Friday, July 5:
While R. is working, I spend the morning with our friend; she herself always above reproach, pleasant and interesting, but all accounts of the outside world upset me, these eternal lies! Thus a Frau von Dewitz claims to have seen a letter from me to the bookseller Stilke, in which I spoke about R.’s letter to Tausig and Dr. Lang!
I feel like Erda, wüst und wirr [“muddled and confused”]; how gladly would I remain in ignorance of it!
Walk in the afternoon. Herr von Gersdorff informs me of a plan by which Prof. Nietzsche will issue an appeal for a collection in which all who cannot buy certificates of patronage, or do not wish by means of single contributions to join a Wagner Society, can take part.
Our evening meal is enlarged by the presence of a Herr Krebs from Frankfurt am Main who, polite and well-educated, has come here with a curious request. He brings a sheet of paper which depicts, in a remarkably childish manner, Greek tragedy awakened by Wagner’s genius; this is to be reproduced in gigantic size, like the Symposium of Feuerbach, and he wants R.’s approval. R. advises him to read Nietzsche’s book and gives it to him. He makes curious assertions, that one must now paint ideas, etc.
After he has gone we are lost in astonishment over this curious apparition, and in the end have to laugh a lot over all these confusions.