My dear good old Mutz,
Here I am in Venice; where are you? I confidently assume at Zwickau, but my having no tidings at all from you yet makes me very uneasy. After my telegraphing to you from Geneva, couldn't you at least have written me a couple of lines, as I asked, to Venice poste restante? I arrived here the 29th of August, and really hoped to find a letter from you, but have enquired each day in vain. To-day I'm at last getting really alarmed. You have a bad time to surmount now, and certainly for you a very sad one; I begged of you to shorten it as much as possible, so I still think you must have started on the 29th, since you had that day in remembrance from your first arrival in Zurich. God grant I may have a letter from you tomorrow confirming this, and at the same time telling me you have pulled your whole strength together to face everything well. I have nothing fresh to tell you to console and cheer you; all I can cry to you is, Hope and don't lose heart! See here, poor Wife, your destiny — which surely should have been appointed you on calmer and more even lines — was linked with the destiny of a man who, much as he also wished for placid happiness himself, yet was appointed to so extraordinary a development in every respect that at last he believes he must even renounce his own wishes, simply to accomplish his life-task. All I now seek is inner self-collection, to be able to complete my works: renown no longer has effect on me; of succeeding in representing my works I even despair: nothing — nothing — but work, the creative act itself, still keeps me alive. It is natural that so extraordinary a destiny should also rouse extraordinary sympathy; there are many persons who have turned to me with deep and intimate regard. If you must suffer for it, those sufferings will some day be accounted to you too, and your reward must be — my prospering, the prospering of my works. Just now, however — let us not be thinking only of the future; let us try to get over the present, and hope to find rest for ourselves and prepare for one another kindness, reconciliation. —
Allow me not to write you much about Venice to-day; I'm terribly upset by the journey, and particularly through the search for an abode. Before I've set myself up so well and comfortably as to make it possible to hold out, I cannot recover my senses; you know how much the dwelling question counts with me, and I must aim at staying glued to one spot for the present, to be able to continue my work. Naturally I am living in furnished apartments; there are no others here. My landlord is an Austrian, who was very happy to give shelter to my famous name. All such lodgings here are in big palaces relinquished by their former patrician owners, and arranged by speculators for letting out to foreigners. But I will write you on all that next time. For to-day only thus much: I hope to hold out at Venice; really the city is interesting beyond all measure, and the positive stillness — one never hears a vehicle — quite priceless to me. I am receiving no callers, and hope to live entirely withdrawn upon myself here. For the present I see Karl at dinner every day, for which we have made a restaurant on St. Mark's Square our rendezvous; should that prove inconvenient to me later on, I can also have meals fetched at home. Things do not really seem dear; only the lodging is not proportionately cheap. I am just writing to Heim, to send me the piano forthwith; there will be no imposts to pay on it, were it only because Venice is a free port. No doubt I shan't require the sheets and bedding; naturally I must content myself with coarser. Now, my dear Minna, accept my heartfelt and sincere congratulations on your birthday! Poor Wife, I could have wished you a better; yet it is some consolation that at least you're spending it with your relations, as 4 years back. That did you then a heap of good; may it be a comfort to you on this occasion also! Give them my kindest regards; divert yourself among them, and endeavour to forget as far as possible! Look up, and hope that we shall meet again in Germany ere long. I am sending you a true Venetian present, as souvenir of this birthday; I hope it won't arrive too late. So, courage, composure, regard for your health! If you want to send a truly handsome present to me in my banishment, give me tidings that you are somewhat amusing yourself and deriving hopes of an improvement in your sufferings. Farewell; be a thousand times heartily, heartily greeted! And greet good Fipps, and eke the silly parrot, Mr Jacquot! I, on the contrary, am living in a world of utter strangers; nothing around me save my manuscripts, to shew me what I've still to do and — suffer! You have taken our home-brownies with you; look after them, they're very dear to me as well. Adieu! Adieu! Stay good to me.
Thy Richard.
Here's my address, which you must always get written in a thoroughly legible hand.
Herrn Richard Wagner, Canale Grande, Palazzo Giustiniani, Campiello Squillini No. 3228, in Venedig.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 145