Monday, June 3:
R. dreamed that I was his sister and it was his task to guard my honor. He again had a disturbed night; he read the Tagblatt (Nachtblatt, he adds jokingly!) and applied a poultice. But he works and is in good and lively spirits when he fetches me for lunch. We read the news about the Emperor's condition and the "Nibelung" (Nobiling). R. observes that he would not object if the socialists were suppressed altogether, but the means used must be the right ones. He would like to see a day of repentance proclaimed, so that the whole nation might reflect! In the name "Social Democrat" he objects to the "Democrat," says it is absurd to build a political party on such strivings.
We fear all the nonsense which is now being talked in circles close to the Emperor. The situation in Germany is terribly sad; it is as if everything were sinking, like the new ship Kurfürst, which through incompetent handling was involved in a collision in which more than 200 people were drowned. "One spendthrift the less," a woman is said to have remarked, regretting that the attempt on the Emperor's life had failed, a terrible saying! The rage of penury, deriving nothing from all the money spent.
In the evening R. sang something from Tristan and said, "This Tristan has a color all its own, it is mauve, a sort of lilac." From news received in the evening we learn that the latest assassin is a Catholic and a reader of Germania, which confirms my suspicions, for I see the Catholic party as the only one that possesses fanaticism and the quality so lacking in our world, faith; probably socialism has been put forward just to divert attention. R. says jokingly: "A good thing that the Bayreuther Blätter was not found on him, or worse still The Destiny of Opera, which might be interpreted as a hint to assassinate Hülsen. But what is the Emperor to do? After Hodel he called for more Christianity, now after Nobiling he will have to have religion prohibited."
Much enjoyment in the evening from Schopenhauer's letters. Sitting at his feet, I tell him that I still believe in God, something all-embracing, powerfully guiding, beyond all grasping or envisaging: "Thanks be to thee!" was the prayer I have just uttered. Let me call it the highest need, which wished to set an example in which later generations could take delight.
As we went to the summerhouse today, R. was pleased with our little wood, which he said was all he required, and above all the four acacias, which have established themselves well and look beautiful; I thought of them as they will be in distant times and spoke a greeting, with the wish that my children, when they look upon them, will remember this moment of joy. Went out with R. after coffee and bought a telephone for Fidi; we have great fun in the evening trying it out, and R. says with feeling, "There is something uncanny about it, but there was a time, when I was separated from my companion, when it would have been a great consolation to have been able to hear each other's voices." [Added in margin: "He, with a sense of his worthiness, may see it thus; I, in the knowledge of my unworthiness, must give thanks eternally!"] As we are returning from our walk through the palace gardens, we meet the minister Herr Pfeufer, who gets an acquaintance to introduce him and then reminds me of the last time we saw each other; it was in December 1865, at a banquet during which he was summoned from my side by a deputation which told him that a demonstration against R. was to take place that evening outside the royal residence; but he did not say anything to me about it at the time.
I remember this lunch very well, as also my conversation with the Minister of Police and my immediate visit to R.'s house, where I witnessed the arrival of Herr v. Lutz, who asked R. in the King's name to leave Bavaria!