Friday, September 16:
He feels indisposed, talks of Constantinople, then of the B. Bl. and the establishment of a committee which will continue his work here when he goes off and leaves this place permanently.
At lunch we have M. and Mme Lascoux, very formal Wagnerites, who tell us a lot about Munich and also the prospects in Paris.
In the evening he works on his article, and when I suggest that he dictate it, he says jokingly, “That’s no good with something that is superfluous.” Yesterday he said to Wolz., “We are both overhasty in our writing.” The Lascoux couple spend the evening with us. R. plays the Prelude to Tannhäuser. But he finds the French conversation afterward very onerous; he disappears, does not wish to say goodbye, then, however, follows the guests out, takes leave of them, calling them Isis and Osiris, which they will hardly have understood!