[...] How my letter could insult you, I simply cannot understand! Do bethink yourself in the first place that there can never be any question of insult between people united by real love, and wherever it seems to be so, it can only mean that confusion and misunderstanding have entered in.—Even when I was at Venice you made cutting remarks about the passage in my Preface which offends you so. I smiled at them because I could see that blind passion had caused you to misunderstand that passage. [...] I cannot be altogether angry at your retaliating by thrusting that dear Bordeaux under my nose, particularly as you have been keeping a secret from me of which I learned with amazement. Someone wrote to you at that time, then, and told you I had come a second time to Bordeaux to abduct a young wife from her husband? Now let me swear to you by my honour and most sacred conscience that never was there such a shameless lie and calumny invented against any man. If it would enlighten you and conduce to your honour and peace of mind, I would gladly some time give you the whole story in detail and you would then find that I no doubt acted very foolishly at the time but assuredly not wickedly—not to anyone. Believe me in this! And don't turn your hair grey over my sins—I am seeing to that already, poor piebald horse that I am! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 415