Tuesday, December 10:
R. had a very bad night; the oysters, the inexpert and slow service, but particularly my observations, cause him nightmares. All the acts of disloyalty committed against him go through his mind.
We leave around 11 o'clock, amicably escorted by the young people. At 7 o'clock in Magdeburg; after supper we go for a little walk. R. shows me the house and the hotel gable from which he once called down to Küpel, his clever poodle, who had been missing for several days. The dog, who was walking down the street, looked around, suddenly saw him, and ran upstairs to him, there to remain.
We are in the Stadt London, where the concert with Schröder-Devrient took place. The landlord has respected the incognito which R. enjoined on him by telegram. The reason for this was that the theater director Asche (c'est tout dire!) had cabled all sorts of ridiculous and impertinent things, and so R. resolved to stay here only until tomorrow morning and not to visit the theater at all.
On the Breiter Weg, the main street, we are moved by three poor women gazing admiringly into an elegant clothes shop.
From the outside the theater is still as R. knew it; he tells me how, when he was conducting there, he felt himself in Heaven, in his sky-blue dress coat with its huge cuffs. He shows me the street in which Minna lived, with whom he "spent the whole day"; also the Stadt Braunschweig, where he had to pacify, or settle with, his creditors!