My poor dear old Minna,
Rest assured that your condition and fate concern me closely and deeply. Before I got your first poste restante Venice letter (still from Zurich) I was in the most painful anxiety about you; how glad I was when I gathered from that letter that your practical labours and worries were keeping you up! Yes, with true relish I read of your scene with that rascally man-servant, and even your reflections upon certain others; all this shewed me at least that you were passing through the terrible time of your departure with that strength peculiar to yourself: which is certainly not to say, however, that the vulgarities you encountered on leaving — as you tell me in your last letter — did not revolt and thoroughly ashame me. But who can foresee anything with an individual like this fly-man Furrer? Others at least remained decent, in the confidence that I should not cheat them. Perhaps it would have been better in many respects, if we had simply closed the house and provisionally left everything in it just as it was. I should then have been able to attend to the packing up etc. later on, and even if I hadn't been so practical as yourself in the sale of various articles, and had lost something over it, yet you would have been spared more drudgery and bother now than the loss would have been worth, and above all there would not have arisen such a fuss as necessarily must come now; which would also have been much more favourable for my future settling down. You will remember, too, I once proposed this to you; but you preferred getting it all done with at once. As for the chatter among those who have still to present their accounts for the current year, I hope to stop their mouths soon; now that Rienzi has come out again so happily at Dresden (Tichatscheck wrote me he had been called 14 times in one night!), I have no doubt of speedy good receipts from other theatres, which I already am busy about and soon will place me in the position to wipe off everything. I was just rejoicing that a small increase had befallen your exchequer through the proceeds from what was sold; but you must have had to dip pretty deep into it now, poor woman, and perhaps even make a hole in the rest? Please tell me how much you have left, and whether you can manage comfortably till the end of October, when you shall have money again in any event. I shall pay that Furrer out for this; don't you bother any more about it.
My dear good Minna, when I thus review the uneasy, almost mournful lot to which you've so long been exposed by my side and through your union with my own uneasy, changeful fortunes; and when I ask myself, What if you could provide and guarantee the poor sorely-tried woman for the rest of her life a sure, abiding haven unexposed to change — it seems to me that I could only do it this way: that I should beg you to take plenty of time in seeking out the place of residence most pleasing to you, set yourself snugly and cosily up there with all our goods and chattels, and then regard it as your own fixed habitation. Thither I would come to you as often as I needed a home; and for the rest, quite apart from my personal needs of sojourn, it would be your peaceful nest to which I also could withdraw at last when all the storms of life were weathered, to find my lasting rest beneath your care. In any case that dwelling-place should remain completely unsubjected to my fate's vagaries. I cannot help thinking this arrangement the most sensible, ay, the only one to give you certainty of permanence. — However, I know that it isn't the dwelling-place that counts for everything with you either; you want to have your husband with you just as constantly: ay, that has been your sole reason for enduring all life's hardships of the past. Consequently I neither can nor will make you this proposal seriously, for I want to wound you in nothing I can avoid; you have had hard enough lines to endure from me, for which I am heartily sorry!
I too, I won't deny it, at bottom am fond of a permanent homestead; and how to procure it, has been my chief preoccupation of late. Neither can I believe that a strictly vagabond life would suit me in the long run. Our going different ways was really needful for the present, and I haven't a moment's doubt that our passing separation, with the complete change in our position, will have had a truly curative effect on our minds, and also on your health in particular. I made a very lucky choice with Venice: I shall write you circumstantially about my mode of life and installation here next time; for to-day merely thus much: the singular melancholy-cheerful repose of this place, with the absolute retirement in which I'm able and intend to live here, already begins to strengthen and smooth me out, and in any case I hope to pass the winter here. By the winter's end I definitely hope to finish Tristan quite; till then I shall not stir. But once that's finished, I shall look around a bit to see how the world is standing; and I hope to find it standing favourably for me. Whatever may be the case with the full amnesty, so much is certain: the Grand Duke of Baden in particular has received from Saxony the assurance that I shall be allowed at any time to come to Germany for a reasonable time for the production of a new work of mine; Liszt himself writes me so. That would mean the gaining of the most important point already, and the production of Tristan somewhere about next Easter at Carlsruhe in my personal presence would be a certainty. Isn't that already something? And once I am there for a couple of months (for that's the suggestion) no rational being will doubt but that the rest can be managed meanwhile; toward which I even imagine my personal acquaintance may contribute its share. This, good Mutz, might have been happening now, had I only got through with the Tristan. But perhaps even the full amnesty may have arrived by next Easter, for I recently heard that the Saxon Government harbours a project of provisionally commencing the amnesty by permitting fugitives to re-enter any part of Germany with the solitary exception of Saxony. I no longer have much thought of Saxony, however, for that country best would suit me for a lasting foothold where the Court is best disposed towards me — and this, beyond all doubt, is Baden. This young Grand Duke is said to be really unceasing in the most energetic of efforts for me, and it is he — not the Weimar one — who is said to have concerned himself for me at Vienna. With his widely-famed great personal amiability and staunchness, he attracts me the most; whilst worthy Devrient's family would also be very agreeable to me.
See now, good Mutz, that really is a definite prospect, and surely a great comfort to yourself as well. You thus may count with certainty on seeing me again next Easter, and — God willing — we shall then have no difficulty in also finding the spot where you may plant the abiding tent of rest for this roaming life of mine. — Very well! Recreate yourself till then. I have no doubt you will soon feel better; rest and retirement will heal your spirit also, and valiant Tröger's treatment will help you pick up your health. It is certain that your bodily condition, as with all nerve-invalids, is very closely connected with your frame of mind; once there's a tendency to improvement in the one, it goes hand in glove with the other, and I am sure of receiving good, comforting reports on your condition soon. Therefore remain at perfect rest with your relations as long as ever you find yourself comfortable, and don't go travelling before you feel a decided need of distraction, which will itself be a good sign of improvement. —
Touching myself, in my next letter, as said, I shall tell you a lot about my life here. For the present merely this — to complete my Tristan, that's the main thing! With the completion of this work I shall have survived a remarkable period; I foresee the clearness, calm and equanimity, which that will win me. — Farewell. A thousand hearty greetings to good Tröger and your people; squeeze Fipps' dear little paw, and get Jacquot to say: "Yet a good Husband, Richard Wagner."
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 146