Wednesday, June 4:
R. not well in spite of a good night, close weather, and my heart heavy with a mother’s cares! R. works on his score, I write to Frau v. Schl., chiefly to sort out the confusion in Vienna, since Marie Donhoff, the only one to have been active there, is with her. Instead of the 21,000 florins which Feustel saw entered in their books, they send 4,000 thalers. The task now is to find out, at all costs, which of the people recruited by Marie D. have not yet paid, and not to send tickets to these unreliable people.
Family lunch; in the afternoon, a visit from the poor young bookbinder boy who was ill with pneumonia. He makes a terrible impression on me. Talk with the headmaster about Daniella. Visit to the Kraussolds’ in connection with a death.
Our nephew Ritter finds us a dog trainer in Weidenberg, and Putz is sent off; he tells us that people there in the village were very concerned about the theater and R. Wagner’s house, and Feustel told us that, when he was recently in Neumarkt, he heard two peasant women talking about the theater, and one had finally said, “Well, what’s the use? When it is finished we shall still not get in!”
From our little balcony in the church towers, and we thought of Faust. Then made comparisons between Shakespeare and his translators (Tieck, Ulrici), found exaggeration or flatness. The only really competent one, it seems, is Schlegel.