Sunday, December 25:
“Gratel, gratel,” I hear in the morning beside me, and his mighty head appears to me like the head of a child as he merrily wishes me many happy returns. But soon things get serious: he calls me in, and with the children hands to me all my fair gifts - Polonia, the Parsifal sketches, the talisman ring, and - pia fraus! - the completed score!
The weather keeps us from going out but does not spoil our high spirits. At lunch R. proposes a toast to me, but he breaks off and afterward tells me that mists gather around his soul whenever he tries to talk about me. We bemoan the gray weather for the sake of our dear friend.
In the evening Polonia is played and all kinds of things from his life are linked to it, just as yesterday, in talking about his indisposition, he touched on the episode of La Favorita. Today he recalls the Klepperbein family, how every Sunday he was given roast goose in the house with fortune’s wheel, and his father Geyer joked: “Klepperbein, my boy, that means death!”
When I say that Polonia seems to me to be exactly what it was meant to be, R. says, “Oh, with a military band for the people, as I thought of everything at that time, it would have sounded splendid and produced a great effect.” Mme de Rémusat less pleasing - not she, but Napoleon, when he is made emperor and everything becomes theatrical.