My good Mutz,
No, I can't yet get over your drinking Lössnitz champagne on my birthday; I could poison the Sch. for it! To my dying day I shan't forget how both of us once dropped to earth like lead through that stuff. But you're always playing me this kind of prank of false economy, as with your 3rd class on long railway journeys, and so on; the evil consequences of which I always have to share. The same again this time! Do take my word for it, the letter wasn't nasty; nor could it have stirred up bad blood in you, if that hadn't been poisoned before: 'twere as though I wrote the very opposite of what I meant to, and as I'm drinking neither Lössnitzer nor any other champagne, I should be at a loss to know how that could have happened to me. In reality, whoever reads that letter without bias, can only find in it a panegyric on yourself; and if I also had a little fling at you, it was merely to shew that I was downright mad upon you, whilst you believed at the commencement you still might exercise a choice: in short, that I loved you more than you myself; and that is really a reproach a wife may willingly put up with from her husband, since at bottom it contains a flattery. Further, my object with it was to answer you, and talk you out of all the stuff and nonsense you have got into your head about that passage in my "Preface." But where does it occur to me to try and make you any fresh reproach? I made you a compliment, indeed I did! Do I not take all the blame of that time on myself? Do I not follow in everything your own account of your behaviour then? Your own answer, in fact, is fresh proof to me that we strictly are quite in agreement. And what could alone have been the object of my letter? Why, simply to refute what had occasioned it, and those were the repeated reproaches you had made me concerning that (hackneyed) passage, that I meant it to deny my having married you for love. I believed I could dissipate this haunting suspicion of yours no other way than by shewing you the true sense of that passage, viz. that I thereby said, on the contrary, that our precipitate — i.e. in such indigent circumstances etc., at any rate too early — marriage, with all its consequences of unrest and want, had originated in the very vehemence of my obstination; which really can be only read as flattering to the object of my choice. Moreover, that you might thoroughly understand those words as well, I then shewed you how true love had finally evolved from that through sufferings and trials; consequently the whole is one hymn to that true love, and yet — you have felt compelled to "answer" me "with tears of blood" (!!!)
Well, nobody could have made a greater mistake than I did this time, and as mistakes of that kind, springing from the best intention on my side, have so repeatedly occurred to me before, to avoid all further possibility thereof in future I most heartily beg you to be a little more careful yourself, and not keep dinning into me these constantly recurring innuendoes and reproaches about past events and utterances misunderstood to boot. For, once again: it disquiets me purely for your sake, because I see it still fermenting in you. Then I ask myself: Shall I stay mum, Shall I enlighten her? If I attempt the latter, I always make bad worse, as this time; say or explain what I will, you take it all as fresh upbraiding. If I'm silent, it returns once more, and still you do not pacify yourself! Isn't that a thoroughly sad and stupid plight for me? Couldn't you improve it radically, by giving up this constant harping on the same old strings? How is it, for instance, that ever since Dresden you've kept reverting to that old passage in the "Preface"? Must I not believe you're keeping idiotic company; or is it yourself that takes a pleasure in always raking up the past? How did you so much as get hold of the book? I had ceased to possess it at Zurich myself; have you procured it again for your private use? O folly without end! If I were only shrewd and prudent, I should never answer you another syllable to prods like these; but indeed I'm far too fond of you, you make me so terribly sorry for your continually torturing yourself with such absurdities; so I rack my brains to set about conveying you a different idea of our relation, and — commit a fresh folly forthwith. For of course I recognise (too late then) that any allusion to certain past times is bound to be painful to your still so ailing heart, and therefore had always better be averted and avoided. There now, you shan't lead me astray again in such a hurry, and if it ever should again be downright unavoidable (which God forbid!) I'll take care at least that you drink true Good-luck champagne first, no Lössnitz fusel. But the damage is done, and you've to pay for it again! Oh! Oh! —
For my own part I can swear to you that all this old lumber no longer exists for me, I call up reproaches against no one whatever, and least of all against yourself; and yet I am living so void of distraction, that it would be more excusable in me if I took to worrying from time to time. For you, in your present situation, that ought to have been made still easier; so mind you get away to Schandau soon, and may the dear faithful Lössnitz-champagne lady-friend not honour you quite too often with her affecting attachment! I stick to it: old maids like her have nothing in the world at heart but scandal, and scandal again, in one form or another; what else is left them, than to interfere in other people's business, since they themselves have nobody whom they can call their own? And that applies to all of them, from the dressmaker to the artist; they all have something suspicious and suspecting about them, poke their nose into everything, and know something about everyone that isn't as it should be, and at which that nose must be turned up. You'll contradict me, — no matter! I know them, all the same, and stick to it; and they shan't have an excessively good time in my vicinity. Amen. —
Lord, what a quantity of needless scribbling again! If it goes on like this, I shan't even arrive at telling you my delight about the lovely blotting-book; and yet I've daubed its inside terribly already, notwithstanding your polite invitation to pack it up again at once and put it by: with which you certainly succeeded in soundly seasoning my first delight at its receipt, and so much so, that I really couldn't thank you for the gift straight off. Was that your object, Minna? Did you only make me a present of the blotting-book to cool a revenge on me? How you would be to be pitied! After a little reflection, at any rate, I soon guessed what you wanted to take revenge for, and told myself I had probably offended you over that embroidery for the piano-stool — 2 years ago — only I was surprised at your not rather repressing a thing like that in our present position, and leaving me to make myself reproaches about it; which surely must have given you greater satisfaction than your making them to me, when vengeance indeed is wrought, but not repentance. For your reassurance, however — as I see you still need reassurance even upon that — I will confess to you, a little late, that you really didn't hit my taste that time; for, as I first found out through that embroidery, I'm not particularly fond of glass-bead work, and even have a little loathing of it. I didn't let you notice it — in fact it was the first time you had made me a whole piece of bead-work — and proposed to have it put on the stool for my next birthday. Well, you know the sort of humour we were in last year, about this date; moreover, I forgot it: so don't be cross with me about it any longer, and seek for nothing worse behind that undoubtedly wounding neglect. All the more beautifully have you hit my taste with the blotting-book, exactly as if I had ordered it myself; only, the embroidery is almost a shade too coquettish and dainty: Lord, how do I match such elegance! And the violet velvet, with the beautiful inner lining! In short, indescribably splendid! Accept my best thanks and a hearty kiss for the magnificent present! — I didn't get it till the 23rd, when, to my joy and relief, my box also arrived at last from Venice; which really made me very glad, especially on account of the sketches for Siegfried, which otherwise would have been utterly lost. It all costs an awful amount of money, tho', and I shouldn't care to lead a vagrant life like this much longer.
