Tuesday, June 29:
R. did not sleep very well, and during the night Palumbello sang in concert with someone. Today is Peter and Paul, a feast day; at breakfast we talk gaily of the heathen ways of these people, no sign of Christianity, and difficult to imagine English reformers; it must all end as with Miss Ouragan, who is herself becoming a Catholic.
I ask R. about Riga, of which he was speaking a few days ago, and he tells me of the river covered with rafts, of the people who came streaming in, perhaps as many as 70,000, of the balalaika, an instrument akin to the bagpipes, on which the peasants played for dancing: "I got to know all about folk life there." He works, and at lunch we drink a toast to our friend Joukowsky: "Wake up, all, and let us toast Paul!" Over coffee we talk about Moscow, the remarkable treasure in the Kremlin; R. says he saw nothing there, he was ill, and all he cared about was earning some money with which to furnish a little house in Biebrich, so that he could write Die Meistersinger.
At lunch we recalled our meeting in Starnberg at the end of June 1864, I with my two "ladies," he forbidden by the doctor to go to meet me (on the previous day a storm had hurled his hat into the lake; caught cold, doctor sent for, put off, but came after all), he furious, took a long time to regain his composure. "You with your black hat and the poppy flower, always friendly, gay, and natural, 'milkmaid and marchioness' - marchioness when there was something to be gained by it!"
R. rests for a while, then he comes to me and suggests a ride in the streetcar for gelati ["ice cream"]; the children jubilant. When I say that our friend Paul is staying at home to do some work, R. sings him a tune from Jessonda: "Joukowsky (for Nadori), you will come with us surely," and all of us set out for the Palazzo Reale cafe. R., full of high spirits, does not want to leave; he is so happy among the children that with every spoonful of ice cream he cries, "Lord, how nice it is here!"
Unfortunately no streetcar for our return; we are separated, and on arrival there is again an altercation with the coachman, and the screaming, the gaping of the crowd, the impossibility of understanding or making himself understood, upset R. so much that he feels utterly wretched, complains to me of the pain in his chest, and I have the greatest difficulty in calming him down. He comes to join us at supper but talks about the incident and becomes so vexed and angry that he has to leave the table; only some time later does he return to us. Visit from the Schrons.