My Most Esteemed Friend,
For Heaven's sake do not be angry with me if I torture you with these lines! But you will readily understand the uneasiness which drives me to this step; and therefore, relying on your indulgent forgiveness, I burst on you with a question and a request that come from my very heart. More than a week ago I wrote to our excellent friend Herr Fischer, and begged him to send me a few brief lines to let me know if Mad. Devrient and Tichatschek were already back, and whether, in consequence, the parts of my opera were given out. I could have received an answer as early as last Monday, and as up to to-day I have waited in vain for one, you can easily imagine that I am not a little disquieted by it; for I must necessarily conclude from Herr Fischer's silence that he has nothing consoling to announce to me. Notwithstanding this, and as there is nothing more painful than uncertainty, I am most anxious to learn definitely how matters stand with my opera; for if everything is in a fair way, I do not see why I should cause desolation to my Dresden friends by burdening them with my tormenting self before the end of this month; but should I learn that through my personal presence I could in any way be of advantage to my cause in Dresden, I would, nevertheless, not stop a day longer here. Therefore I entreat you, my most excellent friend, to have the great kindness to write me this moment how matters stand. No doubt I cause you some expense (which I beg you at any rate to charge to me) by writing on this letter, "To be delivered immediately"; but please do the same, and very large and clear, on the letter which I am awaiting; for to my horror I have observed that otherwise a letter lies for more than twelve hours at the post, so that I only receive letters here the third day after they have been posted at Dresden. You see how I am tormented by unrest, and of your philanthropy I therefore hope that you will not leave me long to pine. Here I neither see nor hear the smallest atom of what is going on in the world, whereby I am certainly becoming somewhat fanciful. So listen to my prayer!
Please give right hearty greetings from me and my wife — who commends herself in the most devoted manner to you — to the most esteemed Mad. Heine, and assure her how much we rejoice at the thought of sitting again with you in your garden; give my thankful greetings to Herr Fischer, and remain well disposed to
Your ever-devoted
Richard Wagner.
"Zur Eiche," Schönau, near Teplitz.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 158