Dear friend,
I wrote straightaway to Court Councillor Düfflipp, recommending that he accept your wish. Be so kind as to contact (or, rather, confer with) him on this point. Your decision to leave Munich is one that I am bound to welcome in every respect, even though the reasons behind it are much to be deplored. -
That the confidence which, 2½ years ago, persuaded us all to renew our links with Munich was utterly without foundation I recognized as soon as I returned there for the first time at the end of 1867. I undertook only to perform the Mastersingers, and resolved never again to return to M. None the less, I hoped that my friends, and more especially Bülow, would be able to hold out there by dint of their talent and in a less highly-charged atmosphere than was bound to be the case when I was there. As was to be feared, however, reaction soon set in against the consequences of my evening in the imperial box, and led to deep cuts. The honour of Fr. v. B. was once again impugned in His Majesty’s presence, leaving her with no choice but to break with Munich for ever, and press for a divorce from one whose name and honour she had no wish to sully any further as a result of the hatred that she was made to feel. Only a few months ago she was able, quite justifiably, to recommend that her husband agree to a divorce, in spite of his hesitations, since such a step would also favour his continuing to remain in his Munich appointment, inasmuch that the reproach that he owed that appointment to his services as a husband would then be impossible to sustain; in return for which she was disposed to submit even to the rigours of a divorce. B. thanked her, and conceded that she was right, but declared that, as a result of the worthlessness of conditions in Munich and his never-ending annoyance with them, his position had in any case become insufferable in the highest and final degree, and that, come what may, he was intending to give it up. I have deposited documentary evidence to this effect in an important place, and have reserved for myself the right to refer to it should the need arise. -
So much for today on this for you and my friends! -
What we have all suffered and endured is beyond imagining! -
Be glad you are turning your back on all this! Best wishes to your good wife! Remember me with affection,
Your Richard.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 384