Thursday, January 21:
Today is Meistersinger day; it is being produced in Dresden, and Richard wakes me with themes from the heavenly work. At breakfast we speak again about what happened yesterday. I am very tired, for I had a bad night, and dawn brought back to me my worries about the children.
Richard told me at breakfast that, if we had to live in a garret, he would publish a newspaper in which he would mercilessly expose everything. While the children are out walking I begin on the Lessing biography. Much enjoyment from it.
After lunch R. reads to me from the book of folk tales, an act of the Faust comedy for puppets, which gives rise to great delight, indeed to a mood of unbelievable gaiety. But afterward I find myself reflecting sorrowfully that this splendid folk spirit must now, at a time when its manifestations are being carefully collected, have died out, much in the way that art galleries and museums coincide with a period of unproductivity in painting.
R. returns from his walk with the news that the article on the Jews is going to be printed. So be it! Then he goes to the children, telling me that he did not ask me to go with him since he had the feeling that this always cost me an effort. And so it is: where I was once used to finding four, I find it painful to see only two. However, the two here are flourishing. Kos, on the other hand, is ill, very ill; how sorry one feels for such a poor creature!
In the evening we read the Faust puppet play to the end, amid hearty laughter, but with genuine interest. Kasperl is so entirely different in kind from the Spanish Grazioso or the Italian Harlequin, and what a striking testimony he is to the dramatic talents of the Germans! Glorious moonlight, enjoyed by us both.