Monday, December 15:
Much joking on R.'s part about the chloral; the two doctors, the ophthalmologist Dr. Reuter and Landgraf, have to laugh heartily. Toward eleven o'clock Herr von Stein departs, going home for Christmas, and R. speaks splendid words to him. Yesterday we received a report of a lecture in which Dr. Dühring mentioned R. in a regrettable way. "People should not talk about what they don't understand," R. said. "In the Jewish question many ideas have come from What Is German? and C. Frantz's essay."
Today his intention is to pacify our young friend, who is a supporter of Dr. Dühring, and to set his mind at rest, and I believe he has succeeded. Siegfried unwell, Eva too! The winter very cold, but sunny - unbearable all the same. In the afternoon the "black sheep," friend W. R. talks of his desire to have an orchestra and to conduct here in the summer; he has heard that the conductor Fischer gave a splendid performance of Siegfried's Funeral March, but on the other hand a very bad one of a Beethoven symphony. In the evening I read K. Ritter's book on the theory of tragedy to R., and we are astonished by the corruptness of this mixture of good ideas and absurdities; it is as if, whenever the ghost of R.'s art appears to them through all their affectations, they immediately lapse into stupidity. R. laughs at the idea of setting everything to rights through reason and going to live in Italy for nearly 30 years, in order to occupy oneself only with theatrical affairs in Germany! But as an experience he finds it interesting!