Wednesday, April 30:
R. slept well. He spends the morning writing letters, but he feels something missing. However, he is looking well. Over coffee I read to him the description of the procession in Vienna; he expresses his great repugnance for such things, and the portrait of the Empress in the I. Z. downright disgusts him.
Yesterday evening friend W. sent us a copy of the periodical Alma Mater, Israelites poking fun at “Germanomaniacs” and also at our friend W.’s article about linguistic style in R.’s writings. R. looks through it, and the whole situation is brought back into his mind: “This is the true pit of Hell,” he says regarding Jewish dominance, “and who is there to fight against it? C. Frantz in Blasewitz, I in Bayreuth. Oh, Lord!”
When we part after coffee, R., moved by the tenderness of our farewells, speaks of the harshness of such separations, however short they may be; a sacrifice one makes to life’s labors! Yesterday, when he called for Georg, he said, “I wonder how many more times I shall shout, ‘Georg, put out the lights’?” At coffee time, as he is drinking his glass of cognac, he says, “I shall soon be 70, then I shall become very temperate,” and he quotes what Dean Dittmar said to him about life between 60 and 70; I observe that the rules do not apply in the least to him. In the evening, when he makes some sad remarks about life, which brings one so much sorrow, nothing but unpleasantness, I tell him that things no longer affect me, but to see him out of humor makes me only too aware of my helplessness. “In a sense it is all your fault,” he says with a laugh, “for if you had not come along, I should long ago have found a hole to bury myself in.” And then it comes out that it is only the bad weather which is vexing him; he wanted to go out in the morning and had been forced back. In the evening reminiscences of Tribschen with the children, the Christkind and much besides. After that, Carlyle’s Mirabeau to the end. I received a not exactly encouraging letter from the King’s secretary, telling me that the King does not seem to be in favor of the concerts. I keep silent about it for the time being. R. is looking well and is cheerful in spite of everything; I do not wish to be the cause of an unpleasant impression on him. I close this book with a word of thanks and a fervent plea; never before was my end so constantly in my mind. May I be granted the much-desired boon which I am afraid to express! ...