Tuesday, December 21:
The night was bearable; but some things said about Lusch upset us. We wonder whether Hans’s attitude might not have an oppressive effect on the girls and disturb the even course of their development. If so, the blame is primarily mine. Ailinos, the good, may it triumph!
In the morning the weather is so bad that we cannot even think of a walk, and R. feels thoroughly depressed. But in the afternoon we stroll around the palace gardens, and since I notice that he is much affected by the recent embarrassing occurrences, I tell him I should like to go somewhere far away with him, so that he would not hear of them. “But you don’t want to go to Madeira,” is his reply.
He describes the Society of Patrons as the hypothetical x, with which Feustel is not reckoning but he himself is. Conference at 5; on friend Feustel’s advice R. decides not to send his letter to W. Frege, lest it appear that the letter was the consequence of the altercation between Bülow and Gross. The problems concerning the production of Parsifal are also settled.
Our friends stay to supper, and afterward their wives arrive. Pepino sings very nicely in the hall, and R. plays Beim stillen Herd to us, not exactly to the satisfaction of R., who says afterward, “Germans have no idea of mildness or charm.” In the palace gardens he said to me, “If I had an orchestra at my disposal, I should take great delight in rehearsing something like the last movement of Mozart’s E-flat Major Symphony, bringing out all its subtleties, and in the fastest tempo.”