[...] As I wished to give people an idea of how my works arose, and consequently of my psychological development, I could not, without being unintelligible, pass over in silence such a critical and momentous change in my life as was constituted by our marriage. It would have been foolish, and contrary to my true intention, to have attempted to tell this particular episode, our love-story, more fully and at greater length, but it was just necessary to indicate with a few light strokes an incident of considerable importance, such as, for that matter, occurs in the lives of many, indeed of most, people and need only be briefly touched upon because it is presupposed that everyone will know well enough what is meant—to wit, the inevitable consequences of a youthful marriage, contracted in the urgency of passion without reflection and consideration for practical issues, in spite of the obstacles and objections raised by practical common sense which sees trouble ahead.
The fact that you cannot get it out of your head that my intention was to expose you and even accuse you, seems to me something so insensate and radically perverse that up to now I have scarcely ventured to reply to you on the point, being at a loss how to explain to you something so simple and obvious that I still hope that no one else will misunderstand (with the possible exception of persons of Schiffner's level of intelligence and so on, for whom, in any case, I did not write the book).
Certainly I bitterly regret now that this Preface was printed at the time it was, for it was written far above the heads of the majority of readers who could only half-understand it. I also regret that in the whole of this Preface you are still oblivious to all but this one passage, and could almost wish I had used the occasion to write a full account of my life in which I might have been able to present you before the eyes of the world with a handsome testimonial to your loyalty and self-sacrifice. If, however, you grasped the whole thing, you would see that it never occurred to me to write a biography (a thing which I should have thought really absurd and in bad taste—particularly as a commendation of my wife—), but that, on the contrary, I only touched briefly on such things in my life as seemed to me necessary to display the whole course of my purely artistic development. Should anyone in the future speak of this passage to you in a hushed whisper, just laugh in his face and say, "Well, truth to tell, he was so absurd and danced attendance on me so jealously! And then he insisted on getting married in case anyone else should come near me, although we were so poverty-stricken and in such difficulties that my calmer judgment told me in advance what miseries were before us. But what was I to do? I loved him too, and so we pair of children fell into a state of destitution which soon became so dreadful and distressing that I, for my part, felt I could endure it no longer; and because my thoughtless hot-headed young husband, loaded with debts and with the prospect of an unemployed summer before us, plagued me in addition with violent outbursts of unendurable jealousy, one day I ran away!"—You might answer thus, my dear child, in full accordance with the truth, and you would be explaining the passage correctly. But I presume that only a stupid person would put you in the position of having to make such an answer, for anyone of intelligence would understand the passage of himself and not force you to a declaration which, after all, must throw more doubt on your love for me than on mine for you. For a really intelligent person would answer your reply with, "So you could run off like that, then, from your young inexperienced husband, leaving him in the difficulties in which he was involved as well as you? According to that, perhaps you did not really love him?—For a woman who truly loves her husband and cannot help but love him, may, no doubt, feel very unhappy and injured by his outbursts, but as soon as her simple instinct to love him tells her, as it must, that these outbursts spring from nothing but the passion of love (for you know that men have been known to murder the beloved out of passionate love and jealousy!) and, furthermore, that the unhappiness and hardships in which you left him, were only the consequences of the imprudence with which he insisted on marriage when it would have been better to wait for a more favourable season and really sprang from his intense affection for you—it would then be impossible for her to leave him, for that very misery must, at bottom, have borne witness to her of his uncommonly strong devotion."—As a matter of fact, dear child, many would answer you so, and, as you are so excessively fond of indulging in these old reminiscences, I will simply tell you that at the time itself—actually then—a certain man of calm judgment, intelligence and deep feeling gave me this very aspect of the matter to think of, when I, accusing myself to excuse you and to reconcile him to your conduct, gave him the explanation which I have written above and put into your mouth for your future use! You know this man very well and cannot have much against him, I think; it was Hermann Brockhaus whose letter of that period I came upon again recently.