Best Friend,
Immediately on receipt of your letter I must devote a little writing power to you: already last Tuesday I felt moved to thank you for your last "choice reading." Good heavens, how proud you will make me! So I am indeed a "musician"! If you only knew how many things passed through my mind on reading that! Altogether, I could really write sheets full to you every day. There is (unfortunately) a terrible quantity of matter for correspondence: day by day I learn more and more, so that I no longer know what to do! But the cursed writing!! I reserve everything till next summer, when, in any case, you will pay me a visit: we will not be lazy then!
I am not one jot better; only I accustom myself gradually to a fresh degradation of my state of health; I am resigned, and manage accordingly: I work now every day a short hour! So good Heine rejoices at my good spirits? He is right; complaints from me shall never more be addressed to friends such as he is!
I wrote (very briefly) to D., just to clear up! And ought I also to have written to X.? That cannot be quite a correct story. I presume, however, that he confuses my Berlin brother with myself. He, as he announced to me, has written to X. about the books of words. This matter, I hope, is set straight by the last instructions I gave to you; still, I should like to hear something about it. With Berlin I am now also straight: had my brother informed me that this time, by way of exception, Johanna was remaining in Berlin till the end of May, my objection would, naturally, have been removed, and with this news I should have been quite satisfied; but, over and above, Hülsen assures me by letter that before the spring he hopes to give the opera more than ten times, and undertakes also to arrange for six performances during the first month. In short, the matter is in order: do tell this also to Heine!
That Reissiger has at once hit upon the idea of "cuts" is delicious! If you only knew how indifferent to me is this Dresden performance! The best means to prevent it would be if a certain person happened to read my pamphlet: he would probably be offended by it, and my opera would be abandoned. I know the people I have to deal with! Has Lüttichau got the copies?
Why I am so eager after the "wretched" Leipzig honorarium? I. Because W. outrageously annoys me. II. Because I am greatly in want of money. What do you think? I owe twenty-six louis d'or to Sulzer for my summer tour: twenty louis d'or to my wife, to cover the deficit in our last year's money. I am much in debt, too, with my new establishment here. Then, lastly: how can you imagine I ever have enough money? In the dog's life to which I am condemned I cannot get a scrap of distraction, well-being, or whatever you like to call it, without money. It is all very well for you to talk. You have children! Don't make your hair turn grey over my too much money! I assure you, on the contrary, that I am possessed of quite a vulgar greed: I am now on the hunt for the Nibelungen hoard; I have given up the Graal. Shall I again write down for you my last recipe?
Well, don't think of me as more common than I really am: there are still a few noble sides to my character! So, for example, be assured that I should gladly have given up Berlin, had not the intendant there shown himself so amiable towards me as he has, etc.
Do you believe it cost me no effort, lately, to refuse Tannhäuser to a travelling director in Rudolstadt? I am convinced the man would have paid me four louis d'or. (Do nothing with Cologne without a postal receipt!) They have written to me from Schwerin about Lohengrin. Tannhäuser has pleased them: in so short a time it has drawn nine full houses! Heavens! what more does one want?
If only Fétis père knew that!
I have also received the Ballenstedt Musical Festival pamphlet. This work is noble and elevating, only I am terribly annoyed that in it they make me a year older than I am! When will people know once for all that I was born in 1813? I see my friends still do not work sufficiently in my interest!
Franz has written to me: so, as I have a good pen, I will write to him, and this shall soon be set about. Best greetings to him for to-day from me, if you are writing to him.
What continual delight the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik always affords me, when I open my postal copy, and read "Chamber- and Home-music"! The very title annoys me. When I have got over this annoyance, I naturally go on reading with great pleasure; thus I accustom myself to the ruin of my nerves: one might, however, use them to better purpose!
You must have Hafis and Rausse bound together: the fire- and the water-prophet: won't there be a hissing!
But God bless you! To-day is the confederate day of penitence, and during the past week the south wind has been raging in a manner to destroy even the devil's nerves!
Farewell, you favourite of my wife's! (No joke!) Greet, think, fiddle, and soon write again to
Your
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 81