Tuesday, May 7:
R. slept well; went shopping with him. We are glad to be in Vienna together, which of us would ever have dreamed it? After lunch, visit from Countess Dönhoff, pretty and charming, a unique personality among the best Wagnerians.
In the evening wandered again through the city with R. At midday Saint Stephen’s made R. angry, workers hammering in the cathedral while Mass was in progress. In the evening the excellent Dr. Kafka, also an enthusiast of a peerless kind. But when he spoke of the lack of influence of the press, R. felt impelled to ask whether the complete absence of indignation in face of malice was not ascribable to its activities! They cannot prevent people’s going to the concert or the works’ being played, but they can drag all the seriousness of the occasion through the mud, etc.