Friday, January 11:
R. works. Before lunch he tells me things are going so well for him that he intends to compose Die Sieger immediately after Parsifal, in order to prolong his condition. I teased him for talking as if things did not always go well for him. Cheerful mood. Lovely winter weather. The children on the ice, we with them.
In the evening the history of the Arabs. R. does not take as much pleasure in it as at the first reading. I tell him the reason is that he is such a productive reader, he conjures up a vivid picture and believes it is the author who has created it, and then he is astonished not to find it again! After our friends have left, we remain together talking intimately about Parsifal. R. speaks of the perplexity with which Parsifal listens to Amfortas's complaints; his mysterious, unconscious gestures of fellow-suffering, which comes out into the open with Kundry's kiss and only then becomes clear to him.