Saturday, March 4:
R. is not well; he is also complaining of financial embarrassments. He says, "We shall have to cancel Christmas and birthdays for ourselves, though of course the children's must still be celebrated."
He is not well, yet in the morning he exclaimed to me, "The most awful time was when you were not my wife; I can no longer even imagine such a thing."
Letter from the poet Hartmann. Baron Perfall has offered to present his play if he will withdraw his pamphlet. Typical of Munich! The poet is not answering, which pleases us, and I write to him in R.'s name. I also write to Judith.
The use of the word "God" as an exclamation is, as R. says, common to all peoples, "with the difference that they are not all thinking of that dreadful Jehovah." We recall the effect of this exclamation from Falstaff on his deathbed, even though only reported by that silly woman Mistress Quickly.
In the evening the first scenes of Julius Caesar, to our renewed enchantment. R. is glad the time has come when one no longer needs to read the newspapers so avidly.
Conversation about Bayreuth: that we three, R., Richter, and myself, will do everything; no producer, no nothing, just a treasurer.