Thursday, March 10:
Great alarm at the news, given to R. by Porges, that Düfflipp has written to Hans and asked him to accelerate the divorce! Obviously they cannot cope in Munich with Die Walküre, and the King is wishing that R. might return to Munich. Hence this letter, which may perhaps—in view of Hans’s character—ruin things for us entirely! I write at once to Düfflipp, expressing my indignation, and send a copy of this letter to Hans through my lawyer. Porges departs, obviously he came with the idea of being chosen by R. to conduct Die Walküre. Today’s news has a very depressing effect on me; a vision of Hans’s sad life keeps returning to my mind; the only way to atone for this is to let nobody, and above all my beloved, see how hurt I feel. In the evening I sorted out papers; R. is somewhat better; when I tell him how sorry I am that the W[esendonck] letter [one or two words obscured by a blot], he replies: “Only because I saw that it vexed you. That is the only thing that matters to me, otherwise I am quite indifferent.” Snow.
Friday, March 11:
Yesterday evening, while I was sorting out the papers, R. was reading Faust; this morning he said, “There is absolutely nothing which can be compared with this prison scene in the first part; I maintain that this is German, this great clemency, though certainly it has nothing to do with the present fine state of the German nation.” He then turned up, in Simrock’s Heldenbuch, a poem in which an adulteress is exonerated by a judge and jury. Powerful moving impression. R. today wears the turquoise I gave him. “May it bring you good fortune,” I say to him. “Good fortune has brought it to me,” he replies. He goes out, I play and work with the children. In the evening a melancholy that, when R. speaks to me about the children, tears stream from my eyes and I have to leave the room so that R. shall not see my state of mind. Hans will never know how much I suffer for him! R. reads to me from Droysen’s Alexander.