Went to bed with feelings of sadness and woke up with the same—Fidi my little night companion. Went to church— alas, if only the parson were an actor! . . . Count Arnim sentenced to two months’ imprisonment. —  Two telegrams from R.! — I had given his manservant my…

Went to bed with feelings of sadness and woke up with the same—Fidi my little night companion. Went to church— alas, if only the parson were an actor! . . . Count Arnim sentenced to two months’ imprisonment. — Two telegrams from R.! — I had given his manservant my…

I dreamed about mourning clothes, the consequence of yesterday’s painful experience. R. dreamed of royal personages whom he had to receive, among them a fair-haired woman who wept in vexation at being slighted. —  R. prepares for his journey and at one o’clock leaves for Leipzig, where tomorrow he will…

Christmas disturbances. Good news for the undertaking from the outside world; the people in Vienna send 900 thalers, Frau Schott 300, a concert to take place under Richter’s direction also promises well. Much money will be needed, too, if R. is to announce his rehearsals for next summer.  Various people…

Our conversation is as usual concerned with what we heard yesterday. I told R. that, listening to the B. sonata, I felt as if B. were making use of all possible forms—recitative, fugato, Italian canto, figuration—in order to express something inside him of which even the music itself was only…

Bonichen unwell. R. works out his endings and writes letters. Some calls in the evening and Beethoven’s Opus 109 and 110.

R. dreamed that he had another son, a little lad one year old with fair, curly hair, and R. was delighted with the way he was flourishing and how he could already look him straight in the eye. “This comes from the jumping,” R. says, for yesterday the children were…

The day of Daniel’s death. Visits with and without R., family dinner at the Feustels’. Visit from two architects from Prague, who have been sent to inquire from R. how to construct a concert hall. —  Letter from Marie Schl.: the sale in Berlin has brought in 10,000 thalers. —…

In the morning errands with Fidi, who believes he saw the Christkind. — Great concern on account of my two elder daughters, particularly Lusch. — Dismal acknowledgment of the powerlessness of education in the face of character. —  We talk a lot about Bismarck’s manner; at a grand soiree which…