Tuesday, July 18:
R. had a good night's sleep, and he tells me in the morning that the Grail processions in the 3rd act are now in order (in his head). At 10:30 we go to the rehearsal; the violoncellos, which so annoyed him the day before yesterday, play better today, but there is still much which is not as he wants it, and when one of the musical directors draws his attention to something, he relates the story of the tailor in Heaven whom God rebuked for throwing down his stool. But he does not comment on it. He adds a drum roll to the crowning of Parsifal, but he is very tired. All the same, the presence of our friend Malwida at lunch pleases him.
He jokes with her about their writings: “The whole world reads yours, I read only my own, because in all others I find embarrassing contradictions. But not in mine — I do what the Talmud says about God, who reads the Bible.” During our conversation over coffee R. remarks that many people have broken with him, become angry with him, because he expected them to behave worthily, to be worthy. At 5 o'clock a rehearsal with piano to fix stage positions, much trouble for R.! No one to help him. Concern about the transformation scenery. We return home in silence. But he has supper with us, and when I pass on to him Herr Scaria's suggestion of cutting the second transformation entirely, he is pleased with it, sends for our young friend Brandt late in the evening, and arranges it with him. In the meantime he talked to my father about the curious “agitation” into which he (my father) had been drawn, and he remarks that the things one said 20 years ago about the Israelites (as in the first edition of Des Bohemiens) one must take good care not to say nowadays, since for some time Herr v. Bismarck has been using them against the Conservative party. “The corn must either sprout or go rotten,” I said yesterday to R. in connection with characters. I write it down, since he was pleased with it.