Tuesday, May 20:
R. had a good night. At breakfast we talk about Parsifal, and he feels I am not entirely wrong when I tell him that each of us bears within his soul a fellow feeling for the tragedy of Tristan und Isolde as well as of Parsifal - the power of love; each of us feels at one time the death wish within it. And the power of sin, of sensuality, I think, too, and its longing for salvation.
Wotan’s experiences, on the other hand - his feelings toward Siegfried and Siegmund - people do not feel those inside themselves; the man of genius lays them bare, people look and are overwhelmed. I part from him covered in kisses: “You must take these off first.” At noon he comes to tell me about the delightful things, regarding overproduction, he has just been reading in Carlyle. He says, “When one thinks what excellent things have already been said, although the world goes on talking the same silly rubbish, one realizes that the only remedy is silence.” The weather still overcast. In the evening Carlyle.