Friday, July 2:
Similar night. I gladly abandon my nights to worry and suffering, so long as I can devote my days to my beloved and to the children. Rose very early; practiced on the piano with Lusch. Had breakfast with R.
The doctor with me, puts my mind at rest concerning Siegfried; in the middle of his visit R. comes up and announces himself as "Prince"; there is an article in La Liberté by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam with the dedication: "À Richard Wagner, Prince de la musique profonde."
While the children are working I read Oedipus; at lunch, conversation with R. about it. "Why could not Tiresias solve the riddle of the Sphinx? It shows that a great human being is more than a prophet. But why all these terrible things piled on Oedipus? In order to make us aware of what life is and that happiness is just an illusion."
Down to the children in the garden. Birds, roses, and cherries. There R. says he must tell me in all soberness that for him I am a manifestation of the divine. With what emotion I hear that, I, who am so miserably conscious of my paltriness!
Trouble with Babli, Siegfried's nurse, who constantly takes the baby into the light. In the evening Eckermann again with R., much enjoyment. Wrote to Prof. Nietzsche and returned to him Lübke's wretched essay on Die Meistersinger.