Friday, September 24:
R. did not have a good night; twice he woke up pursued by the evil dream which always plagues him when he is not well: that I am about to leave him. This time the children also joined in, looking at him with spiteful expressions and telling him they would probably be seeing him once a month.
At breakfast with my father we talk about his departure, the country to be traveled through, dreary around Rome; R. tells the story of the marshes, and via this oppression of the spirit of courageous peoples we come to poor Germany; R. describes the Thirty Years' War and exclaims, "We were treated disgracefully!"
Today I finish R.'s article, revising the proofs, and find it so utterly splendid that I cannot help telling him so repeatedly. R. says he likes hearing what I have to say about it, for he always has doubts about the possible effect of his literary writings. He finishes ruling his lines today, thus has completed what is actually the most important preliminary work in his score, and what remains, he says, is just the pleasant part, and the final joy.
We walk a little in the vineyards. R. enjoys the countryside, but also the prospect of going to Venice, particularly since there he will not see the leaves falling. But on the whole he is not in the best of moods, and he does not come to supper; nevertheless, my father, through what he says about Parsifal, gives him the urge to play something from it, and after supper almost the whole of the third act is played by my father and divinely sung by R. "Scarcely have I discovered a sensible wife when she must turn out to be your daughter and for that reason placed beyond my reach," R. says jokingly to my father.