At Leipzig I put up at an inn for one day.  There I met Alexander Ritter, and we spent a pleasant evening together over our punch.  The reason that had induced me to make this short stay was the assurance given me that if I gave a concert of my own it would not be one of the regular series.  I had weighed this information with reference to the much-needed money it might bring in, but I now realised that the undertaking rested on no security.  I returned in haste to Biebrich, where I had to get my household affairs into order.  To my great annoyance I found my landlord in a more impossible temper than ever.  He seemed unable to forget my having blamed him for his treatment of the dog, and also of my servant, whom I had been obliged to protect against him when she had had a love-affair with a tailor.  In spite of receiving payment and promises he remained peevish, and insisted that he would have to move into my part of the house on account of his health in the coming spring.  So while I forced him, by paying advance, to leave my household goods untouched until Easter at least, I went about trying to find a suitable house for the following year, visiting various places in the Rheingau under the guidance of Dr. Schuler and Mathilde Maier.  I had no success, however, the time being so short, but my friends promised to search untiringly for what I wanted.

At Mayence I met Friederike Meyer again.  Her situation in Frankfort seemed to have grown more and more difficult.  When she heard that I had turned away Herr von Guaita’s manager, who had been sent to Biebrich with instructions to pay me fifteen louis d’or for conducting Lohengrin, she upheld my action strongly.  As for herself, she had broken with that gentleman entirely, insisting on being released from her contract, and was now about to enter upon a special engagement at the Burgtheater.  She won my sympathy once more by her conduct and determination, which I had to consider as a powerful refutation of the calumnies brought up against her.  As I too was in the act of starting for Vienna, she was glad to be able to make part of the journey in my company.  She proposed to stop a day at Nuremberg, where I could pick her up for the next stage of the journey.  This we did and arrived in Vienna together, where my friend went to Hotel Munsch, while I chose the Kaiserin Elizabeth, where I now felt at home.  This was on the 15th of November.  I went to see Conductor Esser at once, and heard from him that Tristan was really being studied vigorously.  With Frau Dustmann, on the other hand, I became immediately involved in very unpleasant disagreements through my relation to her sister Friederike, which it was easy to misunderstand.  It was impossible to make her see how things really stood.  In her eyes her sister was involved in a liaison, and had been cast off by her family, so that her arrival in Vienna was compromising to them.  In addition to this Friederike’s own condition soon caused me the greatest anxiety.