Dearest!
I can only tell you in two lines that Figaro has again conducted himself admirably, and that I thank him heartily for his performances. Reply I cannot at the moment: I dare not write, because I cannot. That's how things stand with me!
For the rest, everything is at a standstill — nothing definite from Berlin yet. No money from any quarter, excepting Würzburg. What can I do with the Leipziger, who does not even answer my letter of reminder?
Wölfel will have enough copying to do, for I see you are not provided with a sufficient number of Tannhäuser scores, as you have had to keep Prague waiting. Do employ two copyists! Let the one write the new ending, and the other all the rest: thus a copy can be finished in half the time (the original can be cut in half).
But I can no more! Farewell! The score to J. Schäffer shortly.
Your
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 77