Tuesday, March 1:
R. slept well, and our day begins very gaily. He looks with enjoyment through a Spanish illustrated periodical. At lunchtime, too, although his fingers are not yet cured, he is in good spirits. He dwells upon the mouth, and praises Nature’s mastery in having made this feature, which had only to be a slit for eating, into the noble instrument of speech.
New tidings confirm the success of Lohengrin, and there is news from Spain that the production of Lohengrin in Madrid will coincide with the centennial celebrations for Calderón. When I tell R. that this would provide an opportunity for saying some nice things, he observes that everything there is dead.
He sees the proofs of the letter from “more Wagnerites”; he was against the use of the plural, but I begged to be allowed to retain it for the mode of address, “we,” which seems to me more dignified. We go for a walk, the Konnersreuth highway again, but gray skies and bad underfoot, and on top of that a very strong wind on the homeward journey. R. feels a chest spasm, and this causes me concern, but he recovers and calls out, as he goes downstairs from his siesta to work, “A son has arrived.”
Since I was downstairs myself, he tells me about it and says how much he regrets that, owing to all kinds of pressures, he is not constantly alive to the “glories of happiness” he enjoys. The boys, Fidi’s friends, skylark in the gallery, celebrating Shrovetide. R. then corrects the proofs of Know Thyself, and in the evening, besides the happy author Rub., we receive Herr Köhler, a schoolteacher who was here three days before he made himself known to us and, after being very bashful at the start, seems to be developing into a lively character, if still rather confused.
Since he has fallen out entirely with the authorities, R. recommends him to Lesimple and, on a hint from me, holds out hope that he might come to us at Easter as Fidi’s tutor. He has a liveliness of manner peculiar to the Rhineland. When he has gone, we take up Parsifal, Gurnemanz’s first narration. It seems to us good to celebrate Shrovetide in this way. When I talk of the impression made on me in former days by being marked with ashes in the form of a cross, R. observes that there have been some fine customs, and the only sad thing about them is that they have become so meaningless.
In the evening, when I go to him in his room, he tells me that, looking at himself in the mirror, he spoke his name, “Richard,” and immediately felt that this had nothing at all to do with him: “What is that - Richard? So stupid!” I tell him he once told me how much he liked hearing me call him that. “Oh, that is different,” he says, “then it is like the union of two beings.”