A great improvement seems to be commencing in my health through the Kissinger water I've been drinking every morning since my birthday. Also, the morning promenades attached thereto are doing me a heap of good; 6 o'clock in the morning, be it day or night, off the roost and on to the promenade, from which I don't get back till 8. Really I feel surprisingly lighter and better since, which no doubt is to some extent assisted by the weather, as it doesn't rain continuously now, but only once a day, either forenoon or evening; without that much it can't do, and true enough, I've not been up the Rigi yet, or anywhere else. Unfortunately I have had to take to my Venetian stiff stockings again; my legs are again very swollen, and the veins stand out from them like whipcord. That comes from so much sitting. Moreover, I have really been tormented everywhere of late (except by my wife!): for I've contracted a bad finger (proud flesh, they call it), and to crown it all, so severe an inflammation of the — — — that I took cold hip-baths for it; as it got worse, however, I called in the doctor, and the poor wretch had literally to inspect what was up. Then it transpired that the cold hip-baths hadn't been the right way of combating it, for it wasn't an ordinary hæmorrhoidal inflammation, but an abscess, which the doctor lanced. So I had a fine time of it: I couldn't sit, couldn't hold anything in my hand, elastic stockings on my legs, and on my heart the old reproaches of my wife! I asked the doctor where the Devil I had got the abscess from, my living and diet were so terribly strict: he replied that such a thing occurred to hæmorrhoidalists at times, but Kissinger water would soon help me to form better blood; and in fact, as said, it seems to suit me.
And now, good Minake, just see about your getting on a better road yourself. Do take that nonsense which oppresses you a little lighter: both of us take everything much too seriously and heavily. For God's sake, a touch of frivolity! — that's all. But yes, that too will come: you were on the high road to it already; don't let yourself be turned aside too long. And if it eases you, why, go on thinking me a thoroughly bad lot; I'll put up with everything, and Devil a bit be enticed into fresh explanations, even if I get another abscess, which certainly can draw one into arrière-pensées. But don't come across or be told such an awful amount of disasters yourself; Lord knows where you fish up all the stuff from. So that poor beast X is supposed to have a Matratze? How he could contrive it, indeed I don't know. Only the other day, with the usual laments he wrote me from Epernay, where he's still tied to the family's apron-strings, going to Paris very seldom. How he could contrive to keep a mistress in that very strait-laced house, in such a small nook, God only knows. But what's impossible to God himself is confided to you, and as it has been confided (by a person, of course, who never scandalises!), no doubt it must also be true. A deuced dog, that X!!
For the rest, I can tell you nothing more about the future yet. Nothing has occurred, all preserve silence, and my American hasn't shewn up. The best news is that my work is making progress, however slowly; and if I get into the swing at last, as I still hope, I shall stay glued here after all, subject to a little straitening, merely to get quite done without another interruption. To the present, the only possibility I still can see before me is Paris. Accustom yourself to the idea, dearest Minna; really there seems nothing else for it, and it's not at all a bad place to put up with, provided we've no other lack. Politics won't interfere with us. Only I must wait for my American before I can decide on anything more definite. — Perhaps a miracle will yet take place! God knows what eccentricities may still arrive: Garibaldi is close to Milan, and the King has pardoned Heubner: what more would one have? My situation can't get any worse, and that's another consolation. Now only let's both get supportably well, to live as happy as the day is long when we do regain each other; that's what I fondly wish.
Poor chap, I'm literally going to the dogs now; for I've struck up no other acquaintances. On each of my chief walks I now know certain dogs to whom I regularly bow, and with whom I hold a scrap of conversation. On my morning promenade I've quite a tiny little friend, who always sits before his house: a small pug-dog with a big pitch-plaster on his head, which makes him look most comic. He wears it because of his eyes, which the poor little chap has had quite blinded; but he's beginning to see quite well again already, and whines as soon as I approach him from the distance, in return for which I very gently scratch his ears behind the plaster. So innocent is the life I'm leading, that I shall turn in time into a lambkin on the meadow, whilst my poor wife regards me from afar as wolf in fox-skin. No, no: only I'm sometimes an ass —, and that I was again the other day! But nobody sheds tears of blood for that, dear Mutz! — Adieu; be calm, and don't let anything disturb you. "And yet he's a good husband!" — A thousand greetings!
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 174