Category: May 1874

R. orchestrates again; I do nothing much except look around, read with Loldi (German stories, etc.), and drag myself about, for I still feel very unwell. In the afternoon played with the children, since they had some young guests.  In the evening we wanted to read Pericles, but could not…

Wrote all kinds of letters, to Warsaw, Berlin, etc.; besides that still many tasks of arrangement. R. orchestrates a page of his score, but is still not feeling entirely well. In the evening we finish Titus in great astonishment. —  In the morning our two cocks amused us greatly by…

R. tells me his dream: he beat Putz, who was incurably ill, to death with a stick, saying, “Nobody is bothering about you, poor creature—now at any rate you will find release,” and then buried him beneath a mass of rubble lying in the garden.  At breakfast we discuss the…

Still arranging rooms! — R. receives some more proofs from Basel, which he finds very opportune, since he still—alas!—cannot get down to his score. —  Over afternoon coffee he says, after gazing at me for a long time: “A friend! You are my friend. It is not only that you…

Richter Day—that is to say, the day on which we expected Richter, but he does not come, delayed in Pest by the presence of the Emperor.  Bad weather still and on top of that my indisposition, which makes me completely useless. —  R. cannot return to his work yet, for…

Now Herr Schott has died in Milan. —  R. again read Freytag today and said, “How it does one good to concern oneself with these ancient relationships, which we can regard as secure, and to abandon for a while our world of Jesuits and Jews, our complete barbarism!” —  R….