Thursday, May 2:
His furuncle is getting bigger, and he is certainly in pain, even if his splendid spirits remain the same; he laughs about his ailment, says that the grass seed which has not arrived, much to his annoyance, has taken root in his leg!
At lunchtime he plays me Kundry’s first words, “Parsifal, fal-parsi,” to my unutterable delight. Music rehearsal with the children, R. lying down upstairs.
In the evening an article by Hans Herrig, with whom we have been out of touch for some considerable time, “Wagner and Literature,” very good; we decide to ask him to contribute to the B. Bl. Before that friend W. read me a charming letter from the Spaniard. These signs from the outside world affect me in a very curious way; everything to do with fame makes me feel melancholy; it seems to me like the shadow cast by the light, which I have here before my eyes, through the body of the world. I tell R. about my feelings, and he says it is because nothing outside is genuine; perhaps I just feel like this because he is indisposed.