Accept my cordial wishes for your birthday.  It is of great significance to me that just at present, while I am seriously and deeply considering our mutual relations, I should come upon this day which Nature herself, no doubt, counts amongst her most fortunate days.  For what she succeeded in creating on this day has borne such rich fruit that, without this gift of your existence, there would be a chasm in the essence of things, of the depth of which he only can judge who loves you as I love you, and who might suddenly imagine that you existed no longer.  Gazing down this terrible chasm, such as my imagination pictured it, I turned my eyes to you as one awaking from a terrible dream, and was so sincerely delighted, so deeply moved by your real existence, that you appeared to me as one newborn.  In this spirit I greet you on this, to me, highly important birthday.  Your friendship is an absolute necessity to me; I cling to it with my last vital strength.

When shall I see you at last?

Have you an idea of the position in which I am, of the miracles of faith and love which I require in order to gain new courage and patience?  Think this out for yourself, without my telling you.  You must know me sufficiently to understand this, although we have not lived much together.

I ask you, once more, when shall we meet again?  Carlsruhe is more than uncertain.  “Tristan”, altogether, has become a shadowy and half impossible thing.  Do not wait for an external occasion which may bring me to you.  In the most favourable case the “Tristan” period, with its desperate and terrible exertions, would not be fit for our meeting again for the first time.  Be guided to me by your innermost heart, and may it impel you to come to me soon.  By the middle of November I expect my wife.  Could I not have you before?  It is bad enough for me that I have to call you, and that you do not come of your own accord.  I heard of the marriage of Princess M. through B. yesterday; he does not inform me where she is going to live.  Kindly tell me where I am to write in order to convey my wishes to her.

Farewell; I am just on the point of moving into my new lodgings.  So I am “settled” once more, without faith, love, or hope.

Farewell, and accept my wishes kindly; in congratulating you I congratulate myself.

Your

R.W.

16, Rue Newton, champs Elysees. 299.

Paris, November 23rd, 1859,

16, Rue Newton.

Believe me, dear Franz, I find it very difficult to give you news of myself.  We live too little together, and must necessarily become strangers in one important aspect of friendship.  You wrote to me to Venice and Lucerne that you liked my migration to Paris for the reason that you would be able to visit me more frequently.  I have often assured you that I desired an amnesty particularly because I should be able to