Sunday, September 15:
R. had a good night, at any rate he did not have to get up; he works, and in the afternoon, after showing me the card on which he had written it down, he plays me something I believe he called a melisma, to me it seemed a fascinating theme. “I wonder if you will recognize the expression,” he says, and I reply, “The Jesus Christ of Dürer in Nürnberg, isn’t it?” “Yes!”
Beautiful day; after waiting in vain at the station for friend Standhartner, we drive to the Eremitage. Looked at the Saint Hubert by Dürer in Fidi’s room: “We have some lovely things,” says R., “this and the Genelli.” From looking at these things there arise within me overwhelming feelings, as if I were in a dream, and they lead to a vision of the Saviour on the cross! I hold melancholy at bay as best I can, and in the evening put into a kiss on R.’s foot all the pain, fervor, and joy of overcoming!
After our walk R. invites R. and me to have some beer with him; in the evening, at my request, he reads to us his wonderful A Happy Evening, then the splendid The Artist and the Public and The Virtuoso and the Artist. The hours pass as in a dream, one would like to hold them back, and yet one is so happy for them to continue. R. is also pleased with his youthful works: “It was spring, I was starting work on Der fliegende Holländer, left Paris for Meudon, that was the mood I was in.” The new work he did in Tribschen also pleases him, but at the same time saddens him, for “the conditions have remained the same.”