Category: November 1874

Thrice sacred, memorable day! Toward the hour of noon R. calls to me upstairs, asking me to bring him the newspapers; since he had yesterday complained how worn out he felt and had also assured me that he would not finish before Sunday, I thought that tiredness had prevented his…

I awake this morning from a melancholy dream, utterly shaken and suffering. — I dreamed that, for the sake of the two little girls, I had agreed with R. to remarry Hans; correspondence with the latter, wedding in a white dress edged with bright flowers carried out to the strains…

We talk a lot more about music in the morning—R. goes to his work, I occupy myself with the children but am slightly interrupted by domestic concerns. In the evening Herr Rubinstein brings the pages of the score he has copied, and R. agrees with me that this strange man’s…

R. works and compares himself with Moltke bringing up his battalions, but having always to keep something in reserve; he says, “I am convinced I could conduct Mars la Tour, too.” At lunch he tells me very movingly of a general who in one of these battles hands the flag…

R. dreamed of an audience with the King of Hanover, during which one of the King’s dogs constantly got in the way of his feet and snapped at him when he tried to remove it, though the King kept assuring him, “He won’t hurt you.”  Today he writes the 399th…

At breakfast we discuss the music of yesterday; I tell R. that with regard to myself the curious thing has always been that from the moment music begins to sound, all images, concepts, the whole world of appearances and of the intellect, disappear. He says he has always sought the…