Dear Good Friend!
Before I thank you anew for the great kindness that you have rendered me by your loving care of my wife, I must ask you to note down again the contents of the letter which you gave her for me and to send it to my address here. You did not know that my wife makes no scruple to open letters addressed to others: she has done that also with your letter and has thereby obliged me to decline the acceptance of this opened letter. Accordingly, be kind enough to write me again what you communicated in that wrongly consigned letter.
I have a second request to ask; namely, to do me the friendly favour of sending the enclosed letter and the copy of my poem (The Ring of the Nibelungs) which I presented to you, to Berthold Auerbach — who I understand is in Schandau. He ought to return the book to you at any time you choose, and I ask you to remind him of that in a few lines of your own. I attach much importance to your fulfilling this request, and I may certainly hope that you will not refuse me it.
I shall postpone informing you of my Paris affairs for a detailed reply to the letter expected from you. With my wife things are truly quite tolerable. May the Lord let it continue so!
A thousand hearty regards from your
Richard Wagner
16, Rue Newton, Champs Élysées
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 26