Sunday, July 30:
R. talks a great deal in his sleep. He is languid at lunch, which we have with our friends Mihalovich and Apponyi. But when the latter touches on the question of Christianity, R. takes him on in a very lively manner and says its sublimity is too delicate for it ever to become common property, and the old gods had been taken over to serve the church. At 4 o’clock we drive to the theater in bad weather. The performance is good, Frau Materna indeed very good, and R. asks me to congratulate her in her dressing room. Again silence after the first act, great applause after the second act; calls after the third act, and the curtain rises on the final tableau. R. expresses thanks on behalf of his artists from our box. “This is how I want it,” he says. Business is said not to be good, on account of the bad weather; we also hear all sorts of bad things about the way the visitors are being looked after. Very disturbed about this, R. writes, at nearly midnight, to our excellent mayor.