Wednesday, July 3:
R. is tired, but when he woke up in the early morning, he had just had some funny dreams; when, later, on his second awakening, I asked about them, he had forgotten, could only remember that we had been together and had laughed over comical things.
Concerned thoughts exchanged about friend W.
The Glasenapps at lunch; R. gives his opinion on Russia, how he had wished it to be victorious, but the very stupid way in which this war had been waged and the heroism of Osman Pasha had lured him away from the one side and aroused his sympathies for the other. The assassination attempt on Emperor W., he says, was connected with the dispossession of the King of Hanover, all of it involuntary: “These are the concealed underground threads,” but those who live by faith must not undermine this faith, for then one is left with only the army for support. Of Charles V, R. says the fact that he abdicated was to his credit. Conversation about Riga leads us to the subject of Dorn and R.’s frightful experiences with him!
I drive out to the Fantaisie to see our friends’ family. Return and reunion is always a homecoming and a rediscovery! ... R. reads his “Public and Popularity” articles, because he wants now to get down to the final installment, so as to be able to resume Parsifal on August 1: “I shall then finish composing in time for your birthday.” Herr Renz writes asking for permission to present the Ride of the Valkyries in his circus, R. gives his permission in a splendid letter. In the evening our friends the Gl.’s; he brings me a little book containing a puppet play, Delila, by L. Geyer, and R. remembers having seen it produced in his home! Friend Gross also comes, and tells us among other things that the King of Bavaria is now allowed to go out only with a police escort; the instructions have come from Berlin, and the King finds it very unpleasant, he says. R. observes that they are trying by this means to enforce consent to the laws.
In the evening R. comes back to N[ietzsche]; it is not so easy to ignore, R. feels: the circle is too small for one not to keep coming back to the same experiences.