Dearest Minna,
Your answer to me is a pack of nonsense: perhaps I ought to have been prepared for it and rather not have written you my letter. Let it pacify you if I give you my word that you haven't understood me correctly, but much too materially. Grant Heaven that this may have an end now; really it gives me no pleasure, and my only consolation is the consciousness of having meant well and intended better. —
So the quartet was here last evening. The fellows scraped and squeaked so hideously again, that Tausig bitterly bewailed me. Nevertheless I'll have another try next week. —
Härtels have sent me 25 louis d'or for the Iphigenia revision; consequently we're a little secured again on that side too. —
I am scrambling you these lines after work and before dinner; after dinner I can never bring it off. I have nothing else to tell you; my health is going better again. I'll have another hunt for the umbrella; the citric acid can't be found.
The sly elephant — see enclosure — will delight you as much as it delighted me. — Tell the doctor: if you don't sleep well soon, I shall turn abusive, but in any case I mean to contribute to it by never writing seriously to you again, as it always seems to cause you great confusion. Adieu for to-day, silly Mutz! We shall see one another this week; may I find you quite corpulent then, as the labourer found it, and I shall rejoice myself thin! Thy
good old Man.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 135