Saturday, October 25:
R. had a good night, and he goes to his work. In the morning he asked me if I felt Hans might be annoyed with him for praising Nirwana; I reply that I fear he might, since malicious people would perhaps make nasty remarks about it, and that would be bound to offend him. He decides to leave it out, and reads to me what he has written about the transition from program music to the music drama.
All sorts of things keep us busy: the movement initiated by Herr Schön and Prof. Oncken, for me in particular the Wagner lexicon with friend Glasenapp, then the vivisection affair. R. has an idea that Leipzig, his home town, might perhaps be persuaded to make an endowment for Bayreuth.
A fine October day tempts us to take a walk to the Eremitage, the children, Herr von Stein, and I; R. joins us later in the summer carriage, a merry stroll through the park. R. tells us that the Chancellor is again trying to form an alliance with Herr von Bennigsen! A visit to the inn, then the drive home, nine people and so many rugs that we have to laugh out loud.
At home our guest gets news of the sudden death of Dr. Dühring, his guiding star until now; this seems to us both cruel and significant. R. says, “Life is so unseemly,” and indeed, it does do things very drastically. When we are alone together, we discuss this strange occurrence - has this young man been sent to us by an inexorable fate?
In the evening we begin Don Quixote and read up to the first homecoming; R. finds it so admirable that Cervantes does not reproduce the conversation with the peasant, but just tells about it; he says, “These people knew what to treat as epic and what as drama.”