You will understand, child, that I have already hesitated much too long to carry out my plan. Now that it has been decided this way, I live here as on red-hot coals. It is extraordinarily kind of Tichatschek that he intends to visit me in Vienna, but I can't wait for it. I have to go to Mainz to arrange everything with Schott personally, and then at once to Paris: for if my whole plan is not to go askew, I must finish my work as punctually as possible. Thus—I'm leaving Vienna Wednesday to be at work in Paris by December 1st, at the latest. Tell that to the good Tichatschek. If he insists on seeing me, we'll have to arrange a short meeting on the Rhine next spring perhaps. Salvi will be in Dresden on Monday: he should arrange everything with him. I'm not at all in favor of a short guest engagement this winter (without Tristan, of course) as Salvi wants it, for then I cannot possibly come back for Lohengrin or Tannhäuser: if Tichatschek wants to, fine! wonderful! but then he won't find me there. But perhaps it's good that way. I think I'll write to Tschekel tomorrow. That he has been again hearing talk against me I can well imagine: as soon as one associates with certain riffraff, one is always among thieves and rascals. What don't I have to hear and read every day about what I'm supposed to have done or said!! I hope T. knows about it too!
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 244