Thursday, July 1:
Another sleepless, thought-laden night! In the morning so weak that I ask R. to come up to me, and I tell him my worries; he talks splendidly and comfortingly to me; he is surely right! I shall continue to hope.
At breakfast R. spoke of the inestimable boon which would come from a real fusion of the French and the Germans, though certainly the French should not go to Heine, Meyerbeer, and Kaulbach to find out about the German character. Siegfried has to be kept completely in the dark. A great worry.
The joyful moment of the day was the arrival of Beethoven's portrait, which R. has had copied from the original in Härtel's possession. We receive the great man as a friend and benefactor, and R. says we have pleasures which no others have; we lead a life like few others.
Previously all R.'s sublime impressions brought me closer to him; now, when we are united, they bring me the consciousness of my guilt. In the evening we spoke again about Goethe and Schiller, the princess in Tasso and the queen in Don Carlos. The queen has always been my ideal of womankind, the princess just a charming example of femininity.
Coming back once more to the portrait of Beethoven, R. says to me: "This pleasure I also owe to you. Without you such an idea would never have occurred to me. I should just have remained excited and crazy." Seeing me still looking sad, he says: "I think only of the beings whose whole existence depends on you, who are nothing without you. There are six of us, and we are happy here." Yes, that we are, for we live in love; it is only the thought of Hans and glimpses into the children's future which fill me with sorrow.
R. writes to the King. The eye specialist comes and finds Siegfried no worse. I visit the children in the garden and give Lusch her piano lesson. Read Oedipus by myself. In the evening, Eckermann.