Sunday, October 6:
From my bed. Had a relapse, my tonsils are inflamed, but I do not have a temperature. Yesterday Lulu’s birthday, presentation of gifts at my bedside; R. had his conference with the machinist Brandt and the scene designer Hoffmann from Vienna, the latter somewhat verbose and “cultured,” but apparently sensible.
Schott is causing R. much trouble, and the agents do not seem to be of much use; Schott does not wish to pay what he owes on the first three parts of the Ring before he has received Götterdämmerung, which R. does not wish to give him. I write some letters. Lulu invited to the dean’s house; R. goes for a walk and is acclaimed by the children of Bayreuth on the meadow beside the Main: Long live R. Wagner!
The clerk Hoffmann, whom R. is sending to Wiesbaden to deal with the matter at Schott’s with which the agents are making no progress, tells us that the whole of Bayreuth again gathered around the “crater” today, and that it never talks of anything but the building of the theater.
In the evening we take up the plays of Gozzi, which R. has managed only with the greatest difficulty to buy, so far only in German. We read The Raven with very great interest, and also the marvelous prefaces. “He shared all the instinct of the people against the literary outlook.” Gozzi’s remark that it is impossible to write down the words for the masks, either in poetry or prose, is truly excellent, and it corresponds entirely with R.’s ideas of theater.
I feel very pleased at being able to get up today in order to join in the family lunch. R., who is also pleased, says to me, “You are the hook on which I hang above the abyss.”