Wednesday, October 16:
A bad night! R. frequently out of bed, reads Lecky, whom he is enjoying very much, has such a vivid impression of the blows Bakunin had to endure that he feels he himself has received them. In the morning we wonder whether it was a tough partridge he ate in the evening which so upset him, or the reading of Opera and Drama, or a very evil-smelling ointment he put on his sore thumb. We both had breakfast in bed and, as always, this first morning hour is cheerful in spite of the bad night.
R. is gathering strength for the 3rd act; around lunchtime he comes in, bringing me several “curious bits of paper,” some of them from Tristan. I ask him to keep them all and give them to me at Christmas, and now I have the joy of already knowing about these precious papers, though I have not yet looked through them.
In spite of not having slept in the afternoon either, R. goes out and attends to some business affairs with friend Gross, during which as always he shows himself to be the soundest businessman of all, for he hears the children singing in Lulu's room; I have the feeling that I shall not live to see Siegfried grow up, and with these poor pages I should like to leave him at least a hint of my existence, so that he may know how much I loved his father, and so that his life's aim may be to show himself worthy of his father.
In the evening R. reads “A Pilgrimage to Beethoven” to Lusch and Bonus; before that I read an article by Herr Lipiner about “Art and Revolution” which does not please us. If only people would still start with the words “Once upon a time there were a king and a queen,” that is to say, write simply about the subject under discussion! Talk about the socialists, led astray by their Israelite leaders, always against industry, never against trade!