Saturday, September 9:
Good morning! — Things are not well with me. My poor nerves! — A shock: Semper is here! Franz, I’m afraid, has admitted to him that I am not away. I have got to the point of finding Semper’s visit odious. God, what does a provisional or a definitive Festival Theatre matter to me, or all the architecture in the world! Cos is different. She has a heart full of wounds, and yet at the same time looks at pictures, people and buildings, listens to music, enjoys torch-light processions, etc. All of that can still exist for her, can, for she attends to it with mind and heart. That is what women are like! They can do anything. Not men. I at least quite certainly not. — You learnt that over my last Dresden trip. Now learn it again. I am not able, and do not care, to see any human being, not even the dearest and most intelligent when Cosima is not there: anything that happens when she is not there is torment to me. How I hate this projected theatre, indeed, how childish the King seems for insisting on this project so passionately: now here I am with Semper and supposed to deal with him, talk about the senseless project! I know of no greater torment than this which now faces me. — You see, — that is how I am! —
Yet what can you do about it: you have your father there too, of course. That, it goes without saying, is different! - Good! If only, in his proximity, your joy were pure and untroubled! Then I would have at last to be glad for you, as I love you. But like this? — Oh, oh! — It means having a great, great, very great deal of patience! — It is what I have got to have now! — Wicked one! —