Oh my beloved, wondrously kindred spirit and friend,
How shall I begin this first letter to you after so intoxicating a reunion, after so blissfully anxious a parting? When I look upon you and upon your love, the world fades from my sight: the highest goal, the most pressing concerns of earthly commerce seem but slight beside the immeasurable concerns of souls that are united in beauty and nobility far beyond men’s normal lives, pouring themselves out in ineffable effusions! Alas for our poor contemporaries who have no notion at all of this spiritual outpouring, and for whom our souls’ sublimest concern seems but a uselessly futile game! To us it is and will always remain our supreme capacity, as it is our supreme destiny: in it we shall always remain united, even though severance and total separation be our lot for the rest of our earthly lives, even though it were to be my most solemn duty to accomplish that destiny!
My friend! - We are on the very brink of a decision: since our supreme concern is clearly ordered and since it has been recognized with irrefutable clarity, as though the result of some primeval destiny, there is no need for a single word to pass between us in that solemn hour which fate decrees for us and which I contemplate today in calm self-recollection: all we need to agree upon is how we may with dignity avoid the ordeal that now awaits us, the fearfully sad ordeal of utter separation for the rest of our lives on earth.
This separation is necessary, and it is imperative that I should carry it into effect if all that the most glorious power of love has achieved within you cannot at the same time arouse your supreme energy as head of state. Fate has willed it so and led its chosen representatives unavoidably along these paths. As greatly as you love me as the poet of all mankind, so great must you yourself be as German prince and monarch: fate wills it so!
Let us glance at our situation! -
In reply to your desperate question as to whether you should abdicate the throne, I retorted by entreating you most sincerely to grant me half a year’s supreme indulgence, to forbear all mention of me and my return in your dealings with your officials, to forgo all artistic enterprises in which I myself would have been involved, and calmly to await an excuse for changing your ministers, an excuse which sooner or later would have been provided by the present state of things. - You thought you would not survive this trial of your patience, and so you sent me your newly acquired, loyal friend: he was to bring me to you, since you were resolved to face the consequences attendant upon my return, and to face them, moreover, with a resolute mien. This disclosure broke my heart: I was bound to explain to your confidant that, if the inevitable struggles were directly to involve me and my return, they would give the enemy a fatal ascendancy over us and an advantage which would easily ensure him victory, and bring ruin upon my glorious friend. I informed your confidant of the measures I deemed necessary to purge your environs of the pernicious influence that daily threatens you, something which seemed to me possible only if our relationship could be left completely out of it. Then you yourself came: fair and loving, like a god! All circumspection was put at naught. But - things have now changed. Neither caution nor cunning can help us now, for what is needed is sheer courage, and the most sublime wisdom. - Our love has again been used as a means of stirring things up in the most appalling manner; my friends are being abandoned to their despair, and the accounts with which our enemies have been regaling the people, placing events in the most shameful and deceitful light, have finally dismayed even those who are well-disposed and fair-minded, for - no one can destroy this fabric of lies except me - me alone, and - must remain silent, impenetrably silent, and in that way encourage these calumniators to believe in their own calumnies.
To answer for my honour and for the honour of those of my friends who have so loyally sacrificed themselves for my sake - to do so now - at a time when even to show good intentions is a dubious business involving the belief that your love is no more than a frivolous and unkingly disposition - this has now become the most pressing duty of my whole existence. Sweet is the consciousness of being able to portray only the absolute truth in simple outline in order to appear pure and blameless in the eyes of the world. Yet I cannot take even this simplest of steps without naming the authors of those calumnies, however unintentionally, in terms that would be equally clear and explicit: it lies within my power to expose their worthless and treasonable intentions; and - having once been invited to undertake a serious defence of my actions in the sight of my contemporaries and of the posterity of which I, too, am a part - I should have no choice but mercilessly to describe the head-quarters of these criminals as being in your immediate vicinity, among your closest advisers. I cannot do so, my dearest friend, without at the same time throwing back to you all the kindnesses which you have showered upon me in your godlike love and munificence, bringing happiness to one whom the world had abandoned: from that day forth I would be a beggar, and, as far as this world were concerned, I should have to pronounce our relationship at an end.
