Monday, August 20:
Work with the children; R. is still not returning home to Parsifal. In the afternoon he drives with us to the Eremitage.
In the evening we finish The Tempest; its concision and attention to detail are like a Beethoven symphony. Prospero gains his magic powers at a time of misfortune, gives them up for love of his child, and longs for death, what a moving doctrine in a single picture! And what subsidiary themes accompany the main picture!
R. says he can understand how an army of commentators has gathered around this mysterious work. “I do not understand why Ariel does not follow Prospero,” R. says.