Wednesday, April 9:
R. is not well; he cannot really stand continual conversation. He also has many torments. Herr Batz meddles in all sorts of things, and the date of the Cologne concert is still undecided.
In the evening we had intended to devote ourselves to Prof. N.’s work on the philosophers, whom R. jokingly calls “the sons of Thales,” that is, Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides. But our talk led us so deeply into our experiences with regard to the Bayreuth undertaking that our gloomy mood could not be dispelled.
R. plays the end of Götterdämmerung, and that certainly makes all our cares vanish into thin air.