Friday, August 19:
R. had a somewhat restless night, with wild dreams. Another gray day; we take leave of our friend Rub. as from an unsolvable but affecting enigma. Dr. Helferich also leaves us. At lunch, Stein and Jouk.'s socialistic talk leads us to Socrates, and from him to Plato and Xenophon. Over coffee, a glance through the Illustrirte Z. produces from R. the remark that in all German celebrations, the Kyffhäuser here, a beer glass is the main thing. The Munich shooting match and the procession displease him greatly, like all masquerades.
Toward 5 o'clock, after he has written his page, we drive to Bürgerreuth, to which the children have gone ahead; he is worried about the preparations for Parsifal - the singers, etc. - and feels there is a lack of true enthusiasm. The sky is overcast, but our stay on the hill is pleasant, except that R. is downright horrified by the people there, mainly women and, to look at them, old maids. On our return we take delight in the playing puppies, which R. recently compared to his heap of Cupids [Tannhäuser], telling me that he had wanted a heap like that resting on the ground and then suddenly shooting up to fly in the air and dispatch their arrows from there.
In the evening he plays and sings An die entfernte Geliebte to us, greatly moving us with it. "The whole of Schubert can be found in this," he says, and that brings him on to Nietzsche's maliciousness about Schubert and Beethoven and the whole dismal experience. The eternally denying, head-shaking trees give us a sad picture of life - resign yourself, resign yourself.