Monday, July 29:
Worry kept me awake, R.'s quiet rest consoled me. He sings, "Einsam bin ich, nicht allein" ["I am lonely, not alone"], and thinks of Rosalie, who could not sing it well, however, because her voice was too thin. From this pretty melody, which still delights him, R. goes on to recall other things, dismal ones: how "bad" Minna had been to utilize her meeting with R. in Dresden just to go with him to the law courts and take out a maintenance order against the Einsiedels on behalf of Nathalie. R. says he cannot understand how he came to put his signature to it; he had not given the matter any thought, but it must look very strange. I: "Anyone can see you did it out of kindness." Minna's lack of tenderness shocks R. even now, whereas at the time, and after she had betrayed him, his kindness made him overlook it, as it were.
At breakfast we also talk about the civilizing influence of religions, Christianity and Buddhism, and I wonder whether these are addressing themselves to the will or only to the appearance, like the other line of thought. R.: "Surely to the will via the appearance." "Then why is their influence so different from that in the other line of thought, for example, in morality?" R. laughs: "I cannot tell you that straight off at 9 o'clock in the morning; we shall have to think about it later." We switch to merry chat: "I like my beautiful Chinese girl and the two humanely resigned Chinese men stirring their tea" on his breakfast cup.
He works; I to my sick little daughter, the lower bones of her spine are too prominent; I read her stories from The Arabian Nights, then finish reading Gott with Boni. At lunch an article by Dr. Schemann about the Parsifal of both Wolfram [von Eschenbach] and R. brings us to the subject of the poem. I remark I do not understand what is meant by the "idea" said to underlie it, and R. agrees with me; he says they ought to draw attention to W. as a storyteller in the style of Ariosto or even Byron, and not eternally bring up the old fairy tale of his profundity.
In the afternoon Eva also ill, heart palpitations and stitches. Both girls very individual, each in her own way. Coming up to Loldi, R. exclaims, "Ah, the little Cosima!" R. takes Fidi to the baths, enjoys what he calls his first paternal act, dries the boy off, and takes care that he does not catch cold.
Over coffee, when he then resumed conversation, I asked him what he had been thinking of previously; he told me he had been thinking of a musical passage, whether he should keep it going so long. That was inspiration, and I saw it! At supper he talks a lot about old age, says that having seen the Norwegian fjords 40 years ago makes him feel like a ghost. The many people he has outlived, and then the extreme youthfulness of the children, "Shall I live to see the girls as young women?" aroused these thoughts in this eternally young being, thoughts which I tease away with the remark that I am much older than he.
We spend the evening alone in great contentment, reading the end of Götz's memoirs. When I tell R. that with the children I cannot recapture my first impression of the play, he says, "To do that we should have to be in Tribschen and read it together." I: "And for that it needs your voice." He has been writing letters to Herr Neumann and to Seidl, then reading Balzac with great interest, even the irrigation affair interests him; it is only the long descriptions of places and houses he does not care for. Amid never-ending declarations of love we say good night! A butterfly wing, found in the garden, reminds me of what R. once said about a drawing of some wonderful animals: "What would we know of form and line were it not for the existence of such creatures?"