Tuesday, September 5:
Return of our Hanswurst, as R. calls Lusch on account of her jests, and from Schnappauf we receive news of Siegfried, who is now comfortably installed at the Jenkinses’. R. starts a letter to the King; I drive to the Fantaisie in the morning with the children. Poems by G. Keller, sent to us by Sulzer, do not entirely please us, but some of them, such as the “Goethe-Philistines,” we do enjoy. Friend Gross visits us, and R. talks about the hotel plan which has been sent to him; unfortunately its very modern character is little to his liking.
In the afternoon we visit the swans in the palace gardens, the damp air soon drives us home. In the evening R. recalls early memories, particularly of Weber, on whose sharpness he remarks — how he once called out to the man singing Kaspar (at the appearance of Samiel), “Here we sing this in the correct tempo.” R. says that as a boy he happened to be in the theater on that occasion. — He then plays Siegfried’s awakening of Brünnhilde, is pleased with the character of this work, its trueness to Nature: “Like two animals,” he says of Br. and Sieg. “Here there is no doubt, no sin,” he continues, and in his Wotan he recognizes the true god of the Aryans. He then takes a very friendly leave of our conductor.