Saturday, July 24:
R. slept well, he does not wish to wake me, so we do not have breakfast together. All the more joyfully do we come together for dictation, and as I write, R. sings, “Nothing is so dear to me as the room in which I bide, for opposite—”
He is very cheerful at lunch, tells of the bank note for £100,000 which Rothschild has hanging, framed, in his room, and, when we get a letter from our friend Stein describing his estate, he says: “Ah, how good it is, an inherited property like that! One knows then where one belongs, whatever happens. For myself, I should choose Rothschild’s bank note as my basic property,” he adds merrily, dispelling our serious mood.
He is continually saying that he wants to write symphonies, and our children bring him continual joy. Fidi recites Goethe’s Der Sänger to him, and R. then reads it to him as a reward.
In the evening a visit from the painter Böcklin, a peculiar, powerful character, turned bitter through experience; R. is soon tired.