Tuesday, July 1:
R. had a very bad night; he was walking around until nearly 2:50! I wanted to put off the lunch to which we had invited the colony today, but he did not wish it, and in the course of it he is so lively and cheerful that there seems no question of his feeling unwell. Earlier, when I was in my bath, he called out, “Let’s have the curtains,” for he wanted to read something to me; I shut myself in like Beckmesser, and he comes in and reads to me Frantz’s description of the attitude of the Jewish socialists toward the stock exchange, which they ignore entirely. Alarming evidence of yet another idea falsified. Some time ago R. pointed out how disastrous this law against the socialists was; he said that a prudent statesman would have seen the advantage to the nation of having representatives of socialism as members of the Reichstag, to learn from them or to reduce them ad absurdum.
At lunch R. outlines C. F.’s views, and so vividly that, turning to old Frau von Schdler, he says, “So now I have explained it all to your son!” (He had spoken excellently to Wolz.) After lunch Herr R. plays us Schubert waltzes, and R. says, “Only in South Germany is there any talent,” adding that by talent he means what Schub. possessed. Then Herr Jager sings Adelaide to us; R. reproaches him for his overemphatic accents, saying it ought to be like moonlight. Around 6 o’clock R., the children, and I drive out to Ottmannsreuth; a fine evening. We walk across the meadows to Wolfsbach beneath a lovely sunset and very much enjoy this outing and the drive home; we also took a short rest in the woods. The less luxuriant wheatfield with its cornflowers, the somewhat overcast sky, gave us a completely different picture from the wheatfield through which we wandered some time ago; it was quieter, more resigned, a sense of yearning about it which matched the Beethoven songs we had listened to earlier. In the evening R. is very tired, and he falls asleep on the “Biklinium” by my side.