Thursday, August 8:
Parting from Richter, who is returning to Pest; he means a lot to me as a witness of our Tribschen days and a man of proven courage.
Letter from Marie M.; she is going through Tristan with Niemann. Regarding all the things now facing him, R. remarks, “Now that we have each other, all we have to do is to endure the torments of life together.”
Looking at Fidi, we think of the time when we shall have to release him for military service. “I am almost tempted to be selfish and to wish that by then there will be no more war,” R. says; and then, “How lucky that one has a fatherland, so that one can make the terrible sacrifice with enthusiasm.”
In the afternoon R. spends a little time on Götterdämmerung, and in the scene between Waltraute and Brünnhilde he changes a modulation which he now finds too abrupt; he says one can very easily get too involved in the details.
I write to Mme Lucca to see if we cannot get out of the Milan engagement. Big thunderstorm. Afterward we go for a walk along the wide and beautiful tree-lined road which leads to Bamberg, lovely view across cornfields to Bayreuth beyond.
Moving encounter with a man wearing the Iron Cross and two Verdun medals who asks us for alms for his journey; he is an ironworker and is going on foot to Strassburg. R. becomes serious and gives him several florins, telling me that he can never forget what such people had gone through in our behalf.
Hearty laughter about the ozone. “Now I know what I was breathing yesterday when I left the kerosene shop in which I had taken refuge from the storm: the B. Tagblatt says the air was full of ozone!” He also laughs a lot over a Berlin anecdote of a disconsolate widow who at last finds comfort for the death of her husband with the words, “At least I know where he spends his nights!”
Great delight in this little place; the tall, closely planted trees, the fine fields, the good faces, like that of our poor man. In the evening we read Döllinger’s speech at the Munich celebrations, which is very interesting.
After we have gone to bed we still cannot help laughing over Hebbel’s Nibelungen (Siegfried-Münchhausen; the heroes performing heroic deeds offstage and then appearing to relate them scornfully; Hagen mocking Siegfried as he lies wounded to death).