Sunday, September 18:
Today R. calls me the fair miller’s wife, because I grind everything down into something good, restore equilibrium! God grant that I live up to that!
R. writes to the King and reads some passages to me about the sketches, the orchestra, and its conductor. Toward midday I find him indisposed, he drinks some tea immediately before lunch; however, his mood improves during the meal. Afterward he reads to us the wine merchant’s letter, which he finds amusing.
He arranges a drive to the pretty spot beyond the Fantaisie, but a wind is blowing as he is walking through the meadow, and he has a chest spasm. He thinks longingly of Corfu. In the evening he plays some pieces from Der Freischütz, which bring him great inner contentment, then parts of the Venusberg music, pleased that “it, too, is melody.”