Dear Minna,
With all the other sorrowful accounts of your health, you could have told me nothing more unwelcome than that the letter I wrote you poste-restante to Reichenhall, in pursuance of your directions from Zwickau, and which should have arrived there in the last days of June, hasn't reached you. Really it is the first time a letter from me has got lost: I had furnished it with the selfsame address as I sent the Berlin cashier at the same time. I hoped that this letter, briefly giving you a reassuring explanation of the latest incidents, might contribute something to your better frame of mind. I mean to try and trace that letter; I should much like it to reach your hands even yet. —
Not altogether needlessly to broach that painful subject once again, let the assurance suffice you that my motive for writing to Pusinelli simply sprang from your last letter from Dresden, which indicated to me such a serious attack of illness that I became very concerned at having no one but yourself to discuss your complaint with; for my own peace of mind I was bound to want another person's opinion at last as to how to behave, on my side, to have as little harmful an effect as possible upon your health, what I ought to do or leave undone to promote it to the best of my ability, — which I hope you won't take ill of me. I did not appeal to Pusinelli for an intervention: his believing himself nevertheless bound to interfere emphatically of his own accord may shew both you and me how seriously others look on what to you, dear Minna, at times seem nothing but mere conjugal disputes without ulterior moral consequences. Your believing you must understand the opinion he gave you from himself as if I too were harbouring the thought of a divorce from you, has greatly distressed me. Never has that entered my head, and never will it enter it. — Notwithstanding, let me heartily beg you to conform in reality to the other advice he offered you as regards your conduct; I also hold myself bound by it in my deepest conscience. It cannot and must not continue like this, that the occasion should present itself at every moment for tearing open the profoundest wounds. — Let us now restrict our correspondence to the needful messages about our outward life; and even in your answer to this letter of mine I beg of you to make no mention of the serious point last touched. — We have only one hope: age may make everything worse, but it also may gradually heal and cicatrise old sores. Let us leave the door wide and willingly open to this latter possibility! —
Pusinelli declares you totally incapable of managing a larger household now: God grant you may recover strength enough at Reichenhall to take the smaller one in hand this autumn. Last winter's stay in Dresden, when you had to worry yourself with nothing whatever, proved of the greatest benefit to your recovery — in P.'s opinion also; so, if in this respect I mean to avoid everything that must needs be harmful to you, rest assured upon the other hand that I shall arrange it all in such a way that not the least humiliation can arise for you in the eyes of the world. Unfortunately — my own uncertain and completely prospectless position supports and justifies me much in this. —
And now — think solely of yourself; and while attending to your health, please stamp this deeply on your mind: that only your returning vigour can also open me the prospect of still being something to you, of helping and invigorating you.
We shall certainly meet at Dresden in late autumn; I have altered nothing in my plans. —
Tristan is really to be put in rehearsal at Vienna mid-September. The management's announcement pleased me, and I shall let them have free play, — yet I don't make much account of it, especially as the talk still is merely of Ander. So much the better if it comes to something after all. —
I shall most studiously see to more money; be easy on that head! — I thank Mathilde with all my heart, that she is coming to you. — A number of visitors are on my neck here now; the Schnorrs among others. The plan is for them (with Mitterwurzer) to study Tristan on the quiet, so that the Dresden management may find it as easy as child's-play to give the opera some day. Only I should have to conduct it myself: will that be possible there??? —
Now farewell! Hope!! On your health depends everything — believe me! When you are feeling a little better, we'll have a longer talk about it all!
Farewell, and be heartily saluted by
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 248