Thursday, March 31:
R. had a somewhat restless night; he read a lot of Gobineau, who annoys him with his Celts and various other things, but he retains his satisfaction with this intelligent man. He works.
Our Friedel is hoarse, and it looks as if it may be something serious. Rough weather. All the same, we go for a walk in the palace gardens, and the wind gradually dies down. Delight in a blackbird which is singing splendidly.
Before supper R. goes to Fidi, but he admits to me that he does not really know how to speak to him; he felt he was being so affected when he tried to play the piano to him.
In the evening we look through some pictures of costumes (Racinet); R. finds Renaissance rooms (gallery in Fontainebleau) stiff and uninviting. Then we play whist with a dummy, and at the conclusion of the evening R. dictates to me the distribution of singers in his chorus for Herr Levi.
At lunch he was somewhat vexed about the food, etc.; he jumps up with his coffee and goes to his score to erase something, saying to me as he works, “Now you can understand what it means when I babble like this - what is going on in my head.”
I have just thought of the joke he made to Humperdinck on Tuesday evening, when he advised him to compose Egmont as an opera, taking the words from Goethe and the music from Beethoven.