Friday, November 18:
R. had a good night and takes his bath; some irregularities cause him great anger, but it soon turns to gaiety. I look at some apartments, and R. speaks to the landlord about alterations; I do not know whether it is just this that makes him so agitated, but during our walk he is bothered by all his old complaints, we have to rest frequently on benches, and he arrives home very tired.
At lunch he talks about Parsifal, saying it will amaze us all; he particularly mentions the prayer, which reveals all things impossible to put into words, for they are concepts and must be seen as such. He tells me that I cannot imagine what this prayer is like. I observe that I already know it: “Oh, yes, on the piano, but that is nothing, it is the instrumentation that matters.”
No reading in the evening; I tell him about my reading with the children, Sismondi, Manfred’s fate, and this brings us to Die Sarazenin.