—However, should you ever be met with this serious reply you could, without injury to your honour, answer somewhat as follows.—"It is true that in those difficult days my love for Richard had faded, but still I do not think things would have gone so far if a man of wealth and position had not approached me at the time with great show of heartfelt sympathy for my sufferings and expressed that sympathy in so alluring a fashion that amidst all these conflicting impressions I wavered for a while and could no longer see in Richard's love for me (particularly as it expressed itself solely in such insulting outbursts that I could scarcely recognise it for what it was) any sufficient compensation for the wretchedness which an unfortunate, headlong, untimely marriage had brought upon us both. Yes, I have to blame myself that all this made me uncertain of myself for a time; and anyone who weighs the matter well will be able to forgive the young wife for yielding to temptation, at first to the point of keeping her husband at a distance, treating him with hostility and misleading him as to her actions, while she wavered so in her choice between him and another, that that other, unhappily, could make it appear that I had shown him more favour than was really the case. But it was this very situation which proved me, and in it I first became fully convinced of my love for Richard, the fruit which finally emerged from this regrettable misunderstanding. At the very moment that the decision had to be made, I saw plainly how dear Richard was to me, so that when he would have had to abandon me altogether and go off to a post in far-away Riga, I prevailed on myself to confess my fault and ask pardon, telling him at the same time that nothing but my new realisation of my great love for him could have moved me to do it. Meanwhile Richard, too, had much to get over, and in particular his love for me had been put to a severe test. Appearances had made him suspect, nay believe, that I had betrayed him utterly and given myself to another. Newspapers had been sent to him from Hamburg in which he read that I had been staying at the same hotel with that other. What could the poor fellow believe except the worst? Indeed, he had received letters taunting him outright with my behaviour, and even his fellow-workers at the theatre made covert or open insinuations, ridiculing him as a cheated husband. But he stood the test, and it proved that the first violent headstrong passion had given place to a true and earnest love. He answered me at once, with devotion, forgave me all, called me to him and never under the sorest temptations which arose later did he ever speak of my lapse with anyone. So then, love, loyalty and faith had made their home with us and the trials of youth were past, even though the hard trials of later life still lay ahead of us. Richard's peculiar nature, which on the one hand qualified him to do great work and finally to attain extraordinary success, could not but be the cause of certain dark shadows upon our life on the other. I am not thinking of the continual want and trouble in practical matters, though these taxed my strength very sorely; but inevitably his highly artistic temperament and the peculiarly emotional and intense quality of his works, kept him in an excitable state which, through his works, he imparted to others and many a time this disturbed my own peace of mind. A fine artist like Richard, constantly at work in a passionate medium, retains through life a certain boyishness which must often trouble the wife at his side; for while this wife is constantly beside him in the small world of home, like an old possession sometimes hardly noticed just because one is so sure of it and accustomed to it, new figures must often appear from the world outside, creating an effect calling for forbearance from the anxious wife. Fortunately, at the time of his becoming actually famous, he was cut off from the world and I was thus, perhaps, spared many an anxiety. Still, I was not without my painful experiences which affected me all the more acutely because the constant want and unrest in which we had lived had unfortunately affected my health and made me extremely sensitive, mentally and physically. On the other hand, I have made the comforting and joyful discovery that, when things were at their worst and suffering overwhelmed me, I could once more rely on Richard's showing his utmost faith and devotion, justifying me in the conclusion that he returns my faith and love with all his heart and that, in the last resort, he would put up with anything, renounce anything for the sake of comforting me and being a good husband to me to the best of his power.—So that is how it is with us—and now ask me no more questions!"
I believe that this answer would be a thoroughly truthful and circumspect one and that, having made it, you could bear yourself proudly and tranquilly. I am not angry with you for having placed me in the position of having to prescribe it to you, but I beg you to take to heart this plain and candid review of our relationship as my answer to your repeated accusations, and to adopt what is contained therein as your own—a thing you surely cannot find repugnant or difficult. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 410