Tuesday, February 18:
R. had to get up once during the night, but he does not feel unwell in the morning and we chat merrily at breakfast.
Toward noon he comes to me and says, “I have found a transition which is worthy of you,” leads me into his room and plays to me this divine transition from “mit ihr Gebet ihm weihen” to “ihn selbst am Kreuze.” “The main thing,” R. says, “is that it doesn’t cause a shock — there must be no feeling of shock.”
This morning he said he would like to compare his works with those of other composers and see whether his do not contain ten times as much music — something which has never been acknowledged. And for this reason he was willing to believe that his works would have a great future. He is so well and cheerful that today seems like a really sunny day: “I am so happy,” he says, “I feel like a god.”
When we go upstairs together and I notice that he has ordered all sorts of things for himself, he admonishes me jokingly: “Always the attitude of Rome toward Venice — permitting nothing, but overlooking faults once committed!” I have to love him like a child or like a god! ... Snow flurries, but he goes out for a while with Brange, who, having run after him, touches him by demanding to return to her newborn puppies.
In the evening we go through the first act of Die Meistersinger with much enjoyment; but R.’s delight turns to bitterness over the treatment this work has received.