Wednesday, September 26:
A curious, wonderful day! At the start I worked with the children; in the afternoon I did accounts and figured out the third quarter of the year!
Toward evening I see R. busily writing. And in the evening he says, with fatigued eyes, "It has to be finished in time for Saint Cosmas!" He plays me the Prelude from the orchestral sketch. My emotion lasts long, then he speaks to me about this feature, in the mystery of the Grail, of blood turning into wine, which permits us to turn our gaze refreshed back to earth, whereas the conversion of wine into blood draws us away from the earth. Wonderful mingling in the Prelude of mysticism and chivalry.
The D major modulation is for him like the spreading of the tender revelation across the whole world. But in order to impart the spiritual quality of Christ's words, their detachment from all material things, he intends to use a mixture of voices: "A baritone voice, for example, would make it all sound material; it must be neither man nor woman, but neuter in the highest sense of the word." We continue for a long time to talk about Christ, the Gospel account of the day before his death, the sublimest thing ever produced by man, incomparable, divine! He plays me once more the passage in which, as he says, "the transfigured gaze breaks."
With the words Es gibt ein Glück, das ohne Reu, I fell asleep following these consecrated hours. R. had relapsed into joking, but was brought back to our theme every time by my tears.