Sept. 10, Penzing. Maybe I ought to have written you before, Best lady— perhaps you were expecting it? — but I'm living in such pressure now* that I can find no sense at all to write you. Once I had a fanatical idea of begging you to do something enormous for me ; but I had to dismiss it again with a mournful smile, — I'm a man of ill-luck ! Also I expected to be called to the Rhine by the end of August for concerts (Darmstadt, Carlsruhe), which would have enabled me to visit you all, and moreover to take a mountain-trip in my old land of cure to patch up my terribly ailing lower man ; but nothing came at all of Darmstadt, and I am asked not to go to Carlsruhe ere the end of October. Now that's just about the time I ought to have some engagements in the east again, so that everything will crowd together ; and yet I must put up with it, — in fact my present chief trouble is due to this all having dawdled so long. — Good Lord, how I repent my settling here, already ; and yet I staked my all on first securing fixity of tenure, — so great was my need to plant my foot again, no matter where or how. It has fared with my hard-earned Russian spoils as with the man in the play who curses his luck for having won a prize in the lottery, since he can prove it has cost him much more than he gained. What congratulations on 32 2 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK my Russian fortune have I not received ! — and from whom ? From creditors of whose very existence I didn't know. Ah, how pleased everybody was, that I had been so well supplied and no one need bother about me again ! — I am going to Carlsruhe, to make a last trial whether anything is to be expected for me from a prince's protection. — Do not say that I'm a "helpless " man [cf. p. 355] : rather, where no one else, at any rate, can help me, I can now help myself and alone ; but where my contemporaries might have helped me, posterity will apprehend — presumably very soon. Then it will be patent how easy it would have been to help me, and what the world would have gained if my last good years of creation had not been so wretchedly lamed. — Yet if / — to forestall that future wonderment — now do for myself what people then will do for my monuments, what rubbing of hands all around ! And the nation would like to be still more " united." Well, — I still hope to make it possible to visit you in Switzerland, perhaps before Carlsruhe ; but perhaps — I shall have vanished beforehand, without leaving a trace. Oh, to cease sounding ; for the last echo of one's chord to die away in space ! ! — There we are ; fine stuff I'm writing you ! Of course I oughtn't to send it off, but you did the same thing once yourself, and insisted that written was written, — and really, to have to speak to one's best friends in studied periphrasis, revokes all impulsion to speak. I admit that I am foaming now, and presume beyond all bounds; but it's the last paroxysm, I feel, the last paroxysm : then I shall drop my hands and give the horses their heads — whithersoever they will ! Never will I trouble for my life again, save this one time ! — Child, that's what I am passing through — and so, enough ! — I cannot advise you to come to Vienna yourselves [cf. p. 357]. Art? — not a rap; Opera completely wretched and disgraceful. I have nothing more to do with the theatre ; God knows whether you even would find me here, for I'm on the bounce at any instant. Such a bounce may bring me to yourselves, however, for a couple of days ; if things go fairly with me, I .shall come before Carlsruhe — as said — end of October. What a letter ! — Forgive me, I cannot do better with it ! — Perhaps another time ! A feeble remnant is still left within me, whereout— perhaps — something still may be made ! The very best of greetings ! R. W.
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, No. 140