Wednesday, June 21:
R. had a restless night, and he confesses to me that this Batz-Voltz affair is always at the back of his mind, and that it is causing him constant inner anxiety. Today he rehearses part of the 2nd act. Before that Jouk. discovered in a book of costumes an illustration of the knight’s cap he wants. At lunch R. remembers Gravina with high praise. We drive up to the theater. The discrepancy between the transformation scenes and the music provided for them becomes clearly apparent; R. at first jokes about it, saying that usually conductors make cuts, now they have to compose additional music for him. But it saddens him to see that even here his ideas are not realized in practice. The forest scenery in the first transformation is not at all the way he wanted it, and it is also bad that at the end the rocks sink into the ground.... But the weather is kind, and on his return R. is able to take a little stroll in the garden; that makes many things easier. - From the outside world we hear good news about Tristan in London and about a performance in Holland. Domestically, Fidi’s difficulties in learning Latin cause R. to reflect on the whole system of study, and he says how sorry he is that one cannot be protected against "scholastic nonsense" - he says it was certainly not ancient languages which aroused in him his feelings for antiquity - that happened later. Return of our good Lusch - great excitement everywhere! . . .