Monday, August 18:
R. is working diligently, spending half an hour, as he tells me, reflecting whether to use an English horn or an ordinary horn in one passage.
In the afternoon I made the acquaintance of a young Russian, a keen enthusiast, who had met our friend Malwida in Ischia. I drove out to the theater with him.
In the evening we finished reading Goethe, amid tears: the fate of a Pole in Germany, its wretchedness defeats him, he achieves nothing, the hero becomes a robber baron, the impetuous genius, like Lessing, a librarian. R. advises me against teaching Loldi and Eva French; one must first speak one’s own language consciously before learning another like a parrot. This leads to shallowness.
Yesterday I worked on the proofs of the ninth volume. On top of that came news from Feustel that, if 10,000 florins cannot be found by October, the building work will have to be broken off. Should I hand over my savings? If I were sure of my children’s feelings, how gladly and easily I should do it; but now it is a decision I must debate within myself. R. knows nothing of it - may I do the right thing! R. went to see friend Feustel to discuss the matter. If the King were to promise a guarantee, everything would be all right, and a loan would be made. (Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe has paid up with apologies.)
In the evening the Russian and the dean, the latter very pleasant, apart from his attempt to persuade us to pay more calls, since people from here, when it is discovered elsewhere that they come from Bayreuth, are always being asked about us and are ashamed to have to admit that they do not know us. R. is very annoyed at this presumption!