Tuesday, May 30:
The children have gone on an outing to the Waldhütte in spite of a thunderstorm. It is still very sultry. I remark on it and, after spending the morning with the Count, receive my greeting in music. [Enclosed in the Diaries, a note from Wagner: “It is truly sultry—but I am violet—” and a line of music; see notes.]
I go to R. and find him sitting on the chaise longue. “I am enjoying myself,” he says, and repeats that he never foresaw his present happiness, even in his dreams! We gaze with delight at the family picture and come to lunch happy and content.
Over coffee R. tells Gravina that he is making it easier for Blandine to develop in her own way, since up to now she has been overshadowed by her elder sister. In the afternoon we go to Jouk.’s to see the cover for the Grail, which has turned out too opulent-looking. R. expresses his dislike for all Israelite pomp and says that, if people even begin to observe details such as the shrine, etc., then his aim as a dramatist is lost. We return to our garden and delight in our lovely surroundings. We also delight in Isolde and Eva, who are looking particularly pretty today.
R. had a dark moment this morning when he read the address on a letter from Lusch, “Frl. I. von Bülow,” but the black fit passed, and he never ceases to delight in the children and to praise the womb which put its stamp on them...
The evening is enlivened by all sorts of things: first of all, a scene in the poultry yard in which we intervene; R., talking about it, bursts into rhapsodies about the brooding turkey hen, her self-sacrificing devotion to her young. A thunderstorm breaks, bringing hail, and the rain comes pouring into the dining room, causing a lot of commotion, but by the end of the evening all is outweighed by R.’s pleasure in the children, who really are a lovely sight.
Dr. Schemann drops in for a few minutes; R. reproaches him for his Cherubini and its mistaken approach; he says he was neither a tragic figure nor a forerunner, but an excellent musician, often indeed just a craftsman. On the other hand, he praises his piece on Goethe.
[Telegram from Herr N[eumann] about the success of Götterdämmerung. R. replies, “The risk was great, yet Wagner says, ‘Let’s not spare our thanks and praise.’ ”]
At the end of the evening, after our neighbor’s wife and Count Gobineau have left, he lets out a sigh about life. I reply soothingly; he: “I want to go away to some place with what belongs to me,” ...
Yesterday, when I went to him, he quoted to me from Othello—“Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee”—and says one has to have felt this in order to understand.