Thursday, July 4:
Ixora - R. poured into my bath a bottle of Indian perfume which had been sent to him to try and which is called Ixoras.
R. says that in Jessonda there is a god Ixora, the name had always amused him. “Thou who comest from on high, who all woes and sorrows stillest, who, for twofold misery, hearts with twofold balsam fillest” - thus does my soul call out to him!
My night was a troubled one, heavy thoughts weighed me down, and it seemed that my poor brain, overtired, would cease to serve me. Gloomy weather, no birds singing - that was probably the cause. Then in the early morning there comes from R.’s room a wondrous fair melody, and daytime and nighttime spirits are banished!
“A theme for a quartet for you”: with these words R. comes into my room, and after breakfast we part with an embrace, “the day’s blessing,” as R. calls it; for me it is blessed indeed!
At noon return of the children. Many things for me to arrange, which earns me R.’s sweet and affectionate chiding. The news that Hans is well came to me like an echo of the theme, as if all my blessings stem from this morning greeting. R. goes to see the Jagers, whose home pleases him; he then takes them all - J[ager], W[olzogen], Gl[asenapp] - to Angermann’s; since it starts to rain heavily, I send Georg there with an umbrella; when R. sees him, he cries, “Here comes my wife!” [Added in margin: “R. says with a laugh, ‘I shall compose the scene between Kundry and Parsifal as a canon, to be sung first singly and then together.’ ”]
In the evening he reads to me the first two scenes of the fine excitement of the man of action, the eagerness for booty in the enthusiastic outburst of Brother Martin, these enchant us with their truth and vividness; and how fortunate that it is written in prose! Also, at my request, he reads Euphrosyne to me, first according to the meter, which makes it almost nonsensical, then according to the sense, which we find more moving; but we regret the hexameters and the Hermes, R. even Antigone and Polyxena, though I am less disturbed by them, since here they seem to me like theatrical sisters, being welcomed by Euphrosyne.
As I part from R. in the evening, I tell him that his melody will not leave my mind. “Yes, such things occur to one during sleepless nights: the early bird gets the first canons.”