Sunday, June 22:
R. had a good night, but he has some pain in his foot. He works. Unfortunately we have an experience in our home which causes him much vexation: our gardener and his wife, after four years in our house, turn out to have been unworthy of our trust. R. is much affected by this, and he demands the immediate dismissal of the gardener. I am grieved that, though I was aware for a long time of what was going on, I could only keep silent about it and was not able to deal with the trouble without his noticing.
In the evening we come to talk about the death of Prince Napoleon, and R. again refers to the righteousness of history, which in this case has been directed against his mother. R. observes that she started the war with Germany, encouraged it, only in order to relieve her son of the necessity of exacting “vengeance for Sadowa”; now, also for the sake of glory, she sends her son out on a sort of hunt against the Zulus! Fate takes a solemn view - Zulus are also human beings like ourselves, and he dies, not gloriously, but surprised, fleeing. We play a game of whist, and then R. asks Herr Rub. to play the G minor Symphony with him as a piano duet. R. is vexed because his hands refuse to obey him, and he says he will never again play duets.