Thursday, March 31:
Work with the children (recently much delight in Loldi, to whom I said, “All children have their ears pierced, in order to wear earrings,” and she replied: “Even the poor people? When we are grown up, we shall give everything to the poor!”). When I tell R. about this, he says I should not be surprised, since I am always drawing the children’s attention to the needy. He added shortly, with a smile, “I already see myself in Marburg under the scepter of Saint Elizabeth.” Together we read the story of Saint Alexis, which so fascinated Goethe and which he so beautifully reconstructed from the woman’s words.
R. works. After lunch with the children, arrival of Richter, who tells us all about the difficulties of his time in Brussels. Many amusing things are interspersed with it, such as the celebrations for Fétis’s 86th birthday, which occurred shortly after Lohengrin. Fétis’s speech, according to him, went like this: “Gentlemen, it would be better if I were already in my grave, realism is winning ground everywhere, and I am an advocate of idealism; I respect the single-mindedness with which Wagner fights for the cause of realism, but I am an idealist,” etc. At the end of this speech, it is said, not a hand was lifted, and there was no hint of applause, only on the words “better if I were in my grave” a protesting “no.”
About Mathilde Mallinger, we learn from Richter that she is supposed to be the daughter of Bishop Strossmayer, at one time so much talked about in Rome.
Music in the evening; R. plays what he has already composed of Götterdämmerung. How happy I feel to be no longer personally of any consequence, deriving my pleasure solely from R.’s good progress and the children’s well-being! Richter thinks the children are looking very well.
He tells us some very comical things about the aged Moscheles, which he had heard from pupils of his in Brussels. Since he received a small percentage from his music publisher for increased sales of printed music, he always feigned great indignation about loose pages and kept needle and thread handy, so that he could sew them together again—thus preventing the poor student from returning the book and forcing him to buy things instead of borrowing them.