Saturday, April 20:
The violinist Singer agrees to play in Bayreuth. At breakfast R. says he is sorry that Goethe or Schiller did not write a play about Frederick the Great, beginning with the execution of Katte and dealing with life at Rheinsberg up to the death of his father and the last, great conversation between them.
“It could have become a companion piece to Hamlet, and it would have been interesting to see whether a period so close to us could be depicted in a work of art. Heinrich Kleist would have had the necessary skill.” R. is satisfied with his pencil sketches; only, he says, he needs much peace and time, at least two months, to complete them in ink.
“My noble wife,” R. called me today. Oh, how can I become worthy of this name, how can I serve him, show him how much I love him? Telegram from Herr Feustel, asking R. to go to Darmstadt, to Herr Brandt!