Sunday, May 18:
R. was restless in the morning, but he says the conducteur has not unhitched his horses. When he is in this restless state he compares himself with the driver in Victor Hugo’s Histoire d’un crime, who exclaims, “Bon, je sais ce que c’est” [“I know what’s going on”], and at once unhitches his omnibus for the barricades. R. says usually he would get out of bed, but this time he remained quietly where he was. Yesterday he wrote to Herr Schon, telling him that when he started his undertaking he had counted on having 300 people such as Herr Schon - now there was only one, but he was schon [fine].
He comes to me around noon to tell me about what he has just been reading in Carlyle, about religion, the Pope, and the London hatter, and has so much enjoyed. He is very annoyed by the Würzburg publisher’s demands and intends to write a little article about it. Yesterday, when we read something in Tappert’s periodical about Beethoven’s relationship with Giulia, R. said, “I never had any contacts like that - it is terrible, the company in which I always found myself.” He then names some theatrical women and adds: “I can assure you that among all these Minna seemed downright aristocratic. In Dresden Frau Tichatschek was the prize exhibit - but no, I am forgetting I had Frau Schroder-Devrient there, too, but she had some impact on my life.”
R. goes for a walk in the afternoon, and the evening brings us Herr Fischer, now a celebrated conductor in Mannheim, along with his Wotan. The latter sings for us, revealing, in spite of some hoarseness, an imposing presence and a powerful voice. But R. is very vexed by the evening; the ill-humor of our friends, when they are of his circle, upsets him badly, and the many women annoy him as well! He falls asleep, grumbling.