Dear Mienel,
To-day I have entered the last week but one of my cure here; eleven more packs (on Sundays I have none) and I shall be finished. My shingles on the thighs and calves are out in fine form, and have pained and irritated me exactly as they did last spring; as for the rest, the sweating and strong perspirations have chased away the worst of them, particularly on the chest and arms. What a disgraceful thing that sulphur-cure was! The whole first month here I sweated nothing but sulphur, and then came the bad humours the sulphur had simply driven inwards. I was sure there was something festering in my blood. — I am getting it pretty stiff now, but standing it well, and coming to feel as if in a new body. That "Pardon story" I heard on Friday evening, when the postmaster at Hausen, having just read it in the Friday paper, brought both it and himself all hot to my room. Since then, I have read nothing more about it anywhere; most probably there's nothing in it, or an official intimation would have already been made to the Swiss authorities. Should it be confirmed, all it would mean to me now, would be the urgent necessity for becoming a Swiss citizen, as the refugee protection would be at end. In any event it will be well for me to get naturalised here before long; the Ritters will supply me the means, — Karl wants to be naturalised himself. — So you would like to see Lohengrin performed at Zurich? — Not bad either! —
You say I've started something odd each year, and your only worry is what I'm going to hit on for the next? That I shall tell you at once: next year, I hope, the two of us will take a lovely trip to Italy. Would that be so great a calamity? —
Klärchen Brockhaus has written me a very nice letter: she asks after you most affectionately. When I get home again, we'll write her an answer together. — Nothing more has come of Lohengrin at Weimar. The singer of Ortrud had been discharged so insultingly — in Liszt's absence — that she could not be persuaded to oblige. In general, a lot of intriguing is going on against Liszt there, and Mr. Genast is said to stand at the head of it. I am also afraid things will not last much longer there, and Liszt will get sick of it. It is impossible to make head against the present vileness anywhere or anyhow. —
If you care to send me another pair of shirts, please do; I shall have plenty of the other things to last me. I am counting the days already, and tell myself each morning, Tomorrow there'll be so-and-so many days more. Judge by that, how I am looking forward to home and you. But I still keep thinking of poor Papchen: night after night I have dreamt of him, and always so touchingly and affectingly (he would bite at my finger for love) that I found myself crying aloud when I woke. I shall never get over the loss of the dear beastie; it was too terrible, our having to lose that bet!! — Ah, I have to tear myself away from the remembrance — else I can't bear up.
Now, just you keep in as good health as I found you the last times — and we'll soon see how to shape our life as happily as possible. Already we may be without the least anxiety for our subsistence, and to the end of our lives: there will be nothing more of that sort to disquiet us. But you must grant me quiet too; take me as I am, and let me do what I have joy and pleasure in; don't tease me into anything I really neither will nor can: rest assured, on the other hand, I shall always be doing something that somehow gives delight to others and satisfies my inner self. — So, if we do not mutually torment each other, we yet may lead the finest life permitted by our circumstances. —
Now farewell, Mutzius! — Be cheerful and retain your good temper. I shall soon be with you altogether again.
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 46