My good Mutz,
I'm writing you so soon again because I really am bound to keep you au courant, and that you always may learn from myself whatever is up. —
So then: immediately after writing you last, I had letters which have taken much of the gilt off the idea of a longer sojourn in Berlin; in particular, from the Frommann. The thought of frightening anyone by my arrival is repugnant to me; and if I mean to plant myself there for 3 months, nobody will believe that I don't contemplate staying for good. That's one point. —
But I also now learn from the Bülows that they would have to put me up outside their house; something quite different, then, from what I gathered from their first invitation. Consequently, not even an entirely unreserved welcome. Neither can I imagine its altogether pleasing me at Cecilie's for long; whereas I now need great repose and equability for my work. I see, all that's nix, nix! — I must and will refound my house as soon as possible. Oh, if you only could have made up your mind last summer; I foresaw the event of its becoming imperative to me to hunt up a sheltering home! That must be speedily remedied, and to lose no time over it, I shall make a beginning. And that was the second point. —
Wiesbaden has lately been again described to me as just the thing, by the Frommann among others. You must have had a very unfavourable glimpse of it. Remember it is a capital, has its Court-theatre summer and winter, where they continually give all my operas and bear me on their hands as nowhere. So, diversion even in the winter, especially for yourself. Then, only ½ an hour to Darmstadt; not much farther to Mannheim, Frankfort, even Carlsruhe. That offers distraction and change, whilst one can be wholly independent and sequestered at the place itself. So I mean to have a good look at it soon, at any rate, and — which will be very easy at a watering-place in winter — take a small furnished lodging to start with, for us both if you will. That shall be in the first days of February. Then — listen! — I'll pay a brief visit, of about 4 to 5 days, to Berlin, and alight for that at Avenarius', who pressingly invited me the other day. The main affair to me, with that, is to see yourself; so, if it isn't too much trouble to you, I heartily beg of you also to come to Berlin for a few days, for the time of my visit. I have just written to Avenarius that, if they cannot put up both of us, they're to send me to some inn close by. So place yourself en rapport with Cecilie; we'll agree on the exact time later. Perhaps I shall make a couple of days' halt at Carlsruhe first, if it comes to my conducting Lohengrin there; but, we will defer all particulars. At Berlin we'll have a thorough good talk, when I will bring you precise and self-gained information as to Wiesbaden.
I quite see I shall have to make myself full master of my destiny again; I am determined rather to work myself to death, than wait for those wretched — any longer. Now I see that a publisher can be got to pay me enough for a new opera to enable me to live during work with cheap and quiet housekeeping, good: when I've finished the Meistersinger, and if things go on like this, I shall take up something else at once; I've enough in petto! — Tomorrow I shall probably have completed the 2nd act of the poem, which is turning out capital and is sure to have enormous success! —
From Berlin — in addition to the 50 thaler already — you will be receiving upwards of 80 thaler in a day or two. The tantième was tolerable this time, Lohengrin packed. — So — this for to-day, that you may know how you stand with your poor husband! Adieu, good Mutz. From his heart
Thy R.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 230