Wednesday, March 26:
R. says that his article will be quite different from that originally envisaged: "The limits I set myself in creating something always melt away, and I get into a sort of frenzy of inspiration, from which everything I achieve then emerges."
He jokes about my incorrigible datives and accusatives - "though you know the language like a beggar knows his pockets."
Yesterday he drafted his reply to the article in the Conversations-Lexikon. Though I well know how despicable the attitude of these highly learned gentlemen is toward R., I am still utterly shocked by the malice and perfidiousness of this article.
When I ask R. how far Baron Erlanger's sympathy for him went, he says, "Up to the point where I had no further chance; in such cases one is like the bird who became arthritic and was pecked to death by his loving mate."
At lunch he reads me his essay on Bayreuth, which moves me to tears. Feustel has reported that the performance in Munich brought in 550 florins and one certificate of patronage!!
In the evening, with R. and the two eldest children, to an amateur performance in the beautiful opera house. The performance not at all bad, the most dreadful thing about it being the entr'acte music. Also the clothes, and particularly the hairstyles of the women, annoy R.; he says he cannot understand how a man can embrace such a woman, how he can help feeling disgusted.
The printed letter has arrived, accompanied by an impertinent note from the editorial staff of the N.A.Z.