Monday, October 23:
Lusch under medical care; I read to her, receive a letter from Karl von Gersdorff. Papa Tausig will do nothing more in the matter of the manuscript, and it seems no legal steps can be taken, which means that this affair has come to a bad end. But I do at least demand a public appeal.
At lunch R. tells me: “While I was composing, Frederick the Great’s character became clear to me in the way Beethoven’s character became clear to me, from within, as the will to live. What an artist sees, such a person lives; he is scarcely to be grasped or understood as an individual. What individual urge makes a man go through such tribulations as the Seven Years’ War? And then this nation, suffering so terribly, yet always inspired and ready for sacrifices, participating in an idea, a great character, this is whence comes the pride of being a Prussian. Who could be proud of being a Wuerttemberger, or a Bavarian, or a Saxon? But a Prussian, yes!”
Letter from a Turk, Prince Caradja, who asks for an autograph and receives along with it a certificate of patronage. Great tiredness in the evening; R. sad that I exert myself so much. Wrote on R.’s behalf to the Luccas and to Mariani in Bologna, saying that he would have gone there for rehearsals, but never for the ovation to which they invite him after the second performance.