Thursday, July 17:
R. slept well, though he was up at three o'clock, went downstairs, and saw the waning moon still gleaming as a very pale C on the distant horizon. The weather is fine; a cheerful meal with our friends Levi and Cyriax, who has just arrived from London.
The latter tells us of Richter's “triumphs” as a conductor in London, and both speak with enthusiasm of the Comédie-Française. Herr Cyriax has brought me a picture of the house in which R. stayed in Boulogne! R. meets Herr Levi at Angermann's; I send Siegfried there with a note and receive in the lovely sunny evening the following sweet card. (Enclosed are an empty envelope inscribed in Cosima's handwriting “Herr Richard via Siegfried” and a piece of paper on which Wagner has written: “Oh, how wise! In these temporal problems - as in the eternal ones - I am utterly and completely in agreement with you. Fidi comes running to you to cancel the evening meal. A couple follows more slowly - but follows: God, the infinitely kind, etc.”)
The “couple” arrives, and R. exclaims that they have set the whole world to rights, Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, everything. In the evening the “upright men” with wives; we make music, Beethoven's Battle of Vittoria and King Stephen, of which the first is R.'s particular favorite, on account of its popular tone.
Then he tells us how he remembers having seen Weber playing with his son on the balcony of his house as the miners were passing by, and on the market place there was a man standing before a placard and singing, “A new murder story to tell you, my readers.” Years later R. hears a Weber bassoon concerto being played in the Gewandhaus and recognizes this same melody he had heard sung so roughly on the market place, now appearing as a reminder of the tremendous popular flavor of Beethoven's themes.