Thursday, February 19:
Glorious weather, R. slept well, Lusch gets up for an hour. R. in good spirits, rides into town to the baker’s, who comes from Kempten. I stroll as far as the palm tree, gaze with indescribable feelings at the blossoming almond trees, R. occupies himself with his biography and tells us he cannot believe that after such a terrible life he now has me and the children!
The soul’s sunshine, the earth’s flowery greetings, the colored veil of Heaven, the murmuring of the sea, all lending strength to my single prayer: to be worthy of my office, to remember always, in sorrow and in joy, salvation—the salvation that was vouchsafed me!
In the evening Herr Joukowsky; another attempt on the Emperor’s life (an explosion in the palace) leads us to the subject of conditions in Russia, and when Herr J. says that Peter the Great was a man of great understanding, R. totally disagrees: “Of enormous will-power, but not much sense, otherwise he would have set up his residence in Odessa and waged war with the Turks instead of the Swedes.”
R. is much amused by the nihilists’ message to Count Tolstoy, who through his edicts as minister of culture was directly responsible for these unsettled conditions, when he went out accompanied by an escort; they wrote saying that His Excellency would be quite safe going out alone, since he was working so effectively in their interests! R. says this shows that the party consists of educated men.
[Between this page and the next a French newspaper clipping about Wagner’s open letter on the subject of vivisection, and a page of the Allgemeine Deutsche Musikzeitung containing an article by Wilhelm Tappert on Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues.]
When, talking about the biography, I tell him that for his sake I find his account of the Vienna period very difficult to bear, he replies, “At that time I was still living off my inner resources, but now I have to be helped.” He is happy with the work we are bequeathing to our Siegfried.