Wednesday, May 22:
Birthday! I wish R. many happy returns very simply this time, for he is preparing the great treat himself. Daniella recites to him a little poem written by Clemens, the children present him with a Bible; Fidi very pretty in the blouse embroidered by Countess Bassenheim. Everything in good order, but rain and rain, not a single ray of sunshine in the offing!
R. relates that in a dream he saw Fidi with his face full of wounds. What can this mean?
We drive to the meeting place, Feustel's house, rain, rain, but despite it all in good spirits. Arrival of the King's telegram, which is to be enclosed in the capsule with other things. R. then goes to the festival site, where, in spite of the rain, countless people, including women, had gathered, and lays the foundation stone. The speeches, however, are made in the opera house.
In Feustel's house I give Herr Julius Lang, who in a letter from Vienna had told me that he had sent Prince Bismarck a telegram about the concert in Vienna, a piece of my mind concerning his compromising activities with regard to our affairs during the past 10 years. I did it in fear and trembling, but I did it, so as from now on to be rid of such an individual.
In the opera house R. fetches me from my box to sit with the five children on the stage beside him. Very fine impression, even the gravest among the men have tears in their eyes. Dinner at the Fantaisie with Standhartner, who, like everybody else, praised the behavior of the children, particularly of Fidi, at the ceremony.
At 5 o'clock the performance, beginning with the Kaisermarsch. The 9th Symphony quite magnificent, everyone feeling himself freed from the burden of mortal existence; at the conclusion sublime words from R. on what this celebration means to him!
Then to the banquet. Before the concert a Frau von Meyendorff, just arrived from Weimar, handed over a letter from my father; the letter very nice, but the woman, unfortunately, very unpleasant. Her manner is cold and disapproving.
At the banquet R. proposes the first toast to the King, then to Bayreuth; we leave at about half past nine. Niemann and Betz had left earlier out of wounded vanity. I sit with Frau von Schl. and attempt to converse with Frau von Meyendorff; because of her obstinacy the conversation takes place in French.
R. enters during it and is vexed with the ugly note here introduced; an angry mood on his part, sorrow on mine. In the end he returns to the banquet, I stay behind with Marie Schl., Marie Dönhoff, and Count Hohenthal. Home at 12 o'clock. Count Krockow gives R. a leopard which he shot in Africa.