Saturday, September 4:
In the morning letter from Herr Schäfer (friend of Richter’s with whom R. stayed): Betz, the singer of Wotan, has gone, does not wish to sing in these circumstances; that does not really worry the theater director, he gives the bass singer’s role to the tenor Vogl, some musician or other will conduct, and so everything is all right.
At the same time R. received a letter from his brother Albert Wagner, who at the end of his life can write nothing beyond a recommendation of a female singer! Letter from Hermine (a few more things about my father).
To put my fears at rest, R. writes to Marie Muchanoff and asks for the return of Hans’s letter.
After lunch inspection of Siegfried’s eye trouble makes me consider what a completely different fate is conferred in a moral sense on a person born blind, how much more purely he must be able to perceive truth through not seeing reality! All forms of temptation and deception must remain strangers to him.
Great melancholy in the evening; life and the world horrify me ever more and more. Played duets with R., a Beethoven quartet.