[To Otto.] 221. Penzing bei Wien. June 6, 1863. Best Friend, I really must have news of your two selves at last ! Of mine you will learn something worth hearing only when I can tell you I'm at work again ; for happenings, however manifold, have no more actual sense for me. My Russian travel, St Petersburg, Moscow, with all the episodes attached thereto, only influenced me in so far as it was to contribute to freeing me from all such things and conducting to a haven of work. Under terms and conditions like those, my bitterness regarding the heap of people who have more surety and ease than they know what to do with is often very great, and gives me an ironic undertone to almost every act of kindness shewn me. When I reflect on the states of unrest into which I have fallen since quitting Zurich, I cannot but accuse my fate of hardness ; for it is solely the chance of finding rest again to write my projected works at last, that lends this foolish hunt for it a meaning. Well, I have traversed my fiftieth birthday, and had wellnigh to felicitate myself on keeping it in total solitude ! My rural dwelling was thereafter treated to a torchlight procession [June 3] which I attended rather absent-mindedly. Just as the line of lights was drawing AFTERMATH $0$ near across a bridge, the most splendid full-moon rose above the tree-tops of the Schonbrunn garden, and gazed in mystical sublimity upon the mummery beneath. Even during the singing, a couple of young people who were with me up above heard naught from me but exclamations at the glory of the moon. It was the old familiar, unique friend, that drew to me above this childish stranger world — exactly as it used to cross the distant wreath of Alps and move athwart your garden to my — Asyl ! — Asyl! — How often have I thought, ere this, that I had found a haven ! ! — This last time I was so in need of an abode of rest, that, with eyes for nothing save a quiet dwelling with a garden, I took the very first that came ; a week later, and apparently I should have settled at Bingen. While that hung fire, I heard of this ; indifferent as to where, I closed with here ; and now I've but one wish, that at least it may be granted me to stop here till my end ! — As things stand in Germany and with myself, the only chance I see of bringing that about is by dint of periodical excessive strains, journeys to Russia and suchlike ; though I cannot conceive how I'm to sustain them for long. Some day folk will read it perhaps in ' my biography, and many a one will wonder ; for I naturally shall come to grief on one of those occasions. If you want a notion how such undertakings tax me, compare for a joke the three Petersburg photographs* which were taken at the commencement, with *the Moscow one for which I sat a fortnight later! — However, it has got to be! — For all that, I haven't lost my old mania for fitting up the dwelling of my final choice as tastily as possible ; should your household care to make a trifling contribution,! from 3IO WAGNER TO MATHlLDE WESENDONCK no one would it be more welcome — as you must be aware. For you really are the only ones to whom I belong on this earth, in a measure ; to that pass has it come, and I can make no fresh beginning. That I belong to you, you both have earned with griefs and sacrifices of all kinds. — What did you think of the Swiss villa the Grossfiirstin Helene of Russia presented me with ? Weren't you a little afraid of getting me slung about your neck again ? Luckily the villa stands in the same place as the 50,000 fr. which I'm supposed to have netted in Russia. How welcome it must be to all my German patrons, to know that I'm so sumptuously provided for and it hasn't cost them a penny ! — Well, well, it's just my usual fate, to figure as the enviable ! Ah, dearest friend, enough about myself! Once I am back at my Meistersinger, you two shall hear again ; I'm so distracted at present, that I can collect my wits for nothing. Still better, if you gave me prompt occasion by heartily-begged news of yourselves ; for which I'm longing much ! With a thousand good greetings, Your Richard Wagner. I would gladly have a pretty good-sized portrait (photographic) of your wife, please ; the Green Hill already hangs framed in my room. [To Mathilde henceforward]
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, No. 136