Monday, January 3:
R. did not have a very good night, but he is in cheerful spirits. “In seven years we shall celebrate our silver wedding anniversary. Since then I have belonged to no other woman. Before that I did not know whether Frau von Bissing or Frau Wesendonck was the one meant for me.”
We laugh, and he recalls the three girls in blue, Boni, Loldi, Eva, how pretty they looked in the theater. Lulu as well, in a different color, in the box.
We walk in the palace gardens both morning and afternoon and delight in the “springlike winter’s day,” all the trees white; it is cold, but mild and sunny.
In the morning R. looked through his articles in the Bayreuther Bl. and was pleased with them. He still intends to add to them.
In the evening the Feustels and Wolz. and Rub., general conversation. R. reports that Phidias’s Athene is said to have been discovered. Also, on learning that Bismarck is trying to dismiss Parson Stoecker and that the Emperor is still vacillating, R. says that the same thing will happen to the Jews as happened to the “Jockeys” in Paris at the performance of Tannhäuser: the police will be brought in, not against them, but to protect them.
Departure of Lusch, who is going to Mimi in Berlin. When we are alone, R. and I, we immerse ourselves in the picture, we think of Malwida and some other resigned souls.
When he sees the children gathered around him, R. says, “To think, after 30 sterile years, of now having five children all at once around me!” He decides to send the letter off to Hans, 4 weeks after the date on it.