The rehearsal went off with extraordinary success; there were only six violins in all, but the requisite wind-instruments.  No one was admitted but Count Seeau’s sister and young Count Seinsheim.  This day week we are to have another rehearsal, with twelve violins for the first act, and then the second act will be rehearsed (like the first on the previous occasion).  I cannot tell you how delighted and surprised all were; but I never expected anything else, for I declare I went to this rehearsal with as quiet a heart as if I had been going to a banquet.  Count Seinsheim said to me, “I do assure you that though I expected a great deal from you, I can truly say this I did not expect.”

The Cannabichs and all who frequent their house are true friends of mine.  After the rehearsal, (for we had a great deal to discuss with the Count,) when I went home with Cannabich, Madame Cannabich came to meet me, and hugged me from joy at the rehearsal having passed off so admirably; then came Ramm and Lang, quite out of their wits with delight.  My true friend the excellent lady, who was alone in the house with her invalid daughter Rose, had been full of solicitude on my account.  When you know him, you will find Ramm a true German, saying exactly what he thinks to your face.  He said to me, “I must honestly confess that no music ever made such an impression on me, and I assure you I thought of your father fifty times at least, and of the joy he will feel when he hears this opera.”  But enough of this subject.  My cold is rather worse owing to this rehearsal, for it is impossible not to feel excited when honor and fame are at stake, however cool you may be at first.  I did everything you prescribed for my cold, but it goes on very slowly, which is particularly inconvenient to me at present; but all my writing about it will not put an end to my cough, and yet write I must.  To-day I have begun to take violet syrup and a little almond oil, and already I feel relieved, and have again stayed two days in the house.  Yesterday morning Herr Raaff came to me again to hear the aria in the second act.  The man is as much enamored of his aria as a young passionate lover ever was of his fair one.  He sings it the last thing before he goes to sleep, and the first thing in the morning when he awakes.  I knew already, from a sure source, but now from himself, that he said to Herr von Viereck (Oberststallmeister) and to Herr von Kastel, “I am accustomed constantly to change my parts, to suit me better, in recitative as well as in arias, but this I have left just as it was, for every single note is in accordance with my voice.”  In short, he is as happy as a king.  He wishes the interpolated aria to be a little altered, and so do I. The part commencing with the word era he does not like, for what we want here is a calm tranquil aria; and if consisting of only one part, so much the better, for a second subject would have to be brought in about the middle, which leads me out of my way.