Friday, April 20:
Work again with the children, one fewer, and it does not make things easier, quite the contrary. R. is very irritated after lunch by the whole situation; he has cabled Councilor Dufflipp that he must have a reply. Now he is expecting deceit and treachery, as everywhere else. He says he ought to be glad that theaters are inquiring after his Nibelungen work, and that things are not as they were with Tristan; but it would be madness even to think any more about his ideas.
In London the business side is still unclear, but the rehearsals are said to be progressing better than expected. In the evening R. reads me the third act of Parsifal and then gives me the poem, which I regard as my greatest solace in life's misery.