Wednesday, January 10:
Again R. did not have a good night! At breakfast we again discuss musical performances - how to arrange them so that the audience can take an active part, not just listen. Yesterday R. disclosed to me his decision to combine a musical performance with the laying of the foundation stone, and I had to dance for joy, for I had had this very thought myself, but had been scared of expressing it, fearing to cause him yet further excitement and to appear, as it were, to be saying that the laying of the foundation stone was not enough for me. I ask for the Ninth Symphony.
And R. intends to put an appeal in the newspapers, saying that he is going to perform the Symphony in Bayreuth, is prepared to pay travel and living expenses, and now invites musicians to come along. He needs 300 singers and 100 orchestral players, and his only condition is that they have to have taken part in a performance of the Symphony before. He says he will then see how far his power extends when confronted with conductors, managers, choral institutions, etc. 'Hardly has the cur got over his blows than he is back again nibbling!' The dear man is working! He shows me Brünnhilde's last words again and says he wants to use some of the new verse, but I beg him to alter Wunschheim and Wahnheim, which I find somewhat artificial.
R. goes into town and takes care of my affairs. I now have 12,000 francs for the children with the banker and 182 francs laid aside in the savings bank, and, since R. insists that I reckon the other 3,000 francs with that, the total would be 15,000. Prof. Nietzsche writes that he is ill, whereupon R. writes him a touching and affectionate letter. In the evening we read the Eumenides.