Thursday, September 5:
During the night I noticed that R. was no longer lying beside me, I got up to look for him and found him sitting in his workroom, reading the Ducs de Bourgogne; he told me he had congestion. In the morning he told me the dream which had woken him up: more and more people were forcing their way into his house, among them Klindworth, and finally Nietzsche, who said a lot of malicious things to him and poured scorn on the melody of the “Pilgrims’ Chorus” in Tannhäuser, that is to say, sang a lampoon on it. R. said to him, “I suppose you treat me like this because I am unarmed?” I inquired through a window what was the matter, and in order not to alarm me, he told me that Nietzsche was reading his new poem to him; then the uneasy magnitude of his distress woke him up.
All day long he looks run down, but he does a little work (he tells me I will be amazed by the simplicity of “sein Blick”). Various vexatious matters from Leipzig and Hamburg: the director in H. indignant that R. does not profess unreserved confidence in his conductor. The Leipzig director now seems unwilling to engage Herr Jäger; in short, as R. says, the outside world brings him nothing but vexation; and, which strikes him as saddest of all, he gets no pleasure from thinking of the performance of Parsifal. Better perhaps not to perform it at all? ...
In the evening he is still very run down; he asks Malwida to describe to us the building housing the international exposition, and she does so, praising its brilliance and magnificence. R. remarks in this connection, “To have nothing at all to do with this whole civilization whose most prominent expression is Paris, to be entirely strange to it!” Separated for the night; fervent prayers for R.’s good health. He looks run down.