Friday, February 9:
R. tells me that we slept for 11 hours! At breakfast we discuss the emigration scheme organized by B. Forster — we hear that numerous people are going, that parents are entrusting their sons to him; this alarms R. greatly, since he has no great confidence in it.
At about 12 o'clock he plays a melody which sounds very beautiful; he then comes and shows it to me, neatly written on a nice sheet of paper; he says he found it while sorting out his musical scraps and wondered how it came to be there. At last he remembers that it was to be attached to Parsifal as a dedication page! I joke about it, saying that I had indeed been disappointed at finding nothing! Now it lies in the book. He declares, incidentally, that he will never make any use of these musical scraps.
In the gondola he tells me that he will still do his article about masculine and feminine, then write symphonies, but nothing more on the literary side, though he still intends to finish the biography. While he was arranging his papers, mine also came into his hands; they breathe upon him like a swarm of All Souls, he says! He considers his article "Herodom and Christianity," which he read again today, to be his best; this leads us to Gob., whose vision was so broad and so acute, but who did not look deep enough. We ride as far as the Bacino, then stroll beneath the arcades to S. Moïsé to look at some blue satin fabric which has caught R.'s eye.
Lunch with the children; the conductor is ill, Jouk. keeping him company! The subject of our conversation is a letter from Papa Rubinstein and some droll accounts by Lusch. In the afternoon R. joins me in the red salon; we chat about his reading — Suetonius, who has aroused some sympathy in him for Caesar.
In the evening R. talks about his supporters — how they seem to be designed to make all the ideas he expresses look ridiculous. (He excepts Stein.) [In the foregoing, "his supporters" has been altered in another handwriting into "some of his supporters," and the words "and Wolzogen" added after "Stein."] He tells Jouk. that he never expected the Blätter to last more than two years; he is considering what is to become of Wolzogen. And finally he loudly regrets having built Wahnfried; the festivals also seem to him absurd!
With our friend Jouk., who comes around in the evening, we discuss the health of our poor conductor! R. observes that Jewishness is a terrible curse; no possibility, for example, of marrying a Christian woman; recently, he says, he had been thinking about Dr. Markus, an Israelite who once admitted to him amid tears that he loved R.'s sister Cäcilie but would never be permitted to marry her, for, were he to be baptized, he would lose his practice! R. says he told this story in front of Levi, and it must have affected him deeply — the Jews, the good ones, are "condemned to a gently resigned asceticism." After Joukowsky has left, the children show us their little preparations for tomorrow (the 100th birthday of Jouk.'s father). Loldi's drawing arouses R.'s utter admiration!