Thursday, January 23:
Rehearsal of the Tannhäuser Overture and the “Forging Songs” - after which R. goes to bed; meanwhile I receive visits (the Russian Consul General von Hoeltzke, Dr. Baumeister and wife, etc.). At 7 o’clock the concert, smaller attendance than the first - R.’s old experience with regard to concerts. In my box the two professors, Senator Petersen and daughter, Prince Carolath, Johanna; it goes tolerably well, particularly the Tristan Prelude - which fascinates the players most of all - and the Kaisermarsch.
Since there seems no end to the flourishes and calls from the audience, R. makes a very dignified speech, in which he says he can best reply to the great friendliness shown him in Hamburg by inviting the people of Hamburg to continue participating in a great venture which they have now already helped to further. He looks very solemn, indeed somberly noble, as he speaks these words.
Between the rehearsal and the concert, while he was resting, he called me to him in order to tell me that in all this he was thinking constantly of me, that I was everything to him, Justitia, Sapienta, Poesia, everything - oh, could he but know how much I think of him!
He gets up again at eleven o’clock to devote an hour of his time to Senator Hayn’s party; his wife had done the honors at the banquet, and we were told it would help our cause if R. were to make this sacrifice. R. of course besieged by everybody, a very elegant company with a high opinion of itself. News of the death of Grand Duchess Helene.