My poor good Mutz,
Your having such thumping of the heart again is truly awful! But how could you do me the dishonour of letting yourself be treated on my birthday to — Lössnitz champagne? I trembled when I heard of that atrocious proposal in your last letter, and should have liked to stop it by telegraph, which I now greatly regret leaving undone. I should have thought we had both had sufficient experience of the abominable effects of that infamous drink (God forgive me my sin), and such an effect is accountable for my letter's having made so nasty an impression on you: with that stuff in your head, I believe the big prize in the lottery might have been notified you, and you would have deemed it a big loss. If on the contrary you had honoured my birthday by drinking a small bottle of genuine champagne to the health of your husband at your own expense, firmly believe me, my poor letter — which is supposed to have wrought all the mischief — would have had a corresponding effect on you. Do you imagine you're delighting me, queer wife, to say nothing of making me friends with the Sch., when you tell me she brought Lössnitzer into your house upon my birthday? Am I to think you so shabby that you can't stand something genuine out of your own pocket on such a day? Indeed this faithful friend Sch. becomes more and more fatal to me; she reacts on you, believe me, exactly like that Lössnitz, lowering in the best event. However — you're fond of her: what weigh I 'gainst such affection? I remain for you, as ever, an object of suspicion; I have had to perceive that once more.
How my letter could insult you, remains downright incomprehensible to me! Do remember in general, that between persons who are allied by true love there can never be question of insult; and whenever a thing wears that appearance, nothing but confusion and misunderstanding can have come into play. — Even at Venice I had thrusts from you about that passage in my "Preface" which offends you so; I smiled at them, because I saw you were involved in a passionate misunderstanding of that remark, and — held my tongue. But when you returned to the charge, and made me a distinct reproach, I couldn't but believe you were wishful to hear my defence. So I summarise the evolution of our reciprocal relations, how true love gradually resulted from the first violent inclination, and fancy I'm telling you something quite fine; the more so, as I set forth all the facts — which indeed it was very needful to allude to here — according to your own account of them, and didn't upbraid you in the slightest, but threw into relief the trials of the human heart. My, what it is to have to do with women! One may look out for anything then; the best meaning, the most honest intention, may be twisted to the opposite, especially if Lössnitzer is fizzing in the brain! —
This time, dear good Mutz, lay it all on the Sch.; you do me decided wrong! Moreover, looked at calmly, your rejoinder quite agrees with my account, only that there's a shade more light and shadow here and there than with me, which doesn't make much difference at bottom. Do be reasonable, and after all you must have now become aware of in me, please tell yourself it can't be my object to wound or provoke you in any way. I may be imprudent now and then in my remarks — often better say nothing! — but precisely when I do unburden myself at last, you surely ought to discern no object but a good one! And if you wish to avoid even that, dear pet, don't keep commencing, and don't give me such repeated digs and scratches on a certain spot that at last I think I'm bound to answer you. For that matter, bad as it would be if it had seriously excited you again now, no doubt it's also better that a clean slate should finally be made regarding some things: it is bound to have good consequences, if certain innuendoes etc. are rendered hors de combat. In this case, though, I really didn't want to wound you; that sort of thing, for sure, is put behind me!
Nevertheless, you may have been right if you thought I meant to rub it into you a trifle that your love perhaps was not so altogether fireproof in those earliest days (which I only meant to let suspected mine shine all the brighter); there you've paid me soundly back in my own coin, and I willingly believe you that I was a wicked fellow. Neither can I take it quite amiss, that you give me that dear Bordeaux to smell at in return, especially as you still had kept a secret from me which has really set me in astonishment to learn. So, someone wrote you at the time, that I made my second journey to Bordeaux to abduct a young wife from her husband?? Now let me assure you, on my honour and most sacred conscience, that such a shameless lie and calumny was never yet invented against any man. If it might conduce to your honour and peace of mind, I should gladly be prepared to give you every detail of that episode, and you then would find I doubtless acted very stupidly at that time, but certainly not evilly, and that to no one. Believe my word! And don't let any hairs turn grey about my sins; that I'm attending to already, poor grey-roan me! — See, dear Mutz, I now can discuss my whole past so quietly and unabashed, that I've nothing more to shun for my part. I willingly and openly admit where I have acted hastily, absurdly or erroneously; of bad actions I'm not conscious. Believe that too! But above all — no more Lössnitzer!
So much for this evening, in haste. Tomorrow more, I hope. Be calm and afflict yourself with nothing as regards
Thy dear good Husband!
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 173