Sunday, August 4:
"The bells are calling you again," R. says to me at breakfast, "but you have no duties to perform now!" Talk about the function of the German aristocracy - R. would like to see the idea of it revived; then about religion and monasteries on hilltops: "Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden," the Sermon on the Mount; the monks, who would not be bound by any vows and who would have withdrawn from the world, not in their youth but in their maturity, would descend from the mountains to share all sufferings and always to stand up for justice.
I speak to him about the beauty of his chorus for the Knights of the Grail, and how the theme of the bells, which interrupts their song and at the same time answers it, as it were, gives me the impression of a cheering multitude. At that R. laughs again and says, "Don Quixote is really an offshoot of the Knights of the Grail, the splendid fellow!" "You understand how to help me," he tells me. "All my friends thought I was beyond help, that I would never work again, but you knew I could be helped, and came to my aid."
When I leave him he says, "Shall we found a monastery?" I: "There would have to be a place in it for me - even if only as a serving maid." He: "And Fidi as a serving boy."
Small lunch party with the Seydlitzes and the W.'s, after which R. to his afternoon rest and I with friend Wolzogen, who reads to me his article about Valhalla, then to Fidi, who is suddenly unwell. R. goes out with friend W.; on his return he calls me out to show me the rainbow, which is forming an arch between the W. house and our own; he is quite content with his walk, "pleased with the town of Bayreuth"; a conversation with an Israelite piano teacher particularly amuses him, since the man said he tried to recognize the orchestral conductor in him by looking for the "strongly Semitic" outward appearance of which he had been told!
In the evening we talk about Opera and Drama, I tell R. of the tremendous impression this book makes on me, but I feel one would have to have some very clear ideas of Spontini, Weber, Berlioz to understand it; also, with an expression such as the "hidebound surroundings of Paris," for example, one would need to have experienced the stiffness, poverty of imagination, and conventionality of the French in order to appreciate how brilliantly right this expression is. R. agrees and says these three books, Opera and Drama, Art and Revolution, and The Artwork of the Future, are his most significant works. We are so blissful at being alone together in the evening, since we feel separated for all eternity when people are with