Well, dearest Minna, I am writing you for the last time from Lucerne. I expect to start away tomorrow, perhaps take another brief trip across the mountains, visit Sulzer at Winterthur, and attend to whatever there is to be seen to at Zurich, Kölliker, Kaufhaus etc., without exactly letting myself be seen much; then make for Strassburg, where I still count on a rendezvous with Devrient. At the same time I propose to arrange with the latter for his finding us a suite of rooms for you to await me in; so I beg of you to write me quick to Strassburg, poste restante, about what time you think of setting forth. Of course, until I get to Strassburg I can't give you any closer date for the production, as also for my arrival at Karlsruhe; only it is my opinion that you shouldn't settle down again in Dresden first, even if you have to wait a few days at the hotel for another performance of Lohengrin. However, no doubt you will remain that long at Schandau, and take additional advantage of those autumn days which are always the more beneficial to you; whilst I hope in any case to be summoned to Karlsruhe in the second half of October, and consequently you will doubtless have arrived there by its middle. Preciser information on that, though, after my interview with Devrient.
I shall send you some more money as soon as I get to Paris, that my good Mutz may want for nothing. I have struck a good bargain, which provides us ample money to go on with, and above all ensures us a comfortable start in Paris. On that by mouth, which won't be very far off now. A great deal depends on my finding a dwelling that affords me hopes of acceptable sojourn.
For the rest, our immediate plans remain at what I have repeatedly outlined to you as my wishes, hopes and prospects. An immense deal will depend on my Karlsruhe visit: nevertheless we'll still consider Paris as our chosen habitation; and so I intend doing my best to bring that Rienzi business to a definite conclusion there; which I really can only do in person now, as no sort of reliance was to be placed even on X.
I have been in pretty frequent correspondence with Tichatscheck of late. He besought me to draw up a fresh petition to H.M. for pardon, and hand it him for presentation through Privy Councillor Behr. I replied that I knew nothing fresh to tell the King, and as everything I had already said, or got said to him, had had no other effect than contemptuous silence, neither could I believe that the King expected any fresh communication from me; whatever there might further be to say in my favour, not I, but only a third person could say it about me: if it could then be intimated to me that H.M. really required nothing beyond a fresh petition from me, to declare his will, I should be prepared; but that must be assured me first. — Dear child, Herr X would now have had a very good occasion, after Lohengrin, were it only to make amends for the unseemly supercilious fashion in which he replied with his snub to my so exhaustive, nay, hearty epistle from Venice; but it doesn't occur to him. So I have at least reminded him through Tichatscheck that the fee for Lohengrin should certainly, and according to my own desire, be struck off from that unliquidated big advance to me; only that in common courtesy he ought to come to an understanding with myself as to the amount of said fee, since I was no longer in his service and it was for me to assess the value of my works, and so on. — But these people continue to behave so disdainfully and disrespectfully to me, that I really no longer care to take the slightest notice of them apart from my rights. The devil take them all! Pack of curs! I know no other name for them. —
But let's leave all that, and think of something better to wind up with! Unfortunately we had very bad weather here yesterday for your birthday, and I a little chill again, so I passed it quietly in my own small room. I thought of you with all my heart, however, and drank your health in a cup of most excellent tea. It did me good to be able to look calmly and cheerfully into the future; firm trust in a peaceful and honoured life's-evening gives me good courage: may I be able to impart it to yourself! And so farewell. A finis to Lucerne; your next lines I shall read at Strassburg!
A thousand good greetings from
Rich.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 189