Tuesday, June 3:
Great worry over Daniella. Nobody knows how heavy my heart is. If this is to be my punishment, that my children should be unworthy, then it is a hard one. Harder than my guilt? I do not know, and shall try to bear it with mildness. But I cannot conceal from R. how profoundly upset I am, he is, after all, my only help!
We spend the day in our little garden and have our evening meal on the balcony. We can hear military music coming from the Ruckriegel, the vulgarest of Italian melodies and some Offenbach things as well. “Each day makes one feel more and more hopeless,” R. says. I remark how sad it is that they do not play melodies by Weber, even by Spohr or Marschner.
Strikes all over Germany; two workers from Berlin were here and made speeches which are now filling the heads of the local people, with the result that one can no longer do anything with them.
At lunch, an amusing scene with a weaver, who had heard that we wanted to teach our dog tricks. He provided us with a delicious picture of a character from Shakespeare. With the help of blows he had taught two sheepdogs to hold a pipe in their mouths, and now he intended to subject our delicate Putz to the same treatment!
In the evening much talk about the German Empire. “Can anything be done to save it?” R. asks gloomily. “Bismarck lacks a sense of melancholy, yet it is stupid to demand anything of a man who has achieved such tremendous things.”