My entirely good, dear Mienel!
No, the lovely partridges! That beats everything! Only to-day, midst the feasting on 1½ partridge, have I arrived at emptying that "half" to your health with the house of Wagner. You were wrong, if you deemed it a thing of the past; after the birthday had been made such a mess of, I kept waiting for a really good occasion, to be supplied by the first letter in which you wrote me that you were feeling somewhat better again. I was almost glad not to have received your last letter but one when it came, for you really had framed it quite sadly; at least, I saw you weren't at all the thing yet, despite the lovely morning-music. Last evening at 10 (wicked person!) I returned from the Wesendonck outing, of which you no doubt have had tidings by now through my Seelisberg letter; but your letter couldn't rightly cheer me, not so much because of your forebodings, as for reason of the mood in which such fears still haunted you: I didn't go to bed till 12, and got no proper sleep. I awoke with a shocking nervous headache: the first thing to greet me was the post-slip from Zwickau. Off went Friederike to the Post forthwith; the box was opened, and on my knees I burrowed for the letter. It was the good letter, at last, I had longed for, in which you had to admit yourself that you weren't feeling so bad, had an appetite and slept well. At once I gave orders: all three must be cooked, and Friederike was called in to dinner; with myself and Nette she had to pledge a glass to you twice over, and this time it didn't taste like schnapps to her. That took away my headache; now I'm smoking my cigar over my wee cup of coffee, and writing you quite cosily to express my joy at your condition. Peps and Jacquot have meantime been having a good romp on the floor. Peps can't make the bird out at all now, for it calls Nette quite plainly by name too, and keeps declaring "Jacquot wants his food" — so that Peps begins to take it for a higher being. —
O yes, dear good Minna, you'll soon be right! Your relations' uneasiness about your looks the first few days does not alarm me: it is always the way with nerve-sufferers, they often get so pulled down that they appear to have every illness in the world; once the nerves are duly soothed, however, it all has vanished, and the organs fulfil their whole functions according to rule. Still, with the frequent derangement of your abdominal nerves, it may be well to supply your stomach with such an aliment as costs it the minimum of labour for digestion and yet affords the body the needful nutrition; Tröger is perfectly right. If your condition had lasted, we should have hit on that ourselves; you know, in fact, I ordered it myself to Emilie Ritter.
Your remaining quietly at Zwickau still, is very sensible; you were to make a journey of recreation, remember, not a tearing about from place to place. Never should you leave the one before you've quite recovered from the sure fatigue of getting there, and are feeling thoroughly yourself again. That is the only way, too, for this journey to end in your good; and I must calmly wait for your return, provided only you return quite strengthened and refreshed. —
I shall also be sending you money very soon, that you may be hampered in nothing; to Chemnitz, I expect. —
Nothing else has happened here. All at Seelisberg renew their greetings to you. I returned alone to Zurich yesterday; the Wesendoncks proceeded to the Rigi, but in spite of all entreaties they didn't draw me up. I bade them goodbye at the foot of the hill, and brought the letter for you on to Zurich, where I put it in the letterbox at 10 last evening, as that was quicker than if I had posted it at Brunnen. — Look forward to next summer on the Seelisberg; it's too lovely there!!
So farewell for to-day, my good Minna. Give my best love to your people, and tell the parents they must kindly keep alive that you may visit them every two years. To good Tröger give a right brotherly kiss from me: that people should go breaking their legs on your birthday, of all days, I set down as impertinent; the bandsmen did much better, to be in such good wind. Please give your thanks to the amiable bandmaster in my name also — it really was quite fine of him, and touched me, too, to tears.
Now grant me the great pleasure of your writing again very soon, to say you are feeling as well, and have grown as stout, as sister Charlotte! — Farewell, dear old Minna; be merry, and so rejoice
Thy R.
I didn't know that your sunshade was loaded with shot; I got some of it between my teeth here!
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 68