Tuesday, February 21:
In the morning he tells me that, half asleep, he had really wished to sacrifice his foot as a penance, like the fakir, and when I touched him, he had felt comforted - that was what he meant by “you are good.” We merrily welcome Lusch, the “angel of death,” and then, with a joyful shock, Siegfried, who, allowed up for an hour, comes to greet us!
As we are having breakfast in bed, we decide merrily that, as far as peace and quiet are concerned, the children might just as well have danced the whole night through. The problem of the Society of Patrons is discussed, the Flatter, the legacy of the festivals as a whole - whether we should let it all die, or retain certain things and try to introduce others. R. regrets feeling so little inclination for anything. It is cold, with snow and hailstorms. R. does not go out.
In the evening we are visited by Count T., Rub., and C[hevalier] Guccia; Rub. plays the King’s March to R.’s satisfaction, he is pleased with the way the work flows. At lunch we talked about Berlioz, his restless rhythms, his embarrassing and inartistic realism (such as the oft-repeated murmuring of the pilgrims in the Pilgrims’ March), his fragmentary themes; R. cites my father’s melody for “Die Lorelei” as being legendary and folklike, then jokes about Schumann’s Weltschmerz, this continual taking up and hurling of Jove’s arrows.
The Bayr. Blätter arrives, and R. finds Wolz.’s article good; but he objects to the announcement of a vegetarian menu. (In the evening Rub. also played the Prelude to Die Meistersinger and the conclusion of Tristan und Isolde, but R. is not satisfied with this - he says the whole secret of it is that the tempo should be literally suspended in the interest of spiritual freedom.) When he wonders what it is about these things which pleases our Sicilians, I suggest the pulsing life within them, and he thinks I am right.