Saturday, July 17:
“My God, Lusch, what a mother you have!” R. cries in the early morning when he finds me with my little girl, supervising her practice. Afterward he corrects my letter to the English translator. “How we really do work together!” he says.
Boni’s stubbornness causes me great concern; I have to punish her.
In the afternoon the Mendès couple; I must entertain them. How curious their noisy enthusiasm seems to me! The woman says out loud all the things I believe in my inmost heart; the fact that she can say them aloud makes her seem strange to me. He is highly cultured, and both of them thoroughly kind-hearted.
They relate how R.’s publisher Schott advertised the translation of the Jewish pamphlet in Paris on the day of Rienzi’s first performance; Pasdeloup rushed out in alarm and, as he thought, bought up all the copies. Next day Schott offered him a thousand more copies, which he had in stock, at the same price! Who could believe that of a publisher? And again, who was behind it?
The last performance of Rienzi is reported to have aroused incredible enthusiasm and much presentation of bouquets! R. plays Wotan’s farewell to Brünnhilde and several passages from Lohengrin. At eleven o’clock they tell us they have not eaten since lunch yesterday. We have nothing in the house; mood of gaiety.
Of the movement of the waves in Das Rheingold R. says, “It is, so to speak, the world’s lullaby.”