On my last night in the Asyl I retired to bed after 11 o’clock: I was due to depart at 5 o’clock the next morning. Before I closed my eyes, the same thought flashed through my mind that had always done each time I wanted to lull myself to sleep with the idea that, one day, I would die here: this is how I would lie when you came to me for the last time, when, openly and before the whole world, you enfolded my head in your arms, and received my soul with a final kiss! To die in this way was the fairest of my imaginings, and it had taken shape entirely within the locality of my bedroom: the door leading to the stairs was closed, you entered through the study curtains; thus you wrapped your arm around me; thus I died, gazing at you. - And what now? Has even this chance of dying been snatched away from me? Coldly, like some hunted animal, I left the house in which I had been entombed with a daemon which I could no longer exorcise except by flight. - Where - where now shall I die? — And so I fell asleep. -
I was roused from my uneasy dreams by a strange rushing noise: on awakening I was sure I felt a kiss upon my brow: - a shrill sigh followed. It was so real that I started up and looked round me. All was silent. I turned up the light: it was shortly before 1 o’clock, the end of the hour when ghosts are said to walk. Had some spirit stood watch beside me during this anxious hour? Were you awake or asleep at that hour? - What were your feelings? - I could not get to sleep again. For a long time I tossed and turned in bed, until I finally got up, got fully dressed, closed the last of my trunks, and now, pacing up and down or else stretched out on my bed, I anxiously waited for the day to break. This time it came later than I had grown used to during the sleepless nights of the previous summer. Reddened with shame the sun crept forth from behind the mountain. - Once more I gazed lingeringly across to you. - Oh heavens! Not a single tear moistened my eye; but I felt that the hair at my temples had all turned white! - Now I had said my last farewell. Now everything inside me was cold and certain. - I went downstairs. My wife was waiting for me there. She offered me a drink of tea. It was an hour of utter misery. - She saw me off. We went down through the garden. It was a glorious morning. I did not look back. - As we said farewell for the last time, my wife was overcome by wretchedness and burst into tears. For the first time I remained dry-eyed. Once again I exhorted her to appear calm and noble, and to strive for Christian comfort. Her old vindictive fury flared up once more. - She is irredeemable! I was forced to tell myself. And yet - I have no desire to be avenged on the unhappy woman. She herself must carry out her own sentence. - And so I was dreadfully earnest, bitter and sad. Yet - no tears came. - And so I left. And behold! - I do not deny it: I felt better, I breathed more freely. - I sought solitude: that is where I am at home; there in a state of solitude, where I may love you with every breath! —
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Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 217