Sunday, April 5:
To church with the children; afterward hid the eggs in the house. R. takes another bath, after doing some work. “I shan’t be really healthy until I am rid of this Kauder,” he says. “By that I mean Der Ring des Nibelungen.”
Chatting from afternoon till evening with the children, who are making themselves masks. R. says, “I shan’t write another score until Fidi is able to orchestrate it for me.”
In the evening Ollivier’s book, which has been sent to me, about Lamartine and his nonelection to the Academy. Early to bed.
Today R. was pleased with my bust and said, “It is pleasure of a different kind from your presence; when I gaze on you, feelings are always involved, but here, looking at this bust, it is the idea which dominates.” He is also pleased with Kietz’s bust of himself. “I want to be happy,” he says, “another twenty years.”
Early this morning we heard the hymn being played from the church tower, and R. played me the Pilgrims’ Chorus. “Here I should like to see something changed; in the words Alle Welt the Alle is too long. At that time I was not very good at handling the various metrical forms, and the false intonation has always embarrassed me.”
Yesterday some anonymous person sent R. an Easter poem with the remark, “If you set this to some good music, I shall reveal who I am.” R. thinks he must be a prince - “Reuss Schleiz Greiz.”