My dear friend,
Impossible to ignore you now! - My dearest Anton, if you can manage it, come to my “Tristan”. The performances are definitively fixed for the 15th, 18th & 22nd of May. If you come, spare my wife, and don’t say a word to her about it. It has now reached the point where all contact with her leaves me feeling hurt and embittered, since she is & remains the one person who will never really understand me. See if you can manage it, and - come. You will experience something of which you cannot have even the remotest idea: the performance will be nothing short of wonderful. I invite you to stay at the Bayerischer Hof as my guest. I shall see you only infrequently - I am extremely overwrought & need to be shown endless consideration. But you will hear from me. You shall also have my bust - in any case. - Write to me! Forgive me for being so brief! remember me with affection! Come and - say nothing! -
Cordially yours,
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 323