Thursday, December 21:
R. talked a little in his sleep (during the night from Monday to Tuesday he talked a lot!). At breakfast, in talking of Gob.’s attitude toward Christianity, R. says it is wrong not to feel everything that lies in the simple words “Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden” - that is to say, all who because of the burden of poverty cannot attain to freedom through intelligence. R. remarks how splendidly Luther’s language suits the Gospels. The Bayreuther Blätter arrives, R. gets it first, opens the door to the salon, where I am talking with the children, and cries that he knows what he will read to begin with. And around lunchtime he again praises my modest lines, adding, “Only a woman could have done it like that; a man would have made it look pedantic!”
Unfortunately a letter from friend Gross causes him vexation, since it concerns V. & B.; I advise him to send a telegram, which does him good - though, when he rejoins me in Saint Mark’s, he jokingly chides himself for not having been ruder in his telegram. In Saint Mark’s we visit the Baptistery, then walk via “Peking” to the Rialto (which R. always calls the Lido). My father’s soirée with Don Carlos, his presentation to the Prince upstairs, give rise to many jokes. But to one thing R. holds firm - that my father does not care for assertions of any kind; when yesterday he, R., claimed Rossini as the instigator of the stretta, my father named a predecessor for it - Mosca. However, many things in my father’s character please R. greatly. (I remind you children of “moved”!) In the afternoon he shows me two extra bars which he has composed for the Scherzo, and he says he is curious to see whether the children will spot them.
In the evening our circle is much reduced - Father, Lusch, Loldi, Jouk. with the Princess, Eva still in bed. Soon we are alone together and very pleased to be so. Our discussion of the Bayreuther Blätter provokes R. into some hot words to start with; he feels the article on luxury would look better in Über Land und Meer, and he would have preferred the obituary of Prof. Zollner to be left out altogether. I ask friend Humperdinck to play something to me, and he chooses the funeral music from Götterdämmerung. R. then shows him which of the themes should dominate and which give way, and he goes on to reflect on the path which leads from the symphony to this music, “which one might be permitted to call one’s own.” He relates how he once advised Tausig to improvise, and then to remember what came into his mind; the latter replied, “But how can I be sure it is my own?”
When we are alone, we once more discuss the question of dependents, then the appointment of Glasehapp. Finally R. tells me, and this with tears in his eyes, that he has sent Boni 1,000 francs for Christmas, so that she can buy something nice for her husband and herself! I acknowledge this birthday gift to me in silence, and only much later am able to thank him for it.