Friday, June 7:
The walk did R. good. He slept through the entire night. Cheerful breakfast, with a squabble over whose walk it was, mine or his! He works, and along with his sounds I hear a blackbird; I pack for Lulu, who is about to start on her journey. After lunch I make some purchases. I walk in spirit with R. along the St.-Georgen-Allee, as if it were 40 years ago, and admire the lovely situation of the town, loveliest of all perhaps from there. Returning, I find that R. has come home, I likewise. "Nowhere can be lovelier than here," R. exclaims. "Just look at that sea of various greens! There can't be anything like that in the gardens of Italy, where the foliage is dark and there is none of the serenity we have here. But," he adds in the next moment, "I should like to see the road from Naples to Sorrento now, it must be splendid."
Over coffee the subject of Fidi's education again; no sacrifice to be spared; our main task. Then thoughts of a letter to the King of Bavaria, to get him to intervene in the political situation. We listen to a blackbird which is sitting and singing on the branch above the roof of the newly built Wolzogen house. "It will miss that branch. 'My branch has vanished,' " he calls out in the manner of the Flower Maidens! The bird continues its song, and R. sets words to it, "Not yet coming, still not?" and observes, "The tone is lowered for the question, the lower it sinks, the more urgent the question." Silence, then suddenly R.: "Never, never, never will I have anything more to do with outside productions, they are detrimental to truth. That Tristan in Berlin, for example, when I had to praise Eckert."
Complaining letter to friend W. from the Viennese academicians, saying the performances of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Tannhäuser are getting worse and worse; could one not put a stop to them? The singer they have chosen for Wotan, Scaria, was described by R., when he saw him as the King in Lohengrin, as "an out-of-work butcher." Seeing Fidi approach in his best suit reminds me of Daniel in his first communion clothes, I can still see his beautiful glistening eyes, and I have to weep. R. notices it as my tears are drying and asks me why; I tell him. "You had nobler figures around you in your childhood than I did, your father, your mother, your brother, your sister." We embrace, and then R. asks, "Which of the W.'s will live in the upper story of the house?" I: "You mean who will see our kisses?" He laughs; "Yes, our friends or their family."
We part in laughter, to come together again at supper. Fairly good news of the Emperor; we read an article by O. Beta about the assailant, Nobiling. Some Schopenhauer letters, and to end the evening R. and I again go for a walk in the garden. This day, too, ends in a hymn of love; as we come in from the garden, R. observes, speaking of former times, "Things could have started happening, but nothing did happen; if it had not been for my unruly pine tree, everything would have remained nice and quiet." The pine tree, which made us laugh aloud, was a reference to something said yesterday: when I was going up the stairs ahead of R., he said, "You are so slender, my palm tree." I: "But the palm tree is dreaming of the fir tree." R., laughing: "Well, what I previously had was a pine tree." R. has a fancy, after 46 years, to perform his symphony again, either in Prague, where citation of the story of the apostles in connection with Herr v. Hülsen amuses R. He looks it up in the Bible.