Sunday, April 21:
R. works. At lunch friend Richter, very well and good-hearted; he brings me the happy news that Makart wants to do the sketches for the costumes and bring them here in time for the 22nd. But in the afternoon R. does not feel well; he lies down and reads Hugo, while Richter and Seidl play Parsifal downstairs. A melancholy day and evening for me; all friendliness from the outside world seems a burden when one is inwardly dreary.
Monday, April 22:
R. coughs all night, but he is cheerful in the morning. A manuscript that arrives in the mail (Odysseus by M. Wesendonck) causes some embarrassment. “A proper fiasco,” R. says with a laugh, “but it has its good side, it will be seen later how exaggerated all those blatherings of mine were.” He finds the ending of the V. Hugo book downright despicable, says it is in their inability to see anything besides themselves that the French fall down: the ending spoils the whole book. R. remains in his room, I alone look in on him from time to time: “You best of all men!” “You’re wrong, you are the best of all women.” “Oh, you good man!” “What you mean is: Oh, you lucky man!” He is reading Renan’s The Gospels. In the evening he comes downstairs to say goodbye to Frau Materna. He is feeling worn out and agitated. Everything that upsets our daily routine is bad for him. When I visited him he was talking to himself: “Gentlemen, that would not look well.” He was imagining a curtain call after Parsifal and laughed at his own reply.