Monday, May 1:
Dismal weather, but good news from the children, to whom I have been writing every other day. Visit from Karl Eckert, who brings all sorts of unpleasant news. First of all, I had been obliged to visit Frau Mallinger last Saturday in order to request her to sing; now I hear that she will not do so after all. Then Walter telegraphs that he cannot come. The difficulty of making people understand that R. has really nothing at all to do with the concert, since he would prefer not to give it.
R. is now writing to Councilor Dufflipp, from whom we found a very discouraging letter awaiting us here. The King does not really like our project; he wishes to keep everything for himself in Munich. R. answers very earnestly, saying that this is his final plan; if it is not approved, he will give it up and live only for his family.
He tells me how blissful he feels to be able to write about his family. He thinks of the children practically all the time with the most touching tenderness; he is happy to know these little creatures are waiting for us back there in Paradise. Everybody thinks he has grown so mild, and also that he is looking very well.
Visit from Prince Georg. Then R. gets ready to visit Bismarck, Bancroft, who left a card here yesterday, and Countess Pourtales. I am always in fear that he will not be able to see it through. Yesterday he cried out when he saw a poor cab-horse which for sheer misery and exhaustion could no longer walk slowly, but lurched from side to side in a sad gallop; he then showed me the passage in his Beethoven depicting the different ways in which the saint and the artist bear the sorrows of life. In that connection, R. says, “I should never be able to live in a large city.”
At 9 o’clock with His Excellency, a mixed company. R. reads aloud his Destiny of Opera and excites interest in it. Reichensperger talks with him at length about it. All the same, we return home tired.