Wednesday, January 12:
R. had a rather restless night, but he works, and his face wears its merry and sparkling expression at lunch, when he drinks Wilhelmj’s new wine, “Rauenthaler Richard Wagner,” with enjoyment. We drink our health. R. says, “I drank silently to the children’s health,” and I feel as if, for my sake, he has been making up for yesterday’s rashness. Still delight in Gobineau.
A walk in the palace gardens at 4 o’clock, the air very pleasant. Then R. settles down to the joyful exertions of work, and comes to fetch me in the evening as at midday. At lunch he was even more inwardly absorbed by his work. In the evening friends Jouk., Rub., Humperdinck.
R. talks about Mozart, “How lonely such a man is!” and how after him there followed such commonplace works as Dorfbarbier, Donau-Weibchen, etc. “Schools, alas!” he cries ironically. “Now, after 50 years, they are looking at Lohengrin, to see more or less how it was done!” Recently, when somebody said that Jesus was a Jew, he replied that this was more or less like saying Mozart was a credit to the people of Salzburg.
But today was a really nice monastic day, tranquil and industrious, and with those words of his to me which I often do not dare to write down, like starshine in the evening, like dew in the morning. And the constant feeling of communion! Today I wrote to Herr Marsillach about his book, and almost everything I said in my letter R. brings up today as table conversation.
In the evening he says, “I am glad that I shall not need to go to America, Ich-Neumann will be going.” “Your alter ego,” I cry, and we laugh heartily over R.’s notion. A pamphlet against the Jews by Prof. Dühring is truly dreadful on account of its style.