Tuesday, June 20:
R. had a good night’s rest, and our first conversation concerns the Flower Maidens’ costumes. Loldi makes us a drawing, and we decide on naturally wavy hair with no headdress. Around noon R. has a rehearsal with Herr Humperdinck and Herr Levi, and he seems satisfied, but he is worn out. At lunch we have the two army doctors who took part in the performance; R. read the script of the play and, with happy memories of my little joke, reproached me for not yet having shown the two gentlemen any courtesy. So they share our meal, and happy memories of the 22nd are exchanged. Over coffee our conversation turns to Schiller, and R. reads from Streicher’s little book about Schiller’s flight an anecdote that delights him - how transported Schiller was at a performance of Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos, while the others were just inclined to laugh. - R. takes a rest, and afterward we go for a drive together in the direction of Drossenfeld, which pleases him. Enormous delight at being by ourselves! We are silent, we talk - even our worries (about the singers, etc.) bring us close together! How I should like to "go abroad," as is inscribed on Durer’s grave, together like this, "unseparated, eternally united"! - The evening produces some vexation for R.: he dislikes the "authentic" helmets of the Knights, would prefer a cap with a cloth veil, and since Jouk. does not understand him properly, he loses his temper and leaves the table, then does a drawing himself and returns. He gradually calms down, and the evening passes in friendly conversation (for example, he relates some of his recurring dreams - that he has not sent money to his wife Minna; that he is on intimate terms with King Fr. W. IV; that he is performing old operas of his which are unsuccessful; that in Paris he has to fetch some money of which he is ashamed, since it is a settlement; then what he calls his "coward’s dreams"), and we crown the evening with the "Classical Walpurgis Night" from Faust. - (During our drive R. delightedly recalled its popular style, reminded of it by the Biblical expression "to kick against the pricks," which he believes occurs in Saint Paul’s vision and which he finds splendid. "Hans," he adds, "kicks against the pricks and gets covered in blood as a result!" . . . This quotation brings to mind the noble simplicity of the Gospels, and R. remarks sadly that there can be no help for a world to which these "good tidings" mean nothing.)