Monday, November 14:
R. still somewhat indisposed; when I go to him in his workroom to ask how he is, he says only that during the night he had been thinking of how we discovered and united with each other: “It is a complete miracle, and I do not know how it was possible in this terrible world.” With tears of joy I reply to him that it is for this reason that I am becoming ever more deeply and inwardly religious; I find it impossible not to express my gratitude, impossible, too, not to feel my unworthiness, impossible to forget the sufferings I have caused, impossible not to pour out my overflowing heart in prayer.
In the afternoon an old acquaintance, Alfred Meissner, visits me. I have got over the fact that he once reproduced a conversation with me in Munich in a newspaper article, and I was pleased to see him again; only, when R. entered, the unfortunate man began to talk about the production of Das Rheingold in Munich, of the excellent libretto, of R.’s injustice in not going to see these things for himself, of the splendid settings! I was on tenterhooks. R. went away smiling, and I now begged the worthy gentleman on no account to speak about these things.
Read Ranke in the evening. Prof. Nietzsche sends back Beethoven, remarking that probably few people will be able to follow R.