Monday, July 15:
R. has received strange telegrams from Herr v. Hagen. “The demons are envious of us,” he says, “they cannot bear to see our joy in each other and in the children, every minute some such matter intervenes.”
R. tells how in his childhood he always spoke of “Glücklich [Happy] van Beethoven.” Today another letter from Secretary Bürkel, saying that the King prefers the Munich stage decorations to ours here, and he also wishes the Ring not to be given anywhere in its entirety before Munich. Friend Seidl leaves our house, to help in Leipzig with the rehearsals of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.
R. writes at length to the King about the present German Reich, with reference to the article by C. Frantz. He also speaks of the fate of his Ring and tries to avert a similar one for Parsifal. A sketch for Rheingold, sent by the King, produces from R. the remark written on the following card: [notfound].
In the evening conversation turns once again to the decisions of the Congress and the terrible denunciations; R. has marked in red the almost unbelievable story about the painter Piloty. A disgrace for Germany is what he calls the Congress decisions, which have brought from the Israelites a petition of thanks addressed to the Reich Chancellor!
He talks continually of India and Indian culture, compared with which we are barbarians, for what relationship do great poetic works such as Faust bear to their own times, and how can our dogmas be compared with the dogma of reincarnation? He talks with continual fire, although he frequently complains to me that he finds talking difficult, as if his voice were strained.