Tuesday, August 3:
R. reports that young Weissheimer is now quite simply demanding the return, with interest, of money which he spent in past days on himself. All on the assumption that R. has only to dip into the King of Bavaria's purse, and in revenge for R.'s not having secured a performance of Weissheimer's opera in Munich.
Worked with the children. R. at his sketches. Walk with R. In the evening piano duets, Haydn symphonies.
Regarding a passage in my father's Faust Symphony, R. says he himself would have found it impossible to leave the accompaniment as it is, on the assumption that nobody would hear it and would notice only the melodic line. He had today spent a long time over one passage, he said. “Not a soul will hear it, but that does not worry me; and it is in things like that that the pleasure of working really lies.” I: “But one does hear it; at least one is aware of the richness in the work.” R.: “There are great harshnesses in Bach, too, but they arise from the fidelity with which he leads the individual voices, from the logic of the thought, not from a sort of sloppiness.”
In great woe I ask myself today whether one can live long with such misery. My wish in regard to the children is, as I tell R., that Lusch support her father, Boni marry a scholar, Loldi, Eva, and Siegfried live together.
May God only grant that Hans live long enough for me to be able still to give him some happiness through Lulu!