Thursday, May 30:
So R. had a good night, and we start another day in good spirits, separating, he to go to his work and I to my children. Ascension Day brings us the military band, and when themes from Das Rheingold are heard the eyes of my good children begin to shine. I judge them happy and favored, him content, and my happiness seems almost too great to bear. A feeling of apprehension oppresses my heart. Is this the ghost of former sufferings, a foreboding of gloomy days ahead, or just the raw gray sky, which is so out of keeping with my feelings of gratitude? I do not know. Bliss without rest, the crowning of life, this is love.
R. has returned to his pencil sketches and his mind is still full, as he says when he comes down to lunch. Over coffee he comes back to Prof. Nietzsche and his book, which seems to him so insignificant, whereas the feelings which gave rise to it are so evil. Herr v. W. comes to read me an excellent article by Glasenapp about nations and national art; R. does not stay for the reading, he says he cannot listen to panegyrics about himself. Only when he is able to forget completely that he is being talked about can he take pleasure in good ideas.
Afterward, music, the heavenly Flower Maidens scene, in which R. has conjured up for all time spring and its longing, its sweet complaint. And in the middle of it Kundry's cry, like a mortal soul suddenly giving voice to its suffering and its loving and the innocence of Nature. Recently R. said to me, "Herzeleide dies very simply; she dies like a twig on a tree." He feels that in certain places he would like to hear the orchestra at once, to write a few things in orchestral score from the start. This would help him, just as he had written the Prelude to Das Rheingold straight out in full score; the sound of the horns, in certain places, he says, he absolutely needs to hear.
At supper the repressive measures against the socialists produce sad laughter: what a restricted outlook these measures show! Read Kenilworth and, despite many very fine features, found much of it wearisome, giving us the impression almost that even W. Scott sometimes wrote according to the size of his paper!