Sunday, January 18:
R. had a bad night: “If only one had the strength not to keep thinking about it!” It is thoroughly depressing that a debt of 25,000 florins still remains. How ironic all the news which keeps coming in: Wagner concerts in London, success of Die Meistersinger in Cologne, requests for autographs, etc.! R. thinks of presenting the theater to the town, so as to be able to raise a mortgage on it. Visit from the mayor; the shock of the elections: Germany in no way suitable for a general franchise. The good people, satisfied with the government, abstain, and only the bad are active, Jews, Catholics, Socialists. R. is not well, consequently in a very angry mood. In this spirit he works out a poem on pâté de foie gras, which he wants to give Herr Feustel for his birthday. I beg him not to send the poem.