Best wife of mine,
I was just busied with my moving in yesterday, when I received your letter in the new apartments. It makes me very sad, to think you mean to leave me still alone so long! Dear Minna, we absolutely ought not to be parted for long; that I feel afresh once more, both deeply and sincerely. What you are to me, a whole capital of 70,000 inhabitants cannot replace. If I've no business on hand, I fret the more for being alone; but when I have been tiring myself out all day long, and evening comes to find you not indoors, I take a violent dislike to all the home comforts so grateful to me otherwise, and what I find outside the house indeed is not in the position to compensate me for a single minute. I haven't yet quite understood one passage in your letter: you speak of a necessity for our being parted still longer, perhaps! — Where is that necessity? When, to pursue my soaring plans and hopes (which you did not even share with me), in circumstances that might well have scared the stoutest-hearted man, I prepared to set out from Russia; when amid perils of every kind I embarked at Pillau, to commence a fearfully uncertain journey that was to bring me to a still more doubtful goal — did you then speak of any necessity to leave me? By God, I should have been obliged to agree with you then! But it never entered your head. When storm and danger were at their greatest, when you saw a hideous death before you as reward for all the hardships you had shared with me, you simply begged me then to lock you faster in my arms, that we only might not sink into the deep asunder! When we were hovering on the brink of starvation in Paris, many an opportunity was offered you to save yourself: one word, and Frau v. Zech, who was so heartily fond of you, would have taken you with her to Gotha, — the Leplay herself, forgetting her stinginess for your sake, would have conducted you back to your home as her travelling-companion: — why did you not speak of a necessity then for us to part? Look you, I could have found nothing to reply to you then. But now that I feel I have my future more and more in my own hands, I ask you, why are you talking now of this necessity? Tell me, what makes you so faint-hearted? — See, all is arranged for the best. Lodging and piano hire I have deferred to the end of October; — till the production of my opera it is nothing but a question of our board, and we can defray that well enough with what I have still to receive. Consequently I shall be a burden on no one any longer, least of all on my family. So rid yourself of this anxiety; for, were I really to run short of money, now I know that in the midst of strangers I'm a stranger here no longer: I have convinced myself I've won new friends here who merely fall short of my old as yet in that they haven't yet had time to prove their friendship. Really and truly, dear Minna, to me it looks as if I were of some account here; this moment, for instance, I have obtained 200 thaler from the Devrient for Kietz. She is an artist, you see, and so are Kietz and I, and artists ought to have to do with none but one another: no trader ought to come between, or it leads to odious conflicts.
Enough! I won't tell you much more, though I should have matter in plenty. At least you'll soon be coming, after all, so I'll save up everything for word of mouth! —
Till then, though, merely this:
How glad I am at your assuring me dear Mama's health is restored, except for a weakness in her feet: — as this weakness is a natural result in any case, one must make one's mind easy about it. As for her quarters here, things have altered a little; it's a very fine place, true enough — only she will have to pay 2 Rthr a week, without bedding; it couldn't be managed otherwise, and Mother will readily understand it too, when she gets here — so I have only taken it for a week, to begin with, — for I'm a little timid, you know, at this kind of commission. Anyhow, everything is ready, and all I cry to both of you, is Come, do come! —
As for yourself, dear child, everybody is asking after you with the warmest interest. They are all very fond of you, and I shall have a hard job with my constant excuses if you refuse to call on them. Well, that will all arrange itself, and you shan't find me compelling you to anything. —
Be at ease about Ulrich: in your timidity you probably saw more than there was to see. I have written him exactly as we had agreed.
Farewell. Father and Mother send love. Your mother keeps giving me too big helpings; I'm terrified every time she serves up!
You shall pay for the lodging I have occupied till now — you'll soon settle it, whereas they beat about too much with me! —
Come soon! Monday, Monday! Ah, if only it were Monday now!
You darling south-wind, blow still more! For my dear Minna my heart is sore!
Hearty greetings! Ade, my good Wife,
Thy Richard.
When will they clear that cursed youngster out, that Matz? —
Turk! Turk!
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 3