Your most obedient Servant, Madame Wagner!
So, a fortnight from to-day I leave here, and shall be a sound Monsieur. —
Karl and his wife came to see me on Wednesday; we took a donkey-ride up Mont Salève, which I originally had saved for your arrival here; next morning they went back, after breakfasting with me in my room after my fashion, when I brewed the tea myself. On my journey home, as said, I shall pay them a day's visit, and then we're to eat cakes. —
I have nothing against Klare's and Mathilde's visit; only I should have thought that Klare, who cannot well repeat the visit for some time, would have found herself better off with us next year. It suits me thoroughly, however, to go on lollopping awhile at first on my return; only it mustn't cost me much more money, I may tell you, for I have the less idea how my exchequer will hold out this time, as it naturally has been drained already through my very expensive cure; for your health it would have been another matter. However, we shall see. — I expect you'll have made some tidy savings during my absence — presumably (?) hm! hm! —
That good Franz Müller also will come from Weimar about the same time; but I shall be glad if Liszt doesn't come till mid-September, as I begged him, for during his visit I am sure to have a lot of excitement, which wouldn't be good for me so soon after the cure. — Semper can't be quite so wrong regarding Tichatscheck; of sheer thoughtlessness — certainly not from ill will — he is certain to have damaged Semper. For he resorts daily to a certain club which includes two police-councillors among its members, as he told me himself — one of them a regular chieftain. Naturally Tichatscheck and his like do not remark that they are being spied on by these gentry; in his simplicity he will have told the story of that evening, without knowing what he was doing — and perhaps he doesn't know even yet that it was he who blackened Semper. Thus children often do one just as much harm as actual rogues. Please pass on this guess of mine to Semper, and give him my best regards. —
For the rest, I naturally have nothing more to report to you from my monotonous cure-life, beyond the assurance that I shall not get the Rose again. — The Heim letter affair is annoying enough to me, but there was no other means of obviating similar cases; all one should do, is to reclaim the letter at Zurich and demand an explanation of such swindles. —
Now, God the all-bountiful shield you! Fips is blooming like a cabbage-rose; both of us greet you most respectfully and humbly.
I am curious to know when you will have even a commencement of explorations for the plot of ground to report to me; you should have been able to send to Alter long ago. —
An enquiry from Vienna about Tannhäuser. —
To-day I combed and flea'd Fips single-handed; he had something like a dozen. —
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 111