Dear Minna,
That's always the way! Precisely through my eagerness to make my birthday-journey still possible I have put myself hors de combat for it. I had intended if I got my scene with David finished to a T, to go to Frankfort Tuesday evening, and on to Dresden Wednesday morning. Then it happened that I so forgot myself on Sunday in the press of work, that I didn't rise from it and go to dinner until half past 6, having taken nothing whatever since my tea-breakfast. I gulped down my food, set myself in active motion by a walk to Wiesbaden despite bad weather, caught cold on my way back, and on Monday I was miserable, had weakness and dysentery, which Tuesday reinforced with slight but lowering fever. I already feel better to-day, and in any case the attack is of no further importance; but it would have been impossible to carry out the journey to-day without the certainty of arriving at Dresden really ill. So I will take it as a dispensation of Fate, which has at least this good side for the moment, that I'm able to add another full 100 thaler to-day to your last. Be so good as to let me know if you believe you can manage till about the second half of July now.
I'll write to Frau v. Bülow to give you full particulars concerning Reichenhall; I believe it's still thoroughly cheap there, and fairly primitive. —
It would delight me, if it became possible for me to fetch you from Reichenhall the 5th of September and accompany you about as far as Nuremberg; my work will surely grant me one such trip — I hope! — precisely at that season. That this work dominates me in everything now, has become comprehensible to you; it makes me indifferent to all else, e.g. whether I hear Tichatscheck or Schnorr. This work alone, and my really achieving it, is also my apology for having set up this provisory retreat for myself here; without such an object, I myself should have had to regard this transitory domicile as inexcusable. Moreover, I shall only retain it until that object is fulfilled. I hope to have got so far by late-autumn, and on this assumption I propose to enter your abode at Dresden the 24th November.
I cannot help considering my decision to regard the Dresden domicile provisionally as merely yours both wise and prudent and most in keeping with my circumstances. My position, taken strictly, is so forlorn and helpless, that I am bound to look on any thought of permanent and cosy quarters for myself as extremely unjustified. Just now my prospects for the future are of the completest uncertainty and possible entire abandonment, which perhaps nothing save a fresh great success can somewhat alter. Countess Pourtalès, who has just magnanimously helped me out with the most indispensable funds, at the same time implores me to expect as little as possible, or better, nothing at all from the Courts, despite the sure reliability of the Grand Duke of Baden. Consequently, after terminating my new opera I shall consider myself flung helpless on the world again; and nothing save the engaging in a new work could make such transient installations as my present one of need, and therefore accountable, either now or in the future. —
Under such circumstances, in the natural order of things my wife would have to share my changeful and unsteady fortunes. However, as she has shared so many shifts and hardships of the kind with me already, my first thought is to bring at least her into safety and provide her an enduring hearth: and I rejoice to learn that the fittest spot has now been found for that, since you so often have declared to me of late yourself that, now you're there again, you feel best off in Dresden. So my chief thought is to preserve you the Dresden haven sure and safe, and at all times to supply you with the needful means for a decent subsistence there. For my own person, I propose to view a cubicle in your apartments as my home, leaving it entirely to yourself how home-like you may make it for me. In course of time, and let us hope as result of a successful new opera, once my prospects grow settled I reserve to myself a supplementing of the Dresden domicile with one that meets all my requirements too; adhering to it that you shall still stay safe there under any circumstances, since that is to be accomplished with more modest means. —
And in face of these clear and distinct dispositions, I am to have the grief to be told by you that I'm thrusting you out to roam the world, and you must deem it a charity to have been invited to Russia by relatives with whom you once stood in the most hostile personal relations! — I'll say no more on that. —
After the unhappy outcome of my Tannhäuser in Paris I was advised (and that by Liszt in particular) to pay a call on Rossini, whom folk had been treating to all kinds of vexing reports on me; nay, one day Rossini himself sent to tell me he'd be pleased if I would visit him. I turned it over in my mind that a false construction, humbling to myself, might very easily be placed on such a visit; and as I understood in general that the good old man would never be able to understand me, and therefore nothing but confusion must arise, I did not go to Rossini, preferring to bear the reproach made me of thereby offending the amiable old genius. — Now I am brought a journal-article in a German music-paper of last year, where a long full account is given of a visit I'm alleged to have paid Rossini after that Tannhäuser affair to win him over to an intervention in my favour, whereupon Rossini is supposed to have dismissed me with a clever taunt. All the world of course took that for truth, and Weissheimer has entreated me to contradict this lie even now. I have serious — and very melancholy grounds for not doing so, but leaving the thing at rest. No doubt this story will appear in my biography some day; but what besides will not appear there? Whoever finds letters from you among my papers, will find it written in them that my wife describes myself and my behaviour to her as "heartless," "coarse" and "common"; so I daresay that will get into my biography also! Well, I can't prevent it! But let us drop that — and before all else complete the Meistersinger! I've hope; and then we'll look a little farther!
Best compliments to Madame Huber, and — kind love to yourself from
Thy Birthday-husband.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 246