Monday, October 10:
[Added three pages later but referred back to this point: “When R. came down to breakfast, we talked about voice leading, and he was very pleased when my father recalled the choruses in the 2nd act of Lohengrin; nobody but he has ever noticed that,” R. observes.]
Departure! Dismal weather, very dismal feelings. R. takes leave of father and child here; the other children and I accompany them. At lunch we talk about my father’s fate, also Carolyne W.’s, and since I recall only her good features and say that, when she became angry with us and goaded my father, it was only because R. had once offended her by forbidding a visit from her, R. replies, “All right, but if she had any nobility, she would have forgiven, sought an explanation, instead of just making trouble.”
We drive together to the theater along the avenue from the Eremitage, greet our handsome Faf, climb the boards of the future royal box, and return home. At 7 o’clock it is exactly 28 years since I saw R. for the first time; I bring him the little compass, and he gives me the ring he had meant for Christmas, a wonderfully beautiful opal! We immerse ourselves in memories; he also recalls his wife Minna and how she left him in Dresden! But at supper we think of Tribschen, of the Christkind there and the Knecht Ruprecht, all the blissful times. Then he reads to me part of [E. T. A. Hoffmann’s] “Ignaz Denner.” (R. plays a lot with his compass.)