Tuesday, April 9:
R. gets up in good spirits in spite of all and everything; he comes down early and has completed the pencil sketch of the third act! Yesterday he improvised on it for the children, and they danced furiously to it!
Letter from Stern, the music director, giving the names of the people who will come to Bayreuth from Berlin to sing in the chorus; people of all (railroad) classes! It makes R. laugh a lot. Councilor D. also writes; he is annoyed that R. made such a fuss about the matter!
At lunch we come to the legend of Count von Gleichen, and R. says, “It goes against our modern feelings, and yet for me it has always contained the true German quality of compassion.” When I tell R. that I can fully understand the wife’s behavior, he says, “That’s why we are one heart and one soul because you always share my feelings.”
In the afternoon to town. R. does not like my buying things in the shops here. In the evening read Indian fairy tales, the lovely story of the Brahman who burned his poem page by page after reading it to the animals.