Thursday, May 15:
R. got up once but was not dissatisfied with his night; mine was a wild one, my head in a whirl, and sleep chased away my fears of losing all my faculties.
At lunch R. says he spent a “lazy” morning; I am glad about it, but he says he would like to be doing something, the hours of creative fervor are the best. Then we talk about some past experiences, our Tribschen guests, Nietzsche, Rohde, etc., how miserably they failed us. Then about the Jews; R. recalls a Herr Wiener in Prague in his youth, a Herr [left blank], how talented they had seemed to him in comparison with a Dr. Adler or a Herr Marsano - then Borne, then Heine. He feels their influence everywhere, and in his case they are just waiting for his death, for then, as they well know, all will be ended.
I: “Siegfried will still be a stumbling block, for he will propagate your ideas; he will not have your genius, but I hope he’ll have your character.” R. thinks he will, too. Oh, my Siegfried, when you read these lines, may they give you strength and increase your courage! People say you resemble both your father and me - of what is mine, keep only my adoration of your father, for that was my salvation! Accept my blessings together with my hopes!
A nice afternoon, though still windy; a walk via Birk and Konnersreuth with R., children, and dogs, I thinking a lot about Siegfried, the ardent wish that we might be permitted to protect his youth to the end. R. in very good spirits, but a sad ending to our walk. We meet a basket maker and his son; they ask for alms; R. gives them a mark; when they have already gone on, I ask R. to buy a basket, which he does. In the man’s face we see honesty and hunger, he has sold nothing, has been walking for nine hours, still has to get to Wolfsbach! Dear God, thus it is everywhere now in Germany, our good people starving! The man is pleased, but my feeling is one of guilt for not having asked R. to let him sleep and eat in Bayreuth, and to buy all his goods. In my compassion my thinking powers froze, and anyway I am shy of making suggestions to R.; he always does what is right. But I suffer much from my failure to speak, and I can still see that pitiful face.
When I tell R. of some expected arrivals for the 22nd, he says the celebrations ought really to be for ourselves alone, but he has no objection to Mimi’s coming.
Abbot Samson in the evening, with increasing enjoyment. R. laughs heartily over the idea of “a defect of telescopes.” Splendid ideas and feelings, such as: “He is not there to expect reason and nobleness of others; he is there to give them of his own reason and nobleness.” (Bust of [Amalie] Materna set up; R. sends a telegram to “Brünnhilde.”) Wagner Concerts in London empty!