Dear Good Friend!
I thank you heartily for your great kindness, and I ask you to make known to Kriete my great appreciation in this same spirit. If, however, you want to protect me from the injurious intentions of Hiebendahl, which were certainly in a position to shatter my whole carefully arranged living for a long time, then I must tell you, in regard to this, that no time is to be lost in the plan adopted by you both. It was an ill-intentioned subterfuge of H.'s to pretend that he could not receive satisfaction any more through you both, because he has already turned over this claim to another person, and the latter has taken legal steps against me. This other person, a certain Müller, in Berne, has nevertheless delayed expressly on my communicating that I have entered upon a course to have Hiebendahl satisfied in Dresden, and on this account he has waited in expectation of Hiebendahl's declaration. I have now communicated to him the substance of your kind letter, and I perceive that in spite of the delay, he will still wait until the answer that is to my advantage arrives from Dresden.
All will now depend on Hiebendahl's receiving the money at once, which, through your and Kriete's withdrawal in his favour, would come to him, next St. John's, out of the receipts from our publishing business. This would only be possible, to be sure, if the money were to be advanced to him out of these receipts: if you were in a position to make this final sacrifice for me, then it would be only a matter of this loan for a short time, since, in the essential point, through your and Kriete's magnanimous resolution, the funds for cancelling this debt have already been assigned out of the business receipts. Accordingly, Hiebendahl would have to relinquish his claim on me specified in the publishing agreement, and for this you would first of all take back to yourself this amount. — Should it, however, be absolutely impossible for you to make this cash advance immediately, then I beg you at once to visit my young friend Karl Ritter, who is stopping just now in Dresden at Zwingerstrasse, No. 3, on a visit to his mother, and to whom I have already written in this affair, that he might put himself in touch with you regarding its settlement. If you and Kriete will renounce in favour of the lender of the sum required here the receipts next anticipated from the publishing business assigned to you, and thus undertake the repayment of this to him in time, then I believe that Ritter will advance the money immediately. His family is the one through whose unusual friendship I have hitherto existed and for the most part still continue to do so.
I shall therefore enjoin Hiebendahl's deputy in Berne to have patience for still a week: if he himself were unwilling to wait, I would nevertheless obtain, with the prospect of the kind of settlement suggested, the simplest means of offering a delay to his proceedings here. Hence I ask for the speediest possible forwarding of Hiebendahl's receipt, which he really will not refuse in the event of the proffering of the ready money; otherwise, the money for the satisfying of his deputy could be sent to me, and I would then send back the receipt for it to you both. But Hiebendahl must in any case still issue such a receipt for the cancellation of his share in the assigned business?
Oh, dearest Anton! Only don't be angry with me: God knows, every person who wishes me well experiences great distress thereby; but may I be able to recompense you both for this, if not through deeds, then still by means of my works!!
Just think, I am laid up again with a relapse of the erysipelas: it is enough to drive one to despair!!
Therefore, patience once more! Everything must soon go better!!
You will hear again from me shortly! Give Kriete's family and the dear Ritters regards from
Your old
Rich. Wagner
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 11