Dear Minna,
Here I actually am, in Petersburg, which strikes myself as nothing but a dream. Last Tuesday I had the first concert, which went off extraordinarily brilliantly; next Tuesday is the second. Should I receive no urgent message from Vienna I would try and bring about a benefit concert for myself in addition. — Certainly, the exertions entailed on me are the utmost I still can expend on my livelihood: these journeys, and all connected with them, are intensely wearing. Nothing else remains to me, however, if I mean to reap the smallest particle of permanent repose. — Probably you'd have had to repent your great passion for travelling: the journey is abominable, desolate, appalling; the city is magnificent, but one sees nothing of it. At least I only go out in a closed carriage to attend to the most indispensable, for the climate's atrocious; the incessant wind, and its peculiar cuttingness, do for me the moment I step outside the house.
So, directly after my arrival and first rehearsal I was taken ill, and feared it might attack my nerves again; but by dint of three days' thorough rest and seclusion I recovered. I have to spare myself all I can, however; the concert took a fearful deal out of me again. Luckily they've lodged me very well, quietly and well-attended, with some Germans who keep a pension. I have exactly 10 paces to take from my house to the concert-hall; naturally the concert-givers come to me daily, almost hourly, to make arrangements, so that I couldn't possibly have dwelt far off.
Touching the Mecks, I'm in a strange predicament; when I hunted for their address, I found I hadn't packed the telegram, or indeed their last letters (for good reasons): so — how learn Meck's address now? I thought to myself, if these people haven't entirely lost their senses, no doubt they'll enquire after me; but nobody turned up. Finally, on my return home to-day the man-servant brought me a card from Colonel Meck together with your letter. He had called, but not left his address; so, unless Meck comes back, I'm exactly as wise as before. To ascertain his address at the War Office would really be a very great trouble to me, who have so many other things to do; so I must hope he'll catch me in yet. —
At present I'm still in great uneasiness about the band-parts of my new compositions, which I had forwarded direct from Prague, but haven't even yet arrived here. It's an extraordinary pickle, and I don't at all know yet what is to be done. — I should much like to thoroughly exploit the sensation I'm making here; Lord knows if I now shall have time to. —
It certainly is curious that I should be finding here in Russia the help I strictly should have had to seek at home in Germany. But look at Saxony, my darling Saxony; good Leipzig, ah, and that precious, noble Dresden, where I'm treated almost like a mangy cat! My bitterness is gradually beginning to amuse me. Lawyer Schmidt no doubt has read you portions of my letter? How good it is, that I'm earning something in Russia at last to be able even to pay for those books H. B. took away from me! And the shameful chicanes of the Saxon ambassadors right up to Vienna, where I still am persistently given out by Herr K. as incendor of the Royal palace! Ah, what good this fatherlandly love and interest do one! —
Really, if I preserve patience, and renew my courage to work away and hold out, it's no small matter, — but it also is my last effort; I feel that I'm greatly exhausted, and not good for much more.
Well, preserve yourself so much the better; I'm taking care that you shan't lack! But — keep calm! Farewell, and accept the kind love of
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 267