Sunday, June 13:
All hail the day which illumines us, hail to the sun which shines on us! How shall I, poorest of creatures, describe the feelings with which I again take this book in my hands? When the woman said to me, “Congratulations, it is a little boy,” I had to weep and laugh and pray.
Preserve him, divinity which gave him to me, that he may be the support of his sisters, the heir of his adored father! Now that my happiness lies so sweetly within reach before my eyes, it seems to me ever more tremendous, more disembodied. I see it hovering, rising up high above all woes, and all I can do is to thank the universal spirit which proclaimed to us through this sign that it is kindly disposed toward us.
The day is blazing gloriously. I did not sleep during the night, but all the same feel well. I reflected on a letter to be written to Hans, in which I shall describe my earlier, my present, and my future relationship with him; added in the margin: “if he will accept it!” May God reveal to me the right things to say in order to help him a little!
R. is working, I hear it with bliss. When he comes up to me, he tells me how wonderfully it has turned out that his theme of joy, “ist mir alles,” fits in excellently as accompaniment to the motive “Heil der Mutter, die mich gebar,” so that this expression of joy can be heard sounding in the orchestra up to the point where Siegfried himself sings it. Tomorrow he will probably finish his sketch!
As he comes up he wakes me, “the great Zenobia”; this name for me occurred to him while he was working. When I ask him why, he says I am great, truly great. But what is great about me can only be the reflection of his own nature.
At lunch he says to me that he knows I concern myself with others only when I see them in distress and in need of me, but when I see he is glad, only then am I really happy. And so it is in fact.
Regarded our Siegfried; when R. saw him alone, the child appeared to him as he will once be, reflective and earnest. Very moved, he tells me it was as if he had seen the eidolon of our precious boy. God preserve him for us!
R. tells me that my mother heard about the Paris quartet at Tribschen and assumed that the King of Bavaria had arranged for it, so it was no wonder he had no money left: to engage Semper; he had enough on his hands with Wagner. We laugh heartily at this pitiful absurdity. “These poor people think of everything,” says R., “except that it was the enthusiasm of a loving woman which provided me with this pleasure.”
Against a most wonderful sunset I am writing these lines, lying at the window. Could I but sing a hymn to the Godhead! R. sings it for me; my hymn is my love for him. My Siegfried, crowning glory of my life, may you show how much I have loved your father!
Drank tea with R. To bed at 9. R. reads Don Quixote to me.