I am answering together your two letters of the [—] inst. Having carefully read them, I am not persuaded to relinquish my demands to exclude the Frankfurt payments to date and the Hamburg payment, which incidentally should have been excluded last quarter.
All your explanations are untenable in view of the simple fact that you received money for me in Frankfurt, that the earned sums are unconnected with the result of the suit, but that I got no more than 300 thalers as a result of those receipts; doubtlessly the Hamburg money had also been due last quarter. But since I don't like carrying on such correspondence as is now taking place, I am giving you a respite until the 29th inclusive to settle in fairness those items including interest on deferred payment, otherwise I will resort to the law. As to your claims for Dresden and Vienna, you may make a statement for me. Prove them by the correspondence between us, and tell me at what time and with whom you negotiated on my behalf.
I want this all the more because on the occasion of our last negotiations in Vienna the people in authority absolutely denied having communicated with you on my behalf, and even from Dresden I haven't yet had the slightest proof that you acted at any time in my special interest and still less that there was any good result for me. You may safely refrain from doing this, for in Dresden you would quite fail to accomplish anything. As to the change in our intercourse emphasized by you, you may see the cause in yourself alone. Recalling your way of acting I realize that your deeds and words have little in common. On your last visit here we agreed to a new contract. The wording had been put down exactly according to the suggestion of Notary Skutsch. You left for Munich, intending to stop here on your return in order to sign the contract—but instead you returned to Wiesbaden, you didn't conclude the prepared contract, and you had the courage to submit a countercontract which quite offends my honor and would bring me to a disgraceful dependence on you. After that development of things and the so demonstrated character of my relations with you, only a strictly businesslike status between us is still possible, and this without dissertations on the sacrifices you have made, and how you have favored me over other composers; this appears to me as absurd. Also, any attempt to make others responsible for the changed situation, or to speak of tricks and the like, I shall look upon as childish as well as offensive. The breaking of your word caused the present situation. No sophistry or accusations of other people can change this. I don't find among my papers the requested letters from Frankfurt-on-the-Oder and Halle-on-the-Saale, which won't surprise you since you know that I don't keep them on file; so you may also find it correct that from now on my correspondence with you will be carried on through people experienced in business. But I am sending along some items belonging to you which I found on that occasion.
In regard to my relations with Fürstner, to whom I submitted only a counterbill, the enclosed note which I want you to publish in theater journals, will give you satisfactory information. My negotiations with that gentleman will be most clearly recognized by the two letters which I once communicated to you and whose return I must now request.
Respectfully,
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 329