion. All that now delays the execution of my resolve is the extreme difficulty of my situation, which does not permit me to act as freely as I would wish at any given moment. Yet I cannot describe to you just how unbearable my present situation feels to me. As a final consideration to my wife, I had guaranteed that I would hold out here until September, so that she has until then to make whatever arrangements she deems to be necessary to deal with our furniture, and to deal with it, moreover, with the propriety that she thinks is expected of her, since, as far as is practicable, she hopes to take the furniture back to Germany with her. But I do not believe that I can bear to see our bourgeois circumstances sorted out in such a normal way. If I could, I should be more worthy of your admiration than I believe I deserve to be. I shall attempt to ensure that I am able to leave by the middle of August; but it is not impossible that I shall leave Zurich for ever within the next few days, since I fear that I cannot bear the torment of these days any longer. At all events, my honoured and dear friend, you will realize that I can now hold out here only by dint of “total self-denial, and negation of my existence”; any attempt at amusement or distraction can seem only sinful. And so - please: have no further regard for me! However satisfied I once was with my own company, I must now learn to live with it for its own sake alone. But since I do not know how long I shall be able to hold out like this, and cannot promise for certain that I shall not disappear sooner than I have indicated, I am telling you all of this now, and, in the event of my going under, I reserve for myself the right to inform you in writing of my subsequent fate, of which I shall say only that not even an amnesty will be able to draw me out of the lonely state into which I am now withdrawing. -
Accept my most sincere and heartfelt thanks for your noble friendship which has brought me such great happiness. Be always to her what you were to me! Fare you well, and recall with affection your
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 215