Tuesday, June 6:
At 4 in the morning R. comes to me with good wishes on Fidi’s birthday; at about 8 o’clock the congratulations: a rocking horse, the children clustered around! R., very happy, calls out to me: Cosima la Dieudonnee!
Large family lunch; Fidi’s health drunk. In his high spirits R., proposing it, imitates his friend Heine in Dresden. Since I am not very much taken with it, R. says, “You do not care for my friend; well, that was the world which brought forth Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.” As I laugh, he continues: “And it is the same with the Nibelungen and with Tristan not a whit different.”
Letter from my mother, which I answer at once. In the afternoon R. reads me his piece on the reform of the Dresden theater, in which I was particularly touched by his ardent desire to improve the existing state of things before beginning to think of revolution. I urge R. earnestly to include this piece in the collected writings.
R. tells me how Herr v. d. Pfordten, when he was given the piece to read, wrote remarks in the margin, and among other things R. found written, opposite the passage dealing with the question of raising the conductor’s salary: “This is the crux of the matter.” Pitiful wretches!
In the evening the Battle of Zorndorf. “Mine look like country bumpkins!”