Still under house arrest, and the house looking like a desert, since curtains and furniture have already been removed.
R. does not work, but writes to the King’s secretary, “amiably” complaining that though a great favor has been granted him, he has received no word about it.
In the evening R. goes to the Thursday gathering, where Prof. Fries, who has just seen Die Meistersinger in Nuremberg, remarks that it was the greatest artistic experience of his life. — R. tells me that when a boy asked him for alms he at first refused, but then called the boy back, moved by his pitiful expression; he gave him a florin and said he should see if his mother would buy him something with it; then he should come again and would receive another florin. R. is scolded for that by his colleagues at the gathering, but he cannot understand why there should be so much poverty in so small a town. —
The well in the house at last made to function with a pump, a lot of chickens in the yard; besides this a barometer purchased and an excellent gardener acquired: Konrad Rausch, who himself looks just like an old root. —
Lohengrin has been performed in New York.