Saturday, June 25:
Since the effects of yesterday’s letter were so very bad, I gave instructions that all letters from Munich must first be handed to me. I am very glad to have made this rule; a letter from Councilor Düfflipp announces that not only will the King not command the production for himself alone, but also he himself will not attend the first performance—only the one to be given in conjunction with Das Rheingold! I reply as best I can and say I am keeping all reports from the master’s eyes. R. did a lot of work yesterday, and today he resumes it. Arrival of the legal document, reply to it. Letter from Frau Dr. Wille inviting R. and me to stay with her. The great friendliness with which this is done touches us very much, R. thanks her and promises her the first visit after our marriage. “You knew about it,” he suddenly says to me at lunch. “What?” “Something.” Of the King he says, “He is a creature worthy of respect, he is Fate.” Visit from Count Bassenheim, he asks me to write to Düfflipp: the Countess would like to have the Prince’s estate changed to a female inheritance. I write. Letter from von Bronsart, the theater manager in Hanover; Die Meistersinger has not been a success there. Visit to Frau Am Rhyn’s; apart from that nothing but lack of peace and joy, because our poor Kos is going blind; one eye is already lost and the other will probably also be affected by his mange. How cruel everything is, everything! R. takes Kos to the eye specialist and returns home with the good news that the trouble is not too dangerous—it just looks very bad.
In the evening R. takes up W. Meister again and says what we must do now is to get to know Goethe, we are like children to be so swept away by this novel, so long familiar to us, what we are concerned with is understanding the poet.