This - must I do! -
But what shall I do with this means of deliverance? This, too, I must now tell myself. Perhaps - oh God! - I shall drive you to distraction! You were already close to despair: if you renounce the throne - our enemies’ aim will have been achieved: I shall have helped to destroy Germany’s last remaining hope; a terrible reproach, to have awakened this love within you and to have cherished it to your own undoing - such a reproach would drive me, too, to distraction and make me put an end to my life! -
This is the choice that confronts me: for I can see, while you, alas! my noble and beloved friend, are still blind! -
And yet - there is one means of deliverance: fate shows us the way clearly and distinctly. What you may not do as a friend, you can and must do as - King. - King of Bavaria, the most illustrious of German princes! Look beyond the miserable rabble at the Hofburg and Residenz, and behold your country! The envoys of the Bavarian people are assembled around your throne: listen to their voice, and when they express the country’s wishes, fulfil those same wishes as the wise monarch that you are! I ask no more. If you do this, we are saved. When new and noble deeds proclaim the royal will, your friend whose honour has been so offended must needs fall silent: then the world will know how things stand where the friendship between Ludwig and Richard is concerned, and actions will speak louder than words.
Oh beloved one! Listen to what I have to say and trust your loving, earnest friend who has severed his links with the world in order to be able to serve you alone in loyalty and love.
The explanations which were intended to reach you by means of extraordinary deputations following my removal from Munich last winter, but which, having been misled by disloyal advice, you did not in fact receive, - these explanations, which will tell you that the people place all their hopes in you and that you have countless friends who can see through the deception that has been practised on you, and who know that my removal from Munich lay not in the country’s interest but in that of a worthless band of traitors, - these same explanations - I hope! - will now be communicated to you in the greatest confidence and in spite of the most recent calumnies with which these wretched people have misled the whole world, but this time they will reach you by more strictly constitutional means by being sent to the regional Chamber of Deputies. The larger party, which will have the honesty and courage to tell you that it does not believe in the calumnies of our enemies, calls itself the party of progress! It would be our ultimate misfortune if these vipers were to succeed in stirring up in you an insurmountable prejudice against this name! May the god of our love prevent this from happening! We are on the side of “progress” - it cannot be otherwise! However much vagueness, foolishness and pettiness may predominate in this great party (which encompasses almost all of the people and which has this word emblazoned on its flag), we should nevertheless not permit ourselves to be discouraged from seizing this flag of theirs as our own: what can often degenerate in their hands into an unintelligible deception can become a symbol of redemption in the King’s right hand, a symbol to redeem this century and, with it, all that is noble and great. In God’s name I entreat you: do not be faint-hearted! Trust resolutely in the advice which issues from the hearts of your people! If you have to choose new men to advise the Crown, be bold and trusting, and overcome all prejudice against names, a prejudice which it was the diabolical skill of these traitors to nurture within you! -
In their utter dismay at the latest worthless accounts of your actions, people have turned to me in a discreetly confidential manner, seeking information about these unprecedented goings-on and wanting proper assurance concerning their royal lord. It is with profound emotion that I recognize the hand of fate itself in the trust that has been shown me here: for fate has created this most terrible situation in order to part us for ever - by your own choice - or else to provide us all with the greatest and most sublime satisfaction of seeing the traitors cast into everlasting darkness. And so, dismayed though they were, I have been able to inspire these people with a sense of encouragement, and arouse within them my own inner confidence that your love for me, my glorious prince, will encourage you to agree, without reserve or timidity, to the delegates’ wishes, and grant a gracious audience to all that they have to say. -
And now, my august and noble beloved! Our fate rests in your hand; destiny’s decision lies in your boundless trust in my love and in my loyal understanding! Be great as a King, as you are immeasurably great as a friend, - and my most comforting life’s work will be accomplished! Peace and calm will be ours for ever!
Truly and eternally yours,
Your
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 349