Believe me, my dear Franz, it is becoming very difficult for me to give you news about myself. We spend too little time together, and must inevitably become strangers in one important aspect of friendship. You wrote to me in Venice and Lucerne to say that you would welcome my move to Paris if for no other reason than that you could visit me there more often. Just as I have often assured you that an amnesty would be particularly welcome to me since I could then visit you more often and for longer periods, so I now gave you to understand that your assurance was one of the arguments that had persuaded me to look upon my stay in Paris in a more favourable light. My first request that you should visit me here has now met with an immediate refusal: you say you cannot come to Paris. By way of compensation you suggest a two-day rendezvous in Strasbourg. What are we - indeed, what am I - to do during these two days in Strasbourg? I have nothing urgent to tell you, I am not planning anything that needs to be discussed with you. I simply want to enjoy your company, and to spend some time with you, since we have spent so little time with each other in the past. Why has Paris suddenly become such an impossibility? Paris where - if you wish it so - virtually no one need know of your presence; I can find rooms for you near where I am living - very much out-of-the-way; we can spend the days at my apartment; you can see whom you want while you are with me. Or do you always have to be a public figure in addition to being an intimate friend? Look! I do not understand; the whole of my poor abandoned life has made me incapable of conceiving of an existence which keeps one eye on the world at every step that it takes. Forgive me! - However - I must decline the Strasbourg rendezvous, greatly as I appreciate the sacrifice that you are prepared to make for me: but this sacrifice is too high a price to pay in return for a few hurried days in a Strasbourg inn.
That the Princess was unable to call on me pained me grievously. Nor do I understand her most valued letter. She would have realized immediately we met what she means to me by the spontaneity of my joyful and cordial encounter with her. She has often experienced this, and will certainly never have harboured the suspicion that it is simply affectation on my part. I do not know what I should say to all this, - and so I shall say nothing! -
And so I shall say nothing about anything that I might otherwise wish to tell you about myself. If there is anything to tell, it is better that I say nothing about it. You are no doubt already sufficiently well informed about the Karlsruhe enterprise. Devrient has found it expedient to excuse the consequences of his totally inept and negligent handling of the idea that Tristan should receive its first performance in his theatre by declaring that the work is impossible to perform. I shall not answer him either. What shall I say? I know my lot and my position - and say nothing. It is more serious when I consider the effect upon my livelihood of crossing off this new work of mine from the roll of life. But - why should I be the person who has to point this out? Anyone who has all his senses about him must realize what my position is. I can no longer complain, since this would amount to an accusation. And I do not wish to accuse anyone, not even friend Devrient: I have not said a word to him. - No doubt you now know enough, and more than will please you!
My wife is now staying with me. She is feeling somewhat better, and I hope things will work out tolerably well with her. She told me, without a murmur of complaint, that you had been in Dresden, but that you did not visit her: I tried to console her as best I could. -
Fare you well, my dear Franz! Do not misunderstand me: I had to write to you, and for a long time did not know how to go about it. God knows whether I have done the right thing! Rest assured that you will always remain dearer and closer to me than aught else, even though I no longer understand many of the things that determine your actions.
Fare you well! Give my very best wishes to the Princess, and tell her that her letter, even if I did not understand it, gave me a great deal of pleasure. Give my good wishes, too, to Princess Hohenlohe! May you all remember me with affection!
Fare you well!
Yours,
R.W.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 252