Monday, December 2:
R. is not well, he did not have a good night. He works, but at lunch he looks very preoccupied, and over coffee he reverts to the subject of producing Parsifal here. He says the only way in which he could be helped would be by having the deficit taken off his back, thus freeing him from Munich. I tell him that, even if this did not happen, we could still give the Society of Patrons their money back and implore the King not to have Parsifal produced in Munich. R. says, “I should like to produce it only when we, you and I, feel we want to.”
R. goes for a walk and then works persistently, delaying supper; I am concerned about him, but fight against my fears as much as I can. Fidi again very lively, R. says, “Oh, how I enjoy sitting with you among the children, this is my real triumph.” Then he laughs: “But what a pity General Muck is leaving without marrying Daniela!” A reference to some foolish town gossip, to which, however, he links his theory that a man should be 20 years older than his wife, otherwise he would find himself in his second childhood. The children say: “Like you and Mama.” R.: “I am too old, but we are a special case, and anyway everyone must do as he thinks fit.”
I quote Goethe’s (Orphic) words and, since R. does not remember them, read the passage to him; over Ananke he becomes pensive and thinks of his fate as an artist, the obligation he is under to produce Parsifal, and his countenance, which normally radiates joy during his conversations with us, becomes clouded and gloomy. He talks of his New Year’s article, “Shall We Hope?”, to which question he will answer, “Let us hope,” but both question and answer must be very precisely formulated; he cannot write mere phrases, he says. I should prefer silence, but I do not say so.
We pass on to W. Scott and read about the siege of Toulon; R. tells me that in Eisleben (at the age of 7) he dreamed, after reading about this siege in Bredow’s history book, that he was standing somewhere in Toulon and seeing all the corpses and other horrors!