Sunday, January 6:
I get up at my usual time. R. tells me that he waited up for me until 1:30 a.m.! Very early in the morning I felt his hand groping to see that I was there. During the evening he had read an article by Pohl with the Wolzogens and had looked through his “Fantasie” again. Today he works on his essay for the Bayreuther Blätter, which will soon be published. He told me that, if he had not invited Herr v. W. to settle here, nothing would have induced him to say a single word more. I arrange the library with Herr v. W.
At lunch R. says, “I propose a toast—nobody will guess to what.” We ask him. “Today is the first performance of Die Walküre in Schwerin!” He talks very indignantly about this affair, which really is iniquitous. He paid Herr Hill 7,000 marks, and as a reward for releasing him they demand Die Walküre—but R. had only meant the right to perform it! I do not remember how we came to speak of the Venetians, but R. said, “Excellent statesmen, but completely heartless human beings: nothing can be more alien to what one calls religion than a state.” In the evening, the history of the Arabs, an unpoetical, unsympathetic, yet noble people. Nice letter from friend Schuré about Parsifal. R. takes pleasure in the ideas and the nice drawings in the Fliegende Blätter, he says it is still a truly German periodical.