Sunday, July 23:
R. is very, very tired, and sleeps restlessly, finding pleasure in the morning only in the crowing of the cocks. We have breakfast together in the turret in fine weather. He then stays in the summer Hoffmann. At 3 o’clock we go to the rehearsal. Mar. Brandt, whom I had to console yesterday after an imagined slight by R., Herr Gudehus. But we spend only a very little time there. The foliage to screen off Parsifal and Kundry is tried out, but it does not entirely meet R.’s wishes. The tempi also dissatisfy him. We soon return home.
The evening begins in a very cozy and humorous way. R. tells Fidi the story of Parsifal, after asking him how much of it he had understood; while he is doing this, my father explains the Almanach de Gotha to Boni. But toward the end R. becomes irritable with Malw. and taunts her about her many friendships with vivisectors.