(Address: Herrn Alexander Müller, Professor der Musik in Zürich.)
Best Friend,
Unfortunately I must cause you the sorrow of seeing that I am not yet hanged: on the contrary, I have to assure you that I only feel one honest grief, that of knowing myself separated from the few but dear friends whom, in spite of my wildness, I won to myself in Dresden. Yes, dear, good old Fischer! I would gladly see you once more, to thank you heartily for your faithful and honourable friendship! Well, I shall see you again some day, even were it for the first performance of a new opera in Paris, whither we should despatch you by steam. Only remain good to me, and always think the best of me: so shall we, though at a distance, remain always together, and gladly meet again one day.
My wife must have given you news of me from time to time: so I tell you nothing further about myself; should indeed not know what to tell, except that I am industrious, and am working for the future, in the best of spirits.
I have only one great request. You can easily imagine that my chief care was anxiety about my poor wife. She has now so far recovered that she at last can come, and I am in daily expectation of a letter from her, announcing her immediate arrival. Daily I wait in vain, and I begin to worry myself as to whether anything has happened to her.
Dear Fischer, would you be so kind as to inquire at once whether my wife is still in Dresden, and let me know at once if perchance she should not be well? If you find her still there, please tell her that I had not written again to her because I daily expected the news of her arrival: otherwise I would have let her know that my prospects continued to improve, that I had good news from Weimar, and also that I had seen to everything here for the immediate future, so that she need not in any way be anxious; that 300 gulden had been advanced to me on the score of Lohengrin; besides, I have been asked by several admirers to give a private but well-paid reading of my latest opera-poems in the autumn, and later to give a concert with selections from my compositions. Thus she will see that the immediate future is provided for, and by the winter Liszt will be ready with that which has only been delayed for the present! In short, she must be in good spirits and come quickly!
Yes, my poor wife is my only care; but this splendid Switzerland will, I hope, prove on her its wonder-power.
Now heartiest greetings to poor Heine from the bottom of my heart. Shortly — so tell him — I will write to him: then I will enclose another letter to you also, dear Fischer. You would much oblige me if you would send news of yourself and Heine! Ah me! when I think of you, it gives me deep pain to be so far from you. Well, let us often think of one another, and write from time to time! Good-bye, dearest, faithful friend! Be assured for ever of my most grateful remembrance, and do not exclude me from your friendly memory! If anything can make you easy about myself, I repeat once more to you that, once my wife is with me again, I regret nothing, desire back nothing, except the few dear friends, among whom you and Heine almost alone are included. For the rest, I am happy and in good spirits, were it only that I am satisfied to have saved my liberty, and that I am no longer compelled to squander my strength in vain, as was formerly the case. I live now entirely for my art. So farewell, be easy about me, and with your health preserve likewise your friendly remembrance of me.
Your
Richard Wagner.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 99