You can well believe, Friend, how heavily your momentous letter has weighed upon my heart to-day! But I do not grudge the cares you thus prepare me, for I most gladly suffer with you; my whole nature feels ennobled by permission to share your griefs. However mournfully these written symbols gaze at me when I ask them for their meaning, yet how dear and friendly is their glance when I remind myself they come from him, and were written just for thee! Friend, I am afraid you might say much harm to me, and I should still be fond of you! —
You "joy-unholpen man" ("freudehelfeloser Mann") — an expression I noticed once in Walther v. d. Vogelweide, and promptly in my secret heart applied to you; whoever could help you, would indeed be fortunate! My head swims when I think of all the misery which haunts you; with the exception of a few fine moments like that perilous "good one" you describe to me so charmingly, and which fall to your lot more than to anyone else's, Fate still remains your debtor. I know this, and grieve for it with all my soul, yet can find no empty word of consolation, because I have no hope it ever can be otherwise. I need not tell you how terrible it is to me, to see you thus hunted round the world for the sake of giving concerts; were the sky itself to re-echo the crowd's acclamations, it could never make up for your sacrifice. I follow your so-called "triumphs" with bleeding heart, and turn almost bitter when people hold them up to me as something to be thankful for. All I feel then, is how little people really know, that is to say, understand you; and — then I also feel — that I do know — and love you! — But how little can one person do, against the thousand-headed monster that calls itself the world; one might shed one's heart's blood to its last drop, and yet not win one tiny morsel of affection from it. So it is, and so no doubt it was before us.
The portfolio and lamp are not to cumber your Asyl; they shall become "Wanderers" like yourself, when once you leave it. But, supposing you wished to get rid of this Asyl later on, would it be so very difficult to do so? Have you bought, or merely rented it? And do you not think that a residence so close to Vienna, even if only for sound of the thing, is useful and desirable for you in artistic respects? My heart, indeed, is ever calling you back to Switzerland; but then this heart of mine is egoistic, and ought not to be listened to. Putting that first one aside, would an Asyl in Switzerland be out of the question? Until now my tears have guarded that against other inmates; only I despair of being able to do more, for the immediate future.
With regard to musical conditions at Zurich, you would find a nucleus in the Orchestral Union there, i.e. a permanent band of 30 strong which furnishes the service of the theatre, the highly respectable Musik-Gesellschaft, and Garden-concerts without number, under a conductor named Fichtelberger, who perspiring manages to beat a Beethovenian Symphony to pieces. Papa Heim, who formerly belonged to the malcontents (be it said en parenthèse), has since been elected to the Committee, and is so proud of his new dignity that he plays the paternal monarch, i.e. is pleased with everything. Besides this society, the Heisterhagen and Eschmann Quartet still flourishes, in which a young man named Hilpert, apparently quite musical, has taken the place of Schleich. Should you seriously propose to favour us with a musical performance conducted by yourself, I would suggest that you have a nice long rest on the green hill, allow yourself to be taken care of by the Child, and then and there discuss the future.
You tell me nothing about your work, except that the portfolio is filling up. And I am to let you drink your tea out of strange teacups? Cruel man, to grudge me the pleasure of sending you a new tea-set! Do you not know that my only consolation for such gloomy letters is the power of satisfying your little wants? You might leave me this one satisfaction!
When I am back in Zurich I will get a little dog and train it; and then, when it has grown very fond of me you shall have it — nicht wahr?
I leave early on Sunday, perhaps for a few days yet at Homburg, where Otto is taking a "Silence-cure," and we hope to be home again toward the end of next week. If Switzerland should prove beyond your reach in course of the next two or three months, we will come to Vienna or wherever you like. I will not write about your accident, except to say Thank God your life was spared!
It has grown late, and I am writing in haste — but I could not stay silent, it made me too miserable. May you be feeling brighter when you receive this! And now my sincerest remembrances; I am and shall remain your friend. We will loyally stand fast.
Your Mathilde Wesendonck.
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 161