Farewell.

Are you going to write to my wife?

My cordial remembrances!

(What the other people write I cannot bear to read any longer.  I only read your “Dutchman” article; that is the reward, the pride, of my life.)

Farewell.

Your

R. W.

166.

Zurich, September 16th, 1854

Do you know how I can manage to arrange some concerts at Brussels and perhaps two Dutch towns, such as I gave last year at Zurich, and do you think that by such an undertaking I might make 10,000 francs in cash?  Can you make arrangements so that my offer may be readily met, and that my programme may be translated into French and Dutch?  If you can answer these questions satisfactorily, kindly take the matter in hand as soon as possible.  I must earn money at once.  No theatre has asked for my operas; nothing is stirring; I seem to be quite forgotten.  If I could bring back money from Belgium and Holland, I might probably resume my work.  For the present all music has been laid aside.

Your medallion is very beautiful.  Many thanks.  I care for nothing else, and for good reasons.

Always your faithful

Richard 167.

Dearest Franz,

My wife is going to Germany, in the first instance on a visit to her parents.  At present she is with Alwine Frommann, Berlin (10, Linden).  In a week’s time at the latest she will be in Leipzig (at A.’s, Windmuhlengasse).  From there she will return via Frankfort.  If she could hear one of my operas—­“Lohengrin” of course in preference—­at Weimar, she would like to stop a day there.  If you can manage this, kindly write to her at Berlin or Leipzig, or, in case you can let me know by return, write to me at Zurich, so that I can advise her in time.

From H. you will have in a few days the score of “Rhinegold”, which I sent to him in separate pieces for the purpose of having a copy made at Dresden.  But as I have recently finished a clean copy myself, I cannot bear the thought that the work should not yet be in your hands.  I did not want to let you have the fragments, for I consider it an important and significant event to place the whole in your hands.  Keep it for a month, to have a look at it occasionally; after that I shall ask you to return it for a time, so as to get the complete copy done.

My best love to Daniel, the foolish boy.

I write nothing else, either about myself or about your article.  If I once began about these two things, I should not know where to stop.  It is a great pity that I did not see you this year.  Altogether I feel so boundlessly miserable that I begin to despise myself for bearing this misery.  Enough.  Farewell.

The worker in plaster-of-Paris has not yet returned your medallion; the margin was a little damaged.  Why do you keep the “Indian fairy tale” to yourself?  I have plenty of prosaic things around me, and could find a place for it.