Wednesday, May 4:
When our breakfast conversation brings us to Richter and his stay in Paris (he did not see Notre Dame and in the Louvre only Napoleon’s boots), R. says: “People who learned nothing of the ‘ancient Greeks’ in their childhood have no eye for beauty. All my later feelings about the ugliness of our present world stem from looking at the illustrations in Moritz’s mythology. Perseus with his fine helmet, but otherwise naked, delighted me and made me disgusted with our whole military system, with its buttoned-up uniforms plastered with decorations. When I read that crowned poets received only an olive wreath as prize, I was thrilled, and I despised the people who strutted about in all their ribbons. It was respect for the olive wreath which gave me my contempt for decorations, not democratic affectation or plebeian crudeness, as your father, for instance, certainly imagines.”
He works, I with the children. At lunch it cuts me to the quick when he says that in the excitement of work he has often wanted to come up to me, but, knowing that I was busy teaching the children, he stayed away. He said I should really engage a governess for the children. I have to weep, for I feel I have to make this sacrifice, yet how much I want him always to be contented!
Letters—one to R. from the King in the usual strain—that he could never be unfaithful to him, etc.—one to me from a lieutenant: I am invited to write for a newspaper!!! Very unpleasant impression from the printing, with omissions, of a letter from R. to the music director Eberle; the omissions distort the letter so much that Eckert and Betz must feel offended, hence, no doubt, their silence. R. is very upset about this, he writes at once to Eckert and gets up at 4 o’clock in the morning (Thursday) to make his letter even more emphatic. Then he again sees the sunrise from the Orange Room, as at the time of Fidi’s birth. Last dancing lesson.