Tuesday, September 12:
R. slept well, and he continues signing his photographs. Siegfried returns today, delights us with his lively eyes, and Dr. Jenkins’s report on him is extremely encouraging. But we are soon concerned about his pale face. Over coffee R. speaks agreeably about the picture of my mother. In the afternoon Herr Feustel visits us in order to discuss the Voltz-Batz affair once again. In the evening R. plays the introduction to the 3rd act of Parsifal and tells us that Herr Zeisel the barber had singled it out as particularly impressive: “You see, it is not so!” He writes to Herr Levi, acceding to his wish to delete a pause as Kundry brings the bowl (“Nicht so”). He is in a merry mood and speaks in humorous phrases, most of them in a Saxon accent, about his attitude toward the world. Then he reads to us two intermezzi by Lope in Schack’s edition, which give us much enjoyment. At lunch he said to Stein, who had replied reassuringly to my question about his father’s attitude, “No father is eaten as hot as he is cooked,” and to Jouk., “So you want to go to Weimar, where Goethe went to the bad!” — And to me he is unutterably kind and loving. — To friend Wolz. he sends his ultimatum (revised by Stein) concerning the Society.