Wednesday, June 17:
Marvelous clear weather. Yesterday R. pointed out to me the crescent moon with the evening star, that lovely celestial emblem. The marble slabs bearing the motto are affixed to our house, and people in the street watch curiously.
We receive reports about Tristan und Isolde in Weimar, a very nice one from G. Davidsohn, saying it was all very fine, though he does not even mention King Marke, that symbol of moral order and consequently herald of death. At the quotation “night of love,” R. says, “That is Wahnfried.” We resolve to explain the motto to nobody.
R. works. We think often of his family in Leipzig, finding their attitude toward us incomprehensible. In the evening the musicians go through the third act of Siegfried. News of visits of not the most welcome sort.
Maneia Manteia Wahfi: R. explains to Richter that he is in fact mad to undertake something like the festival theater when everyone keeps saying, “My God, every opera house in the world is open to him, and still he is not satisfied!” To these people, rational people, he is a madman, and yet from madness of this sort all greatness springs, like, for example, the ideal of a united Germany as well; analogy with animal instinct, also “mad.” Finally he makes a joke, saying people ought to see that he can make concessions, was he not now writing an opera which could be produced even in Bayreuth?!