Tuesday, October 3:
R. had a wretched night. His first words in the morning concern Dr. Strecker, and I know that his ensuing and prolonged spasm is directly connected with this vexation. I succeed in taking his mind off these wretched subjects at breakfast and gradually restore his good humor by talking about the pretty things in his room. When I tell him that the color of his jacket is the pinkish mauve the French kings used to wear, he replies, “With golden lilies, I shall have the golden mean embroidered on it.” He reads Buddha but feels unwell all day. He does not go out, wanders through the rooms and now and again writes down a joke to tell me, but he is indisposed. In the afternoon, after the children have gone out, I sit with him for a while; things are all right then, as always, but I cannot hold back life, which invariably introduces unrest! Friend Levi visits us, by no means unwelcome to R., who, sitting in the smoking niche, is content looking back on the Parsifal days, and his only regret is not having spent enough time with his artists. In the evening he withdraws early, I follow him and lie down beside him. He cannot get to sleep and complains about the boring company he is keeping; indeed, he is even disturbed by all the bustle of the children, which he usually enjoys: “Oh, if only I were dead!” So he gets up, lights the light, and reads the B. Blätt., Gob.’s article with his preface. Toward me he is always the same: “I wanted to see what the Atman was doing,” he said when he came looking for me in the afternoon! “Siegfr. is causing me so much worry that I woke up during the night with a start on his account!”