Saturday, April 2:
First real signs of spring, and in addition R. for the first time in his life called Papa! Fidi says and repeats it clearly. Telegram from Frau Schleinitz and the stage director Hallwachs in Berlin; she speaks of tendentious opposition which is being totally annihilated, he of a great triumph in spite of colossal deficiencies in the performance. Our good Richter leaves. We are sorry; he has prospects of going to Pest. After lunch letter from Louis Köhler in Königsberg, where Die Meistersinger has also been done and has made a great impression (nice letter from a Belgian journalist—the newspapers there seem to be entirely on our side). I sent our good Richter off with hopes for the future of our Bayreuth venture.
As we went out, in the most splendid weather, I said to Richard, “We shall give up the Alps only for our Bayreuth venture.” “We shall be bereuter [approximate translation: “sadder”],” he replied with a laugh. That reminds us that Richter told us the King has already appointed his stableboys for the Valkyries, whereas R. wants them to be depicted just as hazy images!
In the evening R. reads to me from the Iliad and talks to me about the deep religious feeling of the Greeks (despite their having no real religion), something which is much too often ignored—for example, how Alexander could only be pacified after the death of Clitus by hearing it described as a punishment from Dionysus.
In the morning I read of the mutilations to which the papacy is subjecting monuments of art. R. says, “Instead of the French maintaining a garrison in Rome to defend the Pope, the various nations should put a garrison there to protect works of